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| quim.rovira |
 Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:37 pm |
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 100
Location: Barcelona
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Here's a little quick translation of a text I've written.. But remember that we all decided on yesterdays night meeting that we won't set an standard text for every page, because that's not what we want, but we want people to post them here so we can all improve and use your ideas ;)
This was primarily aimed at some non-IT medias, it has slightly been rewritten and adapted to be more specific.
A pro-opensource user community [1] has started an initiative targeting to set one of the most popular MMORPGs free under the terms of the General Public License.
It started when the company behind The Saga of Ryzom, and service provider for the online game, called Nevrax, announced [2] on Monday 20th November on ryzom.com official web page that they are entering a liquidation process, entering negotiations with interested companies whom might take over the current project.
Facing this situation, players, some old nevrax team members and other opensource sympathisers have positioned in favor of a free software alternative for the game. The people at ryzom.org are trying to raise pledges for donations so they can try to face the costs to buy the intelectual property rights for the game, allowing them to publish it under GPL licenses as well as trying to set a non-profit paid game service with the robustness it requires.
The goals of the group are reflected on a Social Contract [3] they've got published on their page, which compromises them to release the source code and all other material under GPL or GPL-like licenses, like it's the case of other well known software packages, so it would become one of the new generation MMORPG games entirely mantained by the open source community.
This group has a very short time to try to raise funds (through community pledges) to become a solid option to be taken into account on the next few days, when the liquidator will have to decide whom to sell the game and it's ownership.
This initiative, on another hand, isn't a pioneer, since there has been previous actions like this one, namely the Blender project, which succeeded in a similar situation, allowing Blender to become one of the most powerful tools in the scene.
References
[1] Free Ryzom Project - http://www.ryzom.org
[2] Nevrax news regarding liquidation - http://www.ryzom.com/news/archive/2006/11/20/important-information
[3] Free Ryzom Project Social Contract - http://www.ryzom.org/page/project_socialcontract |
Last edited by quim.rovira on Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:26 pm; edited 3 times in total
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| mgs |
| Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:04 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 9
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*) "community" (not cumminity)
*) "to try" is not very self-confident. perhaps a phrasing using the term "goal" instead is better as it indicates also there is (some) plan in place.
*) You might want to change "everything" (doesnt sound too professional) to "It" or something else. perhaps also want to cut it down to "On monday ... announced..." its right to the point.
*) add month november to "announced monday 20th". its more specific and professional.
*) "social contract" - perhaps a link? you might want to drop "they've got" to a mere "published". press announcement should be as brief as possible.
did someone contact Ton from Blender? He might be willing to give good advice. this, in turn, would be a good thing because it increases confidence and to show that there are capable people to make it happen. |
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| quim.rovira |
| Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:12 pm |
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 100
Location: Barcelona
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I did agree on all of the changes you suggested, and I've made them to the text above, thanks for the feedback ;)
Regarding the blender project, I think someone is already taking care of this.. you can remind us all about this on the next IRC conference, that will be posted here in forums ;) |
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| pato |
| Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:33 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 21
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quim.rovira wrote: This was primarily aimed at some non-IT medias, it has slightly been rewritten and adapted to be more specific.
Is this supposed to be a press release? It kinda sorta reads like one, although it isn't precisely structured as one. :) If you want a PR, I can help you with that, I've written some in my time. |
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| quim.rovira |
| Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:35 pm |
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 100
Location: Barcelona
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| Well, not that, but the original script was a bit more detailed to give enough info to redactors to write down a decent article.. when translated, I tried to simplify it a bit, and didn't hestiate to use more game related vocabulary |
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| pato |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 3:29 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 21
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Here's something I will post on various forums in 4 hours, unless I get a lot of negative feedback about it. It is a little more informal than what Quim has written, and is aimed primarily at gamers. The text may vary slightly, depending on the audience... For instance, I might substitute the "Online Role Playing Game" for MMOG. Tell me what you think! :)) If I don't hear anything I'm going to post this message in several forums, which haven't been canvassed yet.
Title: Free Ryzom! Help Purchase Ryzom to open Community Development
Pledge http://www.ryzom.org/donation/new to help the Free Ryzom Project http://www.ryzom.org purchase all code, artwork and IP associated with the MMOG The Saga of Ryzom http://www.ryzom.com. Help turn Ryzom into an open and community run project.
The independent studio Nevrax has been developing the innovative MMORG Ryzom for over six years now. Unfortunately, due to market conditions and other unforseen cirucumstances, a request to begin bankruptcy proceedings has been filed at the commerce tribunal. The Free Ryzom Project http://www.ryzom.org seeks to purchase all the artwork, code and intellectual property associated with the game, place those assets under a Free Software license , and open development to the community at large.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software
The Free Ryzom Project is now accepting pledges http://www.ryzom.org/donation/new to donate to this cause, should our proposal be accepted by the Bankruptcy officials. The deadline is December 5th, for submitting our written proposal and the good faith pledges we have accumulated so far. Time is of the essence; we need your pledges to present to the Bankruptcy officials. The more pledges we get, the more likely we are to succeed! If our proposal is accepted, we will setup a non-profit organization that will be the steward of Ryzom. This non-profit will be run by a group of selected community members. The non-profit would then collect the funds needed to purchase Ryzom. Note that the $100,000 goal, is our first goal, to show the bankruptcy officials that we're serious about this. After Ryzom has been purchased, the non-profit would then hire a former Nevrax developer to package the code and help run the official server we would put in place. Once things are organized a bit we would then open the development and improvement of Ryzom to the community. There is already a built-in community (the NeL http://www.nevrax.org community), which currently develops around the core components of Ryzom. Eventually, we would like to hire members of the community and former Nevrax employees, as selected by the community.
We have former Nevrax employees supporting this effort, as well as members of the NeL and Free Software communities. We're absolutely determined to succeed, will you help us?
Edit: changed some puncutation and spelling errors. |
Last edited by pato on Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| quim.rovira |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 3:30 pm |
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 100
Location: Barcelona
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Here goes another draft adapted to target bloggers. It would be great to catch the attention of some, since they've got a pretty big audience, and this way we would be able to reach specific open-source and gamers communities.
Dear blogger,
I contact you about an initiative from a community[1] that has formed after the announce of liquidation by Nevrax[2], a french company who currently owns The Saga of Ryzom, one of the best rated MMORPG games out there.
Facing this situation, many have gathered in a common initiative to raise funds to try to buy the game and publish it as open-source afterwards. Time is the worst issue, since we've got a short period before we enter the liquidation process, and being our first goal the sum of 100.000€, we've already gathered around 50.000€ on donation pledges (pledges, since we're not yet asking for money unless we finally get the chance to buy it.
Being an open-source community, a Social Contract[3] has been subscripted by all donators and contributors to the project under the terms of which they promise to publish under the terms of the GPL[4] all of the code as soon as possible, while trying to find the best solution to start a non-profit, robust, paid service that allows to keep the current player community.
This initiative, on another hand, isn't a pioneer, since there has been previous actions like this one, namely the Blender project[5], which succeeded in a similar situation, allowing Blender to become one of the most powerful tools in the scene.
It would be very important for us if you could write a few lines about us, since we're working against the clock. In that case, please, feel free to contact us at ryzom.org or forums so we can add your blog article to the list of sites where we appear.
Thank you,
the ryzom.org community
References
[1] Free Ryzom Project - http://www.ryzom.org
[2] Nevrax news regarding liquidation - http://www.ryzom.com/news/archive/2006/11/20/important-information
[3] Free Ryzom Project Social Contract - http://www.ryzom.org/page/project_socialcontract
[4] Open Source licenses - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
[5] Blender project - http://www.blender.org
Edit: Just to say, nice work, pato :P The only thing that is yet unclear to me is the affirmation that we will hire a Nevrax employee to package and open-source the code.. That would be a nice thing for sure, but everything's got to be discussed once we can enter the donation collect stage :P |
Last edited by quim.rovira on Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| pato |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:02 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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quim.rovira wrote: Edit: Just to say, nice work, pato :P The only thing that is yet unclear to me is the affirmation that we will hire a Nevrax employee to package and open-source the code.. That would be a nice thing for sure, but everything's got to be discussed once we can enter the donation collect stage :P
Thanks!
The Free Software thing is all over the web site so it sounds like an original goal. :) Also, the nevrax employee thing came from from Xavier, so I dunno what to make of that. I could add a disclaimer like, "the plan as of today is as follows... blah blah blah... Any changes to this plan would not occur without the communities consent." |
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| Zero_tacg |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:08 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 16
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quim.rovira wrote: ...while trying to find the best solution to start a non-profit, robuts, paid service that allows to keep the current player community.
typo? robuts == robust? |
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| pato |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:37 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 21
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Quim... I've modified your blog post a fair bit... See if you like it. Feel free to cherry pick.
Dear blogger,
I'm contacting you to ask for you to help the Free Ryzom Project[1], which has developed around the MMORG, The Saga of Ryzom. The Free Ryzom Project has gathered a group of interested individuals with the purpose to raise funds to try to buy the game and publish it as an Open Source, community run project (see our social contract for more details [3]. if you believe your readers would be interested, It would be wonderful if you could write a few words about the Free Ryzom Project.
Nevrax, a French copmpany who currently owns The Saga of Ryzom, one of the most hightly rated MMORGs on MMORPG.com, has declared bankrupcty[2], which has sparked the need for this project.
We already have a growing and vibrant community around this effort, some of whom are former Nevrax employees.
What we are attempting isn't without precedent, and we look to make it happen again! Blender[4], a powerful 3D modeling package cost millions of dollars to develop. In 2002, when the company behind Blender went into liquidation. The community surrounding Blender came to the rescue and raised 100,000 Euros to purchase the software package from its investors.
Again, it would be very important to our effort if you could write a few lines about us. We're working against a very tight timeline, our deadline is Dec. 5th. If you have any questions please, feel free to contact us at someone'[email protected], or on the Ryzom.org forums so we can add your blog article to the list of sites where we appear.
Thank you,
the Ryzom.org Community
References
[1] Free Ryzom Project - http://www.ryzom.org
[2] Nevrax news regarding bankruptcy - http://www.ryzom.com/news/archive/2006/11/20/important-information
[3] Free Ryzom Project Social Contract - http://www.ryzom.org/page/project_socialcontract
edit: fixed mmorpg.com link. |
Last edited by pato on Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| quim.rovira |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 4:46 pm |
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 100
Location: Barcelona
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| Sounds good to me.. only a type -> mmorg.com to mmorpg.com ;) |
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| pato |
| Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:12 pm |
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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quim.rovira wrote: Sounds good to me.. only a type -> mmorg.com to mmorpg.com ;)
Got it. Thanks! It is in the original post now. |
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| Xavier Antoviaque |
| Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:28 am |
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
Posts: 264
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mgs wrote: did someone contact Ton from Blender? He might be willing to give good advice. this, in turn, would be a good thing because it increases confidence and to show that there are capable people to make it happen.
I have written an email to Ton on Sunday, before releasing the website, but I haven't got an answer yet. IF someone knows a way to reach him... |
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| Xavier Antoviaque |
| Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:30 am |
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
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pato wrote: The Free Software thing is all over the web site so it sounds like an original goal. :) Also, the nevrax employee thing came from from Xavier, so I dunno what to make of that. I could add a disclaimer like, "the plan as of today is as follows... blah blah blah... Any changes to this plan would not occur without the communities consent."
Yup, definitely. Remember to not promise anything which isn't written in the Social Contract. |
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