Replaying to myself after reading some of the other comments, and actually got an idea... That may or may not appeal to others or to you, Blizzard...
If, and only if, you decide to open up some of the older game engines (so you still keep the games assets and hence your IP intact), for those titles supporting Battle.net (Warcraft 2 BNE, Starcraft, Diablo), it may be a good idea to strip the BNet code from the released code, or license the BNet part in such a way that it may not be modified or changed so that to avoid circumvention of CD-key checks or the like (at your discretion). I do believe there is much Blizzard has to gain by opening up these old games code, and I also see why it may be scary or simply difficult to do it (especially if there's third parties involved, like RAD-tools and probably other things like codecs and the like)
It is indeed nice to see Blizzard talk about Linux, and Open Source, and even admit to have internal Linux clients and tools in their development infrastructure, as well as being vocal about it.
Just to add my voice to that of the many other users here who have already expressed their thoughts and express interest in Blizzard first open sourcing older titles and considering releasing new titles for Linux besides Mac and Windows.
I know these requests implicate a LOT of work for them, which may not necessarily be in their priorities, or generate revenue in any way (I'm talking about open sourcing some game engines). And Blizzard making available native clients of future titles would simply be awesome.
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Replaying to myself after reading some of the other comments, and actually got an idea... That may or may not appeal to others or to you, Blizzard... If, and only if, you decide to open up some of the older game engines (so you still keep the games assets and hence your IP intact), for those titles supporting Battle.net (Warcraft 2 BNE, Starcraft, Diablo), it may be a good idea to strip the BNet code from the released code, or license the BNet part in such a way that it may not be modified or changed so that to avoid circumvention of CD-key checks or the like (at your discretion). I do believe there is much Blizzard has to gain by opening up these old games code, and I also see why it may be scary or simply difficult to do it (especially if there's third parties involved, like RAD-tools and probably other things like codecs and the like)
It is indeed nice to see Blizzard talk about Linux, and Open Source, and even admit to have internal Linux clients and tools in their development infrastructure, as well as being vocal about it. Just to add my voice to that of the many other users here who have already expressed their thoughts and express interest in Blizzard first open sourcing older titles and considering releasing new titles for Linux besides Mac and Windows. I know these requests implicate a LOT of work for them, which may not necessarily be in their priorities, or generate revenue in any way (I'm talking about open sourcing some game engines). And Blizzard making available native clients of future titles would simply be awesome.