Members Charter

From Shadowrun: Awakened

This Members Charter was created to concisely state the intention and direction of this project. By joining our project, you are stating that you wish to further our goals, will abide by approved behavior, and will contribute toward progress in the project.

Project Goal & Mission Statements

The goal of Shadowrun Awakened is to "create an exciting, fun, well balanced MMORPG set in the Shadowrun universe of 2070 using the 4th edition rule set". The specific mission statements are:

• Produce a Massively Multi-Player Online Role-playing game that emulates Shadowrun 4th edition set in 2070
• Produce a 3D gaming experience built on character development and team-oriented gaming
  • Produce a game that users can pick up and play, but keeps them coming back
  • Foster a community of healthy competition amongst the players, not domination
  • Create an economy of wealth, advancement, and player interaction that makes a rich experience, not rich characters
• Develop a world that expresses Shadowrun in as many ways as possible
  • Without losing elegant design
• Capture the dark, nihilistic tone of Shadowrun
  • While having a sense of humor about it (as Shadowrun does)
  • Be faithful to the established fiction of Shadowrun, while still telling our own stories
  • Tell stories inside of its framework

Approved behavior

People participating in the project, especially those representing the group by communicating with outside parties, must observe the following principles of decorum:

• Politeness - Choose polite words and strive for a polite tone.
• Respect - Not everyone will think as you do, respect their difference in opinion during discussions.
• Trust - Not every choice in the project will reflect your opinion, especially in the details, trust that the shared ultimate goal will be realized and that's the important thing.
• Humility - You are not the first or last person to join/leave/disagree and no one person "owns" any part of the project.

The project is a long-term proposition, so always think of your comments/reputation/work as such. Someone 6 months from now will read it, someone 6 years from now might read it.

Voting

The goal for our project is to listen to everyone as equals, but at the same time, never let ourselves be derailed. At times where we cannot come to a general consensus on an important issue, an objective and democratic measure of opinion will be used to settle disputes. This will maximize consensus while minimizing conflict. Unfortunately, voting does mean there are winners and losers, so putting everything to vote can be detrimental to the group over time.

Each Member appearing on the SourceForge Developer List is entitled to vote. The Senior members represent a quorum necessary for voting. For voting to pass, it must carry a two-thirds majority.

Donations Management

Perhaps the greatest point of ethics in the project surrounds our handling of money in the form of donations. In no place must we venture with more respect than when respecting the money given to us to help create Shadowrun in a virtual world. We may also create a proposal to one of several organizations in order to raise additional funds.

Project Licensing

In Shadowrun Awakened, we are walking a fine line of intellectual properties and licenses. We are an entirely non-commercial enterprise. We are a gang of dedicated fans wishing to manifest the will of a greater community of devotees. At the same time, we are treading on territory that could provoke tremendous litigation.

• Microsoft has granted our project a non-commercial license to develop Shadowrun as an MMORPG. This means we must be mindful of our conduct with the game and recognize that Shadowrun is ours to pay tribute to in as high quality a manner as we can, but it is not ours.

• The fourth edition rules set, developed by FanPro and owned by WizKids, is also something we are respectfully borrowing. Talks with WizKids continue as we hope to attain a similar non-commercial license with them, allowing us to continue the project without stepping on any toes.

Part of the necessary respect for licensing we must show is because we are also generating our own worth that we wish others to respect. While we look to others to lend us Shadowrun, the project and its contributors will be the owners of their works. The licensing of our own products falls into a few different categories.

• One big umbrella for the project is the software we are making to share with everyone. The third party technology we use will impose licensing upon us in regards to how we can change or distribute it. Also, the software we create will have rules on its uses and distribution. Pending a comprehensive analysis of our licensing issues, we are looking at utilizing LGPL for licensing all Open Source parts of our platform. Other groups, with other goals, may utilize our Open Source tools to create their own incarnations of Shadowrun or an entirely novel game.

• The other big umbrella is the content we are making to share with our users. This content is created by dedicated artists who deserve credit for their work. For this reason, we do not take an "open source" approach to our content. Starting at Beta, we intend to offer, as a service to players, an "Official Shadowrun: Awakened Seattle". This will be our extension of the Open Source SRA server and client that we will release. Anyone logging onto our server will be bound by our EULA. This will include language, and potential software measures, against the piracy of content from SRA's content team. We want our artists to still own their work and we want prospective users to respect their rights. Developers wishing to utilize our engine in alternate SRA servers or in their own games must provide their own content.

Please note: this wiki site is CCL. Non-Corporate, Sharing licence, that must continue to be Shared.