Why is it so difficult to understand?
That there are people who work at something they enjoy for the pleasure of it?
More power to them I say, it's true that in some cases teams have worked voluntarily to produce something that has been bought out and produced as a commercial game, for example, Red Orchestra, originally a Mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, it was produced as a full commercial product, good on them I say, after all they reaped the rewards of their hard work, and are probably hard at work in some office space coding for the boss.
However in this case the motivations of the dev team are not financial gain, they are actually working hard, in their own time, freely, to produce something they feel strongly about, a free and open MMO for others to enjoy. Ok so it's not complete, but after all, we know it's a work-in-progress, that we are privileged to be able to enjoy, bug-test, evaluate, and watch as it grows.
I feel that the subject of advertising as been clearly and totally covered, and that the present policy is unambiguous, the same can be said of donations, a donation is just that, a freely given token of appreciation from the giver to the dev team and the project in general.
I enjoy having a community website that's not cluttered up with ads, no intrusive popups, popunders or whatever the latest computer lagging flashy advertisment is formatted as. I am actually less likely to take a site seriously if it promises a free to play game, if it's site is loaded with ads it's a touch hypocritical.
I understand that for some other games the costs of running the sites and servers 'freely' may force some advertising, but with Planeshift this is clearly not the case, and this too as been stated.
If in the future some big money company takes an interest in the talents of the dev team, and offers them a lucrative deal in exchange for the codebase and media, well then, I suggest you read this
http://www.planeshift.it/license.html again, it's very informative, and clear in this regard, open client, proprietory media.
It's a big project, it's still in it's infancy really, yes there are bugs, but instead of whining about the bugs, why not actually look at what has been accomplished? I think that a great deal has been accomplished, especially when compared to other projects.
I don't know why people can't just be proud of what we actually have, a growing, changing experience, a chance to say to our friends, that we were a part of it at the beginning, one day to point to a legendary figure in the game and say, 'I remember when s/he fell off the edge of the world', or 'I remember when this was all fields and ideas'.
Money is no compensation for this, and I for one applaud the ideals that this project stands for, and hope the dev team take the time to do it right, instead of rushing to produce something which belittles them and disappoints those of us who have the patience to wait for what we have promised ourselves, a product worthy of those who develop it.
