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Blizzard Asserts Rights Over Independent Add-Ons

Posted by Soulskill on from the at-least-there's-no-wow-app-store dept.

bugnuts writes "Blizzard has announced a policy change regarding add-ons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as disallowing charging for the program, obfuscation, or soliciting donations. Add-ons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine. The new policy has some obvious requirements, such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees. Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of add-ons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable add-ons that automate movement and facilitate 'one-button' combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers' copyrighted works, such as forbidding download fees or advertising, when those programmers are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?"

2 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. pedantry by way2trivial · · Score: 0, Redundant

    you can close your gpl code-so long as it stays 100% in house

    however you can't then charge for it or re-distribute it

    I'm sure someone will technically correct me right now- but it is an important element

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  2. Re:QuestHelper by BrianRoach · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Also, fewer UI mods being available means, on average, a worse experience for players.

    In your opinion. Theirs appears to differ.

    I guarantee you they know that some UI mods will be lost (along with some players) any time they change the API usage requirements/rules. They probably employ an analytics guy whose entire job is to predict the numbers on that :)

    If there wasn't a compelling reason for them to cause that, they wouldn't do it. They are not in business to reduce their subscription base.

    That same numbers guy may have figured out that the game experience for the majority of their players would be better with fewer UI mods. Who knows.

    - Roach