About the Software Development Initiative

Introduction

As you might have noticed, if you've search the internet for ASCII and Text related development projects, applications, games, tools and utilities, You might be able to find them, however they might be harder to find than you originally thought, especially in the categories of applications (business or home software), Tools and Utilities. This is where this software initiative comes in.

We've noticed the current situation as far as text and ASCII applications and games is concerned, we know what's going on out there. We also realize that without an effort such as this one, a lot of these games and programs could be destined to oblivion, some of them, very soon. So the ASCII world creators talked about the situation and came up with what you are reading right now.

What This Is All About

ASCII-World has decided to make an effort in finding these programs (in any and all categories) and bringing them to you. We will be searching the web for you. If we find an interesting program, we'll attempt to contact it's creator to see if we can host the files on ASCII-World direct and also see, in the case of programs that might seem older or abandoned, if they would be willing to release them in the OpenSource community so that we can all learn from their development experiences.

On the other side of things. Some types of programs are simply quite impossible to find either because they were never created or because they are abandoned commercial projects that the companies decided to let die instead of making them public domain or releasing their source code to the OpenSource Community. Some of these Text and ASCII programs were quite impressive programs and should be preserved. But businesses don't always see things the OpenSource way. As such, ASCII World has decided to create useful applications and utilities, in either Windows Console or DOS or Linux Console that can really perform highly useful tasks maybe even replicated their commercial counterparts. Others will be totally new text and ASCII creations never before seen anywhere on the internet.

Joining The Initiative

Basically, there's nothing to do specifically. If you are developing a text game, a text program of any kind, a full fledge text business application, a text editor in ASCII, any kind of library that works with text, you could simply decide to release under the ASCII World S.D.I. label. To do that, simply email us or post your request in our forums and we will set you up. At that point, we will send you an ASCII World logo that you can display on your application start if you wish. Nothing obliges you to do so. However in your about information we would like you to specify that your project is being release under the ASCII-World S.D.I. just so people know that ASCII-World S.D.I. exists.

When you let us know of your interest you just have to tell us what your program or game is, a brief description unless the name is self explanatory, a URL to where we can see the project. Basically that's all that's needed, we'll take care of the rest. we'll take a look at the application or game, see which category it falls under (unless you know for sure). Gather the information we need and make an entry in our ASCII-World catalog so that any and all our visitors can gain access to your project.

What This Means For Copyrights

Quite simply put, ASCII-World S.D.I. doesn't take ownership of your creations in no way, shape or form. Any copyright you currently have on your work is yours. It's your creations and they belong to you. By deciding to make an application or game under the ASCII-World S.D.I. initiative, you are simply contributing your work to this initiative, but any copyright in place is yours. We definitely know, being programmers ourselves the hard work that went into your creations and we know you should be the one to get recognized for your hard work and long hours you probably put into your creation.

In the event that you do decide to give up your rights (perhaps you're now too busy to provide more work on your project, or you lost your interest in your project) we wouldn't like to see your project disappear off the face of the internet. So if you'd like we could take over the project, but take it over the right way. Hence we ask that you release your source code under any valid OpenSource license so that we may, in the future, make additions to it if the need manifests itself. This way, you are still recognized for your original creation (as stated on the OpenSource license) and we would only get recognized on the additions we bring to your project.

Thank You for taking the time to read this.

Stephane Richard and Kristian Virtanen

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.