by T3rran » Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:41 pm
The biggest problem with donating is if the project starts to make a profit. It's the exact same problem with WoW private servers. They aren't allowed to profit, but they are allowed to take donations to keep servers up and running and perform maintenance.
So, if Feng requires 800 dollars per month to keep his servers running, we can only give him 800 a month. If he starts making profit, he is breaking copyright rules, and I don't think taking the money to pay for his time and other coders/artists is allowed. Correct me if I'm wrong, copyright is very finicky and has lots of special cases.
The only reason I bring this up is because I really love this game. I don't want to see the game get taken down from our donations because we donated so much that it's considered a profit, and the law considers it a profit, and they give Feng the all powerful "cease and desist" letter.