A slang term for the collection of releases made by a MUD developer. "Codebases" are spoken of in the MUD community in the same way a computer scientist would talk about development platforms, but they are essentially just the particular functions in C that make a particular "flavor" of MUD code distinct. Almost all MUD codebases depend on linux socket libraries (or cross-platform libraries on a variety of platforms). Many view the Talker source code as the root of all MUD trees.
Facts about MUD codebases:
- The official term, distribution, is also used to describe source code packages which are generated by a MUD development team who usually starts with a derived work.
- The act of creating derived works, thus exploiting the various open source licenses most MUDs are distributed under, has created a lineage recorded in MUD Family Trees.
- Due to the nature of the most common MUD licenses, certain requirements are attached to deriving works, usually involving prohibition of commercial use for all subsequent versions.
- MUD codebases vary widely in their specifics, but are usually generally like the root node of the particular lineage they have been derived from. Nodes near the root tend to be simpler and more profound, while nodes farther down the tree tend to be more complex with a greater number of features, many of which have been ported (or "borrowed") from other nodes in other branches or entire trees.