I hope they will respond favorably!

I am writing to ask your permission to post a computer program using turn-based PBeM (play-by-email) style of communication to play your game “Pentago” across the internet using email. I would like to receive permission to post my executable to Richard’s Play by Email server (www.gamerz.net).

This is a non-profit endeavor for me, so I am hopeful that you will view this as free advertising and “spreading the word” about Pentago. I spent a couple hours of my time to write the program so I could play by email with some friends and family, because I really enjoy the game. I also own a Pentago set (black-natural, solid birch board) and have introduced several friends to the game. Additionally, I hope to hold tournaments and encourage others to sign up and play the game using this server.

I will be sure and properly credit Mindtwister in the emails and source code documentation and insert a URL link or some kind of ascii banner if you wish.

I hope you will grant your permission so I can post the game and begin play testing. I only have ASCII graphics done so far, but I plan to do a web-gui version later.

Also, I am working on another client/server version of the game which would be played by 2 opponents, real-time across TCP/IP. What is your policy on people writing and posting their own computer program to play Pentago? I see there are several other versions online.
Do I need to use a (TM) every time I use the name “Pentago”?
Are there any other restrictions or concerns I should be aware of and implement in my code?

Thank you and have a great remainder of the week!
I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

I am nearly done with coding of a c++ version of Pentago which I was hoping could run from this site. I started with the Connect4 and Gomoku code and started hacking.

Questions:

1) I assume we would have to get permission from the owners of that game to post a version here. Is that true? Or can you change the name slightly, or make it a “clone” or something? Dont want to cheat the authors of the game, but it would be nice to be able to play it on here, if thats kosher.

2) Anyone else tried this one before? I guess I’m doing it for an exercise as much as anything else. If my efforts could be better spent on another game, lets discuss.

3) If I get the game working correctly in my dev environment, could I just send pentago.cpp, pentago.h and pentago_main.cpp to somebody to post them and create the “Pentago” directory?

4) Another similar situation is Chess4. Has anyone ever tried getting permission or coding for that one? I saw Bughouse Chess, but not the Chess4 variant.

To get things running on my local linux box, I think i had to set $PBMSENDMAIL=echo and fight through some segfaults in game.cpp, but finally got it working in echo only mode. Oh, and I used the Makefile and ripped everything out except connect4 and pentago related stuff.

For future reference, the segfaults were mostly because the necessary directories did not yet exist and/or I did not have $PBMHOME defined.

Thanks to the previous help of this list!

Let me know your thoughts,

Kovacs (gamerz.net userid stoneaxe)