Actually, we havn't heard a single word from LucasArts legal in two weeks (besides a promise two weeks ago that I would get a phonecall first thing that monday. I didn't so it was time for another release:)
I know most of the Tenebrae developers, and trust me, none of them have ANY time to do this.
Besides which, Tenebrae's code is just a proof of concept, and not remotely suitable for a real workable port.
That, and I'm too busy with ScummVM to help anyone implement this stuff, it's very disjointed and hacky. And I'm already revered, thanks:o)
(If anyone does want to play with this type of thing theirselves, check the Forums section of my QuakeSrc site. Both the half-life map rendering code, and an older version of my Half-Life MDL renderer, are floating around in several engines. I'm sure someone on the forums would be happy to help you.
Your on your own on network protocol and merging the WINE stuff tho. I done this port some years ago, and I don't have much of the source left)
I really don't understand where people get that ridiculous idea.
Half-Life was mostly based off Quake1. The network protocol and prediction code was taken from QuakeWorld. Some small Quake2 functionality was merged later on.
The initial release of Half-Life was approximatly 65% Quake1, 15% QuakeWorld, 5% Quake2 and 15% Original(Not including the bastardisation of the code into MFC/C++).
And yes, people from Valve have confirmed the base was Quake1, not (as some people continue to claim, and I really wish I knew where the rumor started) Quake2.
Also, the percentages are based off some reverse engineering work I done a while ago when I was playing with making a compatible Linux clone of Half-Life.
(FYI, I took the Quake1 engine.. added Half-Life map loading and rendering within about three hours... Half-Life model support took about four days, and adding a mini-WINE dll loader for the gameplay code took about a week. I gave up on the project when it came down to having to keep it up-to-date with Valves patches)
The reason this one is so special is because the design, the very joystick itself, is so faithful to the design of the -original- Atari 2600 CX40 joystick.
No silly Fluro casing, just something that is truely classic. It might be a bit obscure if you arn't familiar with the 2600, of course.. but it counts, and shows this was obviously designed by someone with a clue about retro gaming, not just a marketing drone.
I should know, I have one sitting right next to me, plugged into my Amiga:)
Yeah, it's modified.. but not very well:) It's quite easy to patch a normal Lua tree to read and execute EMI scripts, for example.
Also amusingly enough, the Lua commands they extend for GF and EMI are very similar to the SCUMM opcodes used in older games, obviously so their scripters don't have to relearn everything.
Simple excuse. I'm Australian. Mate!
(And my excuse for other Australians is that I'm Tasmanian.)
((And my excuse for Tasmanians is that... oh never mind, it's probably from YOUR side of the family anyway)).
- James 'Ender' Brown
Lead Developer, ScummVM
Disclaimer: Neither ScummVM nor/. is responsible for the bad injokes used within this message.
Nope, it wasn't. I wrote it (as I said in another post), after rolling over in bed at 6AM to notice a message from 'LEC Legal' sitting in my pine session on my laptop.
I didn't realise how many mistakes I had made until several hours later:)
Of course, that's not an excuse. Why explain myself?
- From the spellchecker of 'J Brown'
Lead Developer, yadda yadda.
They already have:)
Roblimo himself sent a nice e-mail to me with suggestions (plus the warning that the site would vanish if I didn't reply to him in 72 hours). I've asked SF not to remove it, as what the letter cites is on our site.. obviously isn't. We arn't distributing any software by LucasArts themselves on there.
- James 'Ender' Brown
Lead ScummVM Developer
Slashdot Troll of the Hour:)
Oh, we are well aware that things can go either way. Basically, we have high opinions of LucasArts itself.. but unfortunatly legal departments tend to act on impulse.
Thats why I myself didn't submit anything to slashdot yet. I'm waiting for their response, to see if they will just drop it... or take the long, tired road of a lawsuit. *sigh*
I believe I did mention both of these points, in the second paragraph...
In any case, this first volly seems to be a simple misunderstanding regarding the nature of ScummVM... However I fully expect LucasArts to probably persue legal action now they are aware it's more than simply abandonware. I'm being hopeful that they will just drop it, but the legal teams of the wonderful Lucas group of companies seem to be very trigger-happy when it comes to lawsuits.
This first letter wasn't actually a legal threat. They have already asked SourceForge to remove our site, but hopefully it won't come to that. Their original letter was asking for the removal of something that simply doesn't exist - downloadable copies of LucasArts software.
At least that wonderful four letter acronym we all have come to love and hate (you know, the one beginning with 'D' that sounds like a Village People song?) hasn't come into it. Yet.
(Oh, and to reply to another reply regarding my grammer and spelling.. hey, I wrote the response after waking up at 6am, rolling over and noticing the flashing message in my ssh session:)
- James 'Ender' Brown
Project Leader,
ScummVM
(Doesn't this sound all official?)
The license change worked tho.
on
Two Helpings of WINE
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This debate has been going on for a while. As other people have commented, the LGPL change was prompted mostly because some companies were promising to release code back, and never substantially doing so. The X11 license allows this, and indeed it is sometimes needed to have closed-source portions in a project the size of WINE. And Transgaming does indeed have to have SOMETHING to pitch it's product for.
Now, the point is that this idea has worked. Gav has now proposed 'trading' some substantial parts of code for duel-licensing certain patches made recently. This shows that the change to the LGPL has helped with it's original aim - encouraging users of the main WINE tree to submit their works off the tree back.
However you look at it, there is no perfect license. The LGPL offers (imho) a good ballance between open source and allowing the closed-source parts that are indeed necessary for WINE to be able to implement certain patent-protected functionality. Basically, this is just FUD of the upmost. There has been no major split in the development community over this, and indeed a majority of WINE commiters have allowed their work to be duel-licensed and commited to both the main WineHQ tree and the x11-forked ReWind tree. Some do not wish that, but that's their own choice. If you spend time coding something, you can damn well do with it what you want;)
The same of course applies to TG - they spent time coding some very substantial features, and wish to hold their work back. I think decent code exchanges are fine, and this license change has indeed promoted them.
God knows I've signed NDAs with Matrix, 3dfx, ATI, etc with my work in open-source 3d gaming.
And as a note, at least one of those companies had to know I was 15 at the time. But I recieved driver source, API information and hardware samples. Of course, I still had to wait til I turned 18 to get the job I wanted, but that was for 'customer security'.
Thankfully in Australia things are a lot easier in regards to people catcalling 'Child Labor!' all the time, although I was dealing with international companies. The biggest problem I've ever had due to my age is getting into conferences. Apart from SAGE/AUUG where my uncle pulled some strings and everyone was very friendly.
It's quite a pity... that the problem is law doesn't take into consideration that (expecially in the IT industry,) most people make their mark when they are young. Hence why my username is always Ender, in sympathy for all those who have to deal with adults who can't deal with the fact a 13yo is more intelligent than they are!
First, you can still download the source from CVS. Get it while you still can and mirror it on your own website!
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=6933
Also Blizzards takedown notice was not legally correct.
http://lweb.law.harvard.edu/chilly/faq.cgi?CatID=1 4#QID131
"Question: Does a copyright owner have to specify the exact materials it alleges are infringing?"
As Blizzard did not specify any files, or even the NAME of the software, the takedown notice is quite probably legally non-binding.
Also the BNetD project can, as noted above, issue a counter-notice and instigate put-back procedures because the takedown was incorrectly served:
http://lweb.law.harvard.edu/chilly/faq.cgi?CatID=1 4#QID132
- Ender
www.quakesrc.org
Re:The problem with Majestic..
on
Goodbye, "Majestic"
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm hardly going to argue with Adrian here - although I think he is thinking more of the financial aspect when I'm looking more at the reason why it lost appeal to the subscribers it already had.
But firstly, although both Elan and Sean have mentioned that the storyline was adapted to fit new evolutions in the community. However I agree there was probably no major effect on the storyline, considering how much had to be rewritten due to time constraints anyway.
I think linear was the wrong word to use in hindsight. My intention wasn't really to highlight Majestics problem with getting players involved - the real problem Majestic had was in keeping them. The A.I game had maybe 5000-6000 constant players.. However I do not know of anyone who started seriously playing, leaving because of dissatisfaction of the game itself.
And besides those who left Majestic for personal or financial reasons, those who left disatisifed with the fundemental game (I believe) were mostly affected by the problems above.
But then again, there is no way to totally satisfy a mass-market audience, with this kind of interactive storytelling. It can't really be self-paced without removing the invasiveness, nor can it be sped up without inserting an element of uncertainty most have already expressed (getting phonecalls in the middle of meetings or other awkward moments).
Maybe the key was to tone down the interactivity and increase the pace. Playing more of a 'detective' in a murder mystery than a bystander. Most of A.Is interactive events were insigated by the players (calling numbers instead of being called), and this was just as immersive for some.
The problem with Majestic..
on
Goodbye, "Majestic"
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Majestic was good (although not unique) in concept, but very poor in execution.
A lot of people reading slashdot probably had some interaction with "The Beast" - the A.I movie webgame. Besides the stigma associated with the fact it was ran by M$... it was a brilliant game.
Based in several medium - many many webpages, phonenumbers, e-mails etc it was a well executed version of the Majestic concept. Intrestingly enough it ran at the same time Majestic was being developed and finished just after Majestic was announced.
The problem with Majestic is that while the idea of an immersive game is good - anything on this kind of scale must EVOLVE. The puzzles in the game were generally very easy. The pace was set badly, and the storyline did not evolve. You could quite easily guess what was going to happen next.
The people running "The Beast" however (besides the fact it was free) were working full time on constantly adapting the game. They monitored game players communities and if they discovered a plotpoint had been guessed at, they would weave that knowledge into the next puzzle.
Most gamers know that games depend on a community. Majestic was a very stagnent game - for even a traditional adventure game the story was bad, the pace was terrible and it did not emphisize the need to cooperate.
Majestic was being shut down because people were quitting the game at an alarming rate. It's not suprising, because for a subscription-based adventure game it didn't promote any interaction outside of the strict game encounters. It was too linear - something that just doesn't work with game players these days. Besides a highly predictable storyline there was no point to playing the game. Other subscription-based games (like Ultima Online, Everquest, etc) all really relied on a sense of community... you would play not only for the game, but to interact with your online friends.
Technologically and concept-wise, Majestic was close to perfect. But as a game, it missed the point totally.
The Water surfing fix is present in the released code, as is the autodownload of environment maps.
Spectator support is in there, as is air_accelerate.
The railgun fix is trivial to implement. The "angle on spawn" bug sounds fairly easy to fix. The flowing transparent textures might be a pain, the software renderer code is still almost as obscure was it was back in Quake1.
The Linux fix seems to only refer to the way it loads the mesa/opengl library - I'm not exactly sure what changed, but again it sounds like a simple fix.
Without knowing what caused the case for players to become invisible, I can't comment on that one. It might also have been a 3.18 fix, so MAY be in the released source.
This IS 3.19, so we may have some of the unknown fixes above already implemented... Duffy may just have forgotten the changes file.
Ever since the Quake1 source release two years ago, a lot of intresting (and a lot of unintresting mind you) ports of the Quake engine have shown up.
www.quakesrc.org reports on these new engines, as well as hosting some projects and a large set of tutorials. If anyone is intrested in coding off a quake-based engine, this is a good place to start. No Quake2 content yet, but give it a few days...
www.open-quake.com is also a good site reporting on news in the Quake engine scene.
End plug:)
The author of the above editorial obviously didn't read the page too well... No wait, I take that back. The page has changed.
Here's the quote, from a Wired article. It's a doosy. Apparantly Lindows has taken Wine, under the ever-so-exploitable modified BSD licence (there has been talked of changing to the LGPL soon, to ensure people like this DO feed changes back into the main tree...) and (rumor) stuck some chinese developers behind it to hack on the functionality Wine has been missing.. DCOM (supported somewhat by Transgamings WineX) and some extended Shlwapi functions. Woop.
Lindows achieves Windows compatibility by using pieces of Wine, which is software that allows Windows applications to run in Unix that has been in development since 1993.
Wine is only a part of the overall Lindows compatibility layer, Robertson said. The rest will come from software developed in-house. .
I know it's an odd thing to say, but I would like to congratulate Microsoft on (unusually!) actually being half-decent.
Listening to the phonecall, whether he was coached or not, I would congradulate Mr. Thompson on not being a smeghead and actually NICELY asking for the image to be removed.. without threatening legal action over some obscure EULA clause for looking at the motherboard or something:)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, we havn't heard a single word from LucasArts legal in two weeks (besides a promise two weeks ago that I would get a phonecall first thing that monday. I didn't so it was time for another release :)
- Ender
Leader Type Person,
ScummVM
I know most of the Tenebrae developers, and trust me, none of them have ANY time to do this.
:o)
Besides which, Tenebrae's code is just a proof of concept, and not remotely suitable for a real workable port.
That, and I'm too busy with ScummVM to help anyone implement this stuff, it's very disjointed and hacky. And I'm already revered, thanks
(If anyone does want to play with this type of thing theirselves, check the Forums section of my QuakeSrc site. Both the half-life map rendering code, and an older version of my Half-Life MDL renderer, are floating around in several engines. I'm sure someone on the forums would be happy to help you.
Your on your own on network protocol and merging the WINE stuff tho. I done this port some years ago, and I don't have much of the source left)
- Ender
Founder, http://www.quakesrc.org/
Project Leader, http://www.scummvm.org/
I really don't understand where people get that ridiculous idea.
Half-Life was mostly based off Quake1. The network protocol and prediction code was taken from QuakeWorld. Some small Quake2 functionality was merged later on.
The initial release of Half-Life was approximatly 65% Quake1, 15% QuakeWorld, 5% Quake2 and 15% Original(Not including the bastardisation of the code into MFC/C++).
And yes, people from Valve have confirmed the base was Quake1, not (as some people continue to claim, and I really wish I knew where the rumor started) Quake2.
Also, the percentages are based off some reverse engineering work I done a while ago when I was playing with making a compatible Linux clone of Half-Life.
(FYI, I took the Quake1 engine.. added Half-Life map loading and rendering within about three hours... Half-Life model support took about four days, and adding a mini-WINE dll loader for the gameplay code took about a week. I gave up on the project when it came down to having to keep it up-to-date with Valves patches)
- Ender
Founder, http://www.quakesrc.org/
Project Leader, http://www.scummvm.org/
The reason this one is so special is because the design, the very joystick itself, is so faithful to the design of the -original- Atari 2600 CX40 joystick.
:)
No silly Fluro casing, just something that is truely classic. It might be a bit obscure if you arn't familiar with the 2600, of course.. but it counts, and shows this was obviously designed by someone with a clue about retro gaming, not just a marketing drone.
I should know, I have one sitting right next to me, plugged into my Amiga
Yeah, it's modified.. but not very well :)
It's quite easy to patch a normal Lua tree to read and execute EMI scripts, for example.
Also amusingly enough, the Lua commands they extend for GF and EMI are very similar to the SCUMM opcodes used in older games, obviously so their scripters don't have to relearn everything.
- Ender
Project Leader,
http://scummvm.sf.net/
Simple excuse. I'm Australian. Mate!
/. is responsible for the bad injokes used within this message.
(And my excuse for other Australians is that I'm Tasmanian.)
((And my excuse for Tasmanians is that... oh never mind, it's probably from YOUR side of the family anyway)).
- James 'Ender' Brown
Lead Developer, ScummVM
Disclaimer: Neither ScummVM nor
Nope, it wasn't. I wrote it (as I said in another post), after rolling over in bed at 6AM to notice a message from 'LEC Legal' sitting in my pine session on my laptop.
:)
I didn't realise how many mistakes I had made until several hours later
Of course, that's not an excuse. Why explain myself?
- From the spellchecker of 'J Brown'
Lead Developer, yadda yadda.
They already have :)
:)
Roblimo himself sent a nice e-mail to me with suggestions (plus the warning that the site would vanish if I didn't reply to him in 72 hours).
I've asked SF not to remove it, as what the letter cites is on our site.. obviously isn't. We arn't distributing any software by LucasArts themselves on there.
- James 'Ender' Brown
Lead ScummVM Developer
Slashdot Troll of the Hour
Oh, we are well aware that things can go either way. Basically, we have high opinions of LucasArts itself.. but unfortunatly legal departments tend to act on impulse.
Thats why I myself didn't submit anything to slashdot yet. I'm waiting for their response, to see if they will just drop it... or take the long, tired road of a lawsuit. *sigh*
- James 'Ender' Brown
Lead Developer, ScummVM
I believe I did mention both of these points, in the second paragraph... In any case, this first volly seems to be a simple misunderstanding regarding the nature of ScummVM... However I fully expect LucasArts to probably persue legal action now they are aware it's more than simply abandonware. I'm being hopeful that they will just drop it, but the legal teams of the wonderful Lucas group of companies seem to be very trigger-happy when it comes to lawsuits. This first letter wasn't actually a legal threat. They have already asked SourceForge to remove our site, but hopefully it won't come to that. Their original letter was asking for the removal of something that simply doesn't exist - downloadable copies of LucasArts software. At least that wonderful four letter acronym we all have come to love and hate (you know, the one beginning with 'D' that sounds like a Village People song?) hasn't come into it. Yet. (Oh, and to reply to another reply regarding my grammer and spelling.. hey, I wrote the response after waking up at 6am, rolling over and noticing the flashing message in my ssh session :)
- James 'Ender' Brown
Project Leader,
ScummVM
(Doesn't this sound all official?)
This debate has been going on for a while. As other people have commented, the LGPL change was prompted mostly because some companies were promising to release code back, and never substantially doing so. The X11 license allows this, and indeed it is sometimes needed to have closed-source portions in a project the size of WINE. And Transgaming does indeed have to have SOMETHING to pitch it's product for.
;)
Now, the point is that this idea has worked. Gav has now proposed 'trading' some substantial parts of code for duel-licensing certain patches made recently. This shows that the change to the LGPL has helped with it's original aim - encouraging users of the main WINE tree to submit their works off the tree back.
However you look at it, there is no perfect license. The LGPL offers (imho) a good ballance between open source and allowing the closed-source parts that are indeed necessary for WINE to be able to implement certain patent-protected functionality. Basically, this is just FUD of the upmost. There has been no major split in the development community over this, and indeed a majority of WINE commiters have allowed their work to be duel-licensed and commited to both the main WineHQ tree and the x11-forked ReWind tree. Some do not wish that, but that's their own choice. If you spend time coding something, you can damn well do with it what you want
The same of course applies to TG - they spent time coding some very substantial features, and wish to hold their work back. I think decent code exchanges are fine, and this license change has indeed promoted them.
God knows I've signed NDAs with Matrix, 3dfx, ATI, etc with my work in open-source 3d gaming.
And as a note, at least one of those companies had to know I was 15 at the time. But I recieved driver source, API information and hardware samples. Of course, I still had to wait til I turned 18 to get the job I wanted, but that was for 'customer security'.
Thankfully in Australia things are a lot easier in regards to people catcalling 'Child Labor!' all the time, although I was dealing with international companies. The biggest problem I've ever had due to my age is getting into conferences. Apart from SAGE/AUUG where my uncle pulled some strings and everyone was very friendly.
It's quite a pity... that the problem is law doesn't take into consideration that (expecially in the IT industry,) most people make their mark when they are young. Hence why my username is always Ender, in sympathy for all those who have to deal with adults who can't deal with the fact a 13yo is more intelligent than they are!
First, you can still download the source from CVS. Get it while you still can and mirror it on your own website!
1 4#QID131
1 4#QID132
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=6933
Also Blizzards takedown notice was not legally correct.
http://lweb.law.harvard.edu/chilly/faq.cgi?CatID=
"Question: Does a copyright owner have to specify the exact materials it alleges are infringing?"
As Blizzard did not specify any files, or even the NAME of the software, the takedown notice is quite probably legally non-binding.
Also the BNetD project can, as noted above, issue a counter-notice and instigate put-back procedures because the takedown was incorrectly served:
http://lweb.law.harvard.edu/chilly/faq.cgi?CatID=
- Ender
www.quakesrc.org
I'm hardly going to argue with Adrian here - although I think he is thinking more of the financial aspect when I'm looking more at the reason why it lost appeal to the subscribers it already had.
But firstly, although both Elan and Sean have mentioned that the storyline was adapted to fit new evolutions in the community. However I agree there was probably no major effect on the storyline, considering how much had to be rewritten due to time constraints anyway.
I think linear was the wrong word to use in hindsight. My intention wasn't really to highlight Majestics problem with getting players involved - the real problem Majestic had was in keeping them. The A.I game had maybe 5000-6000 constant players.. However I do not know of anyone who started seriously playing, leaving because of dissatisfaction of the game itself.
And besides those who left Majestic for personal or financial reasons, those who left disatisifed with the fundemental game (I believe) were mostly affected by the problems above.
But then again, there is no way to totally satisfy a mass-market audience, with this kind of interactive storytelling. It can't really be self-paced without removing the invasiveness, nor can it be sped up without inserting an element of uncertainty most have already expressed (getting phonecalls in the middle of meetings or other awkward moments).
Maybe the key was to tone down the interactivity and increase the pace. Playing more of a 'detective' in a murder mystery than a bystander. Most of A.Is interactive events were insigated by the players (calling numbers instead of being called), and this was just as immersive for some.
Majestic was good (although not unique) in concept, but very poor in execution.
A lot of people reading slashdot probably had some interaction with "The Beast" - the A.I movie webgame. Besides the stigma associated with the fact it was ran by M$... it was a brilliant game.
Based in several medium - many many webpages, phonenumbers, e-mails etc it was a well executed version of the Majestic concept. Intrestingly enough it ran at the same time Majestic was being developed and finished just after Majestic was announced.
The problem with Majestic is that while the idea of an immersive game is good - anything on this kind of scale must EVOLVE. The puzzles in the game were generally very easy. The pace was set badly, and the storyline did not evolve. You could quite easily guess what was going to happen next.
The people running "The Beast" however (besides the fact it was free) were working full time on constantly adapting the game. They monitored game players communities and if they discovered a plotpoint had been guessed at, they would weave that knowledge into the next puzzle.
Most gamers know that games depend on a community. Majestic was a very stagnent game - for even a traditional adventure game the story was bad, the pace was terrible and it did not emphisize the need to cooperate.
Majestic was being shut down because people were quitting the game at an alarming rate. It's not suprising, because for a subscription-based adventure game it didn't promote any interaction outside of the strict game encounters. It was too linear - something that just doesn't work with game players these days. Besides a highly predictable storyline there was no point to playing the game. Other subscription-based games (like Ultima Online, Everquest, etc) all really relied on a sense of community... you would play not only for the game, but to interact with your online friends.
Technologically and concept-wise, Majestic was close to perfect. But as a game, it missed the point totally.
Looking at 3.18_changes..
The Water surfing fix is present in the released code, as is the autodownload of environment maps.
Spectator support is in there, as is air_accelerate.
The railgun fix is trivial to implement. The "angle on spawn" bug sounds fairly easy to fix. The flowing transparent textures might be a pain, the software renderer code is still almost as obscure was it was back in Quake1.
The Linux fix seems to only refer to the way it loads the mesa/opengl library - I'm not exactly sure what changed, but again it sounds like a simple fix.
Without knowing what caused the case for players to become invisible, I can't comment on that one. It might also have been a 3.18 fix, so MAY be in the released source.
This IS 3.19, so we may have some of the unknown fixes above already implemented... Duffy may just have forgotten the changes file.
Ever since the Quake1 source release two years ago, a lot of intresting (and a lot of unintresting mind you) ports of the Quake engine have shown up. www.quakesrc.org reports on these new engines, as well as hosting some projects and a large set of tutorials. If anyone is intrested in coding off a quake-based engine, this is a good place to start. No Quake2 content yet, but give it a few days... www.open-quake.com is also a good site reporting on news in the Quake engine scene. End plug :)
The author of the above editorial obviously didn't read the page too well... No wait, I take that back. The page has changed.
Here's the quote, from a Wired article. It's a doosy. Apparantly Lindows has taken Wine, under the ever-so-exploitable modified BSD licence (there has been talked of changing to the LGPL soon, to ensure people like this DO feed changes back into the main tree...) and (rumor) stuck some chinese developers behind it to hack on the functionality Wine has been missing.. DCOM (supported somewhat by Transgamings WineX) and some extended Shlwapi functions. Woop.
Lindows achieves Windows compatibility by using pieces of Wine, which is software that allows Windows applications to run in Unix that has been in development since 1993.
Wine is only a part of the overall Lindows compatibility layer, Robertson said. The rest will come from software developed in-house. .
I know it's an odd thing to say, but I would like to congratulate Microsoft on (unusually!) actually being half-decent. Listening to the phonecall, whether he was coached or not, I would congradulate Mr. Thompson on not being a smeghead and actually NICELY asking for the image to be removed.. without threatening legal action over some obscure EULA clause for looking at the motherboard or something :)