Slashdot Mirror
Man Proposes to Girlfriend Through Bejeweled
Firmly cementing himself as the Don Juan of all nerdom, Bernie Peng reprogrammed his girlfriend's copy of Bejeweled so that a marriage proposal popped up when she reached a certain score. She giggle-snorted, pushed up her broken glasses and said yes.
As an update, I found on his blog (follow the click-trail) that he programmed a version of bejeweled from scratch! Pfffftttt... that's not uber! It's commendable, but the way I see it is, ... he probably tried every which way that he could to modify the game and then gave up and programmed it from scratch. Normally, I would say "bravo! Excellent job!"... BUT somebody in an article (and also on NPR this morning, I heard about this on the radio hours before /. got it) referred to this guy as a "hacker" and on NPR, they mentioned that the makers of bejeweled were "impressed by the hack".
I just want to be very clear that what he did does NOT classify him as a "hacker" nor should what he did be termed "a hack." Based on this one deed, he should be classified as a "programmer" and the end result should be termed a "program" or "game."
One thing I still can't grok however, is why the Bejeweled makers did not consider this as an infringement! The only answer I can come up with is that the story inspires tears in the eyes of sex-depraved geeks at the Bejeweled head-quarters. After all, who doesn't like a happy ending?
However, I'll leave you with this... couldn't it be said that Bernie Peng "profited" from his infringement upon the company's rights? It was said that "he won the woman!" Therefore, can't PopCap sue for over ownership of said woman (aka. profits)? After all, the woman in question (no name is ever given) was already a Bejeweled NUT-JOB, and would likely have accepted a proposal from any number of PopCap employees/programmers if given the chance. Mr. Peng undoubtedly has taken that away from the Seattle-based workers by infringing upon their IP rights.