Ripping vinyl is a huge pain in the ass. I ripped a few 12" singles once and realized that if anyone walked within about 30 feet of where I was ripping (I was on the 2nd floor of a really old building) the needle might pick up the vibrations of the footsteps and alter the recording. Although I would love to have the time and energy to rip all my vinyl, it's just too much of a pain in the ass. I've actually encountered vinyl rips that have record-skips recorded into them!
The answer is Arcanum! I havent played the Fallout series, which were made by some of the same people according to posts here (couldn't get Fallout 1 to run in Windows 2000), but Arcanum is incredible.
The depth of the game surpasses almost every other CRPG I've ever played - you can actually focus your player on being "charming" and just con your way through the game, or you can make a thief and rob *anything* from any store! The list of special character archetypes is awesome - liked "raised by snake charmers: -3 charisma 'cause the snake bite scars made you ugly, extra resistance to poison and never have to fight snakes". There are dozens of modifiers like that. Incredible game, I can't wait to hear what these guys have been working on the past few years.
-dbc001
here's the rest of my favorites:
Pool of Radiance - I built a DOS box just to play this a few months ago and it's still great!
Eye of the Beholder - Oh the glory of near-3D! anyone care to review the Neverwinter mods of EOB and POR? are they any good?
Deus Ex - not quite role-playing but definitely has elements. Deus Ex 2 should be wicked.
Baldur's Gate - very close to my ideal RPG.
Diablo II - mindless but terribly fun. I'd like to see a cross between Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate - make D2 combat a little more strategic with the pause option.
Adventure Construction Set - I was making game mods 20 years ago!
And here's my list of crappiest RPGs ever:
Descent to Undermountain - OH MY GOD I waited so long for this piece of crap
Throne of Darkness - Kind of like Diablo, but removed all the cool parts (like making your own frickin character) and then multiplied all the worst parts by 11!
Boogie Down Productions - By All Means Necessary... bought this on tape in 4th grade.
Dj SS - Black... bought this on vinyl in '94.
Fugees - The Score... I've bought this album 3 times now - I think it gets "borrowed" by my friends.
Shamen - Boss Drum... bought this one when it came out, lost the cd. i'll probly buy it again someday.
Eagles - The Very Best Of, Stevie Wonder - Innervisions, twisted sister - stay hungry... bought these on tape back in the day.
AD&D - Monster Manual 2, Dungeon Master Guide, several dozen adventure modules... i have these in a box somewhere.
I've got about 1200 records that I have no intention of ripping when I can just download. I also have have a few hundred CDs. And I kind of like downloading books because I can drop a dozen on the laptop for plane trips and such.
Of course, I've downloaded plenty of stuff that I never bought, but the point is that I've done a lot of legal stuff on P2P over the years.
-dbc
Can anyone point me to transcripts of the speakers? (particularly Declan McCullagh and the Taliban guy!) Or Downloadable recordings would be almost as good...
This is slightly off-topic, but I thought I would tell about the problems I've had with Charter. I signed up for the mid-grade (is it bronze?) "pipeline" cable modem service about a year ago, and really liked it. It went down a few times for extended periods, but every time I called they were very good about crediting my account for all the downtime.
Then about sometime in April I got a call from a telemarketer. I really hate telemarketers, so I was pretty pissed, but just as I was about to rage on the guy, I heard the phrase "one month of free digital cable". I'm really not interested in digital cable, and I can't afford it, but I figured I would try it out. We scheduled an appointment for the following Tuesday morning (before noon to be exact), and I skipped work because I was pretty excited.
Well 12:30 came and nobody showed up, and I angrily called Charter. We re-scheduled for a Saturday morning and even though I was pissed that I missed work, I was still kind of excited - the free didgital cable kind of made up for the money I lost from not working. The Saturday appt was from 10am-2pm, and around noon I decided to double-check with Charter to make sure that they were still coming. I was not surprised when they explained that my appointment had somehow been cancelled. They had wasted close to 8 hours of my time. The following Monday I called in to cancel my account with Charter. This is why I fucking hate telemarketers - even though they were offering free stuff, I had still gotten screwed.
After negotiating with Charter's customer support (who were great by the way), I decided to accept their apologetic offer for 2 free months of Digital Cable plus my existing pipeline service, which was close to a $200 credit. That served as a nice apology for all my wasted time. My digital cable went in about May 1st.
About mid-July, I got a bill from Charter for about $130, just as my Mother asked me to help her pick a high-speed internet provider. I called Charter and explained that the bill was in error and that as soon as they cleared it up I would sign my mom up for her account. After spending 45 minutes on the phone with a supervisor, I was told that the bill was correct and that I would still have to pay the full balance. I cancelled my account, and fired off a letter explaining in great detail that I would not pay any fees for services that they had offered for free. I received yet another bill for the full amount.
The moral of the story is that Charter provided a pretty good service but did not hesitate to try to screw me. From now on I will be recording any phone calls that relate to billing issues, because there is a good chance that I will get stuck with this $130 bill even though they offered the service for free. Telemarketers suck. Charter sucks. Big companies suck, don't ever trust them.
Thanks for pointing that out guy, it really changes the point I was trying to make. Actually it doesnt matter if he's fat, skinny, short, tall, whatever - it doesnt take 40 fucking Customs Agents to arrest a warez geek.
those 40 gov't-paid employees could be put to much better use.
The sick part of this is that I live in a slightly rough neighborhood - there is a good place to get carjacked a few blocks down the street, there are gangs in the park at the end of my block, and plenty more that I don't know about. And the government is paying 40 Customs Agents to bust a 120 pound warez d00d? It's really fucking disgusting that we waste resources on solving "problems" like warez when there are real problems, like crime and poor healthcare.
My point was that sharing files is the equivalent of leaving a box on your doorstep full of old cds or books, maybe with a message that says "please return materials when your finished". In both cases, participation is passive, not active. If I leave property (intellectual or otherwise) in a publicly accessible place, you can't hold me responsible when someone else takes it. Of course, if that property happens to be music, the "thief" may already own the music in a different format, further complicating matters.
I think it's especially poor that successful companies don't release the source code for out-dated commercial products into the public domain, like id software does with their games. There's no excuse for a video game company not to release the source for 15-year-old games, even if they sell it. I would gladly pay a few bucks for the source to old school games like Pool of Radiance or the Bard's Tale series.
How can people continue to miss this each & every time the discussion comes up? You wouldnt buy the Puddle of Mudd album because its crap! You said it yourself. Would you buy an album with one good song for $5? I can think of 20 albums that I would buy for $5 that I won't buy now because they're too expensive.
New artists arent hurt by p2p either, because even though a new fan may not buy the album, it will increase attendance at their shows, and as Ms. Ian explained in her article, that's where the money is made.
My response to any lawyerdom: "I legally own all of the music that I have stored on my hard drive, and will be prepared to produce receipts and/or the actual CDs for the majority of them (excluding those that might be floating under the seats of my car). I will gladly prove this in a court of law."
If you get a subpoena, all you have to do is hit a few used record shops - definitely a lot cheaper than trying to fight it otherwise. A few hundred bucks and the RIAA has nothing on ya.
So then you might expect the RIAA to say, "but you were sharing them online, therefore distributing them illegally". au contraire, mon shitheads - those files were taken from my computer - i did not actively participate in their distribution.
Actually that's a really good point - I pirate movies that don't have special features, but I buy the ones that have cool stuff like the Boogie Nights special edition. I wonder what is the difference in manufacturing cost between CDs and DVDs? Why don't record labels start putting out audio DVDs with cool features, since DVD players are so common now?
I do agree though - a DVD with 4 hours of audio and video (and a menu system!) feels like it's worth $20, while a CD with 74 minutes of shite audio doesn't seem like it would be worth more than $10. On a side note, there are plenty of CDs that I would buy for less than ten bucks, but I would never pay more for.
I deal w/people whos lives have been devastated by drugs on a regular basis.
I deal with people whos [sic] lives have been destroyed by alcohol on a daily basis. I deal with people whose lives have been destroyed by cigarettes on a daily basis. I even deal with people whose lives have been destroyed by motorcycles on a daily basis! The fact that something has the potential to damage someone's life does not justify taking it away. I challenge you to find an object or activity that is 100% safe and has no risk of harm or damage to anyone. People's lives can be destroyed by anything - drugs, alcohol, the stock market, automobile accidents, knives, stupidity. That does not mean that all of those things should be legal. It does mean that our society should teach people to approach those activies with caution. Keep in mind that prescription drugs can damage people's lives too.
Refillable ink cartridges are an excellent analogy to this XBOX situation - if I remember correctly, the major printer manufacturers are getting sued over the way they handle the pricing of their printer cartridges. The point is that both businesses sell the major hardware so cheap that they lose money on it, assuming that they will make the money back from sales of accessories. From a business standpoint, this approach is flawed because of the changes in the ways consumers approach intellectual property.
Let's extend your analogy a bit. I'll start a car company, and make cars that require a special type of fuel. I'll price the car competetively against others on the market. How long before someone else starts producing my fuel at a cheaper price? Not long. Who cares if it "costs the company money" when you buy from the cheaper source?
Now hackers have provided alternative "accessories" for the XBOX, and no one cares about Microsoft's business plan.
What if you don't realize that what you're doing is illegal? What if you are into growing plants, and the cops bust in and confiscate all your cash, computers, and electronics gear because they detected the heat lamp you use to grow tropical plants? What about the case of Steve Jackson Games, a respectable company that was making an innocent game about hacking/espionage/etc? They had all their computers confiscated even though they never actually did anything wrong! What if your friends have done something illegal and it turns out that you are guilty of conspiracy? (that conspiracy thing is no joke, it happened to me).
My point is that you probably do have something to hide, but you may not know it.
While this discussion may be US-centric, keep in mind that the US runs the show. Any issue in the states is a global issue, because Bush & Ashcroft will shove it down your throats if you don't fight against it now. -dbc
Up until recently I have disliked the idea of cameras monitoring the public, but in two weeks I will be moving into a rather shady neighborhood. A friend of mine used to live in the same area and his fiancee was robbed right in front of his apartment - they took her $2000 engagement ring.
Would a few extra cameras deter some crime? Probably. Especially if they monitored them a lot at first, and made a few public busts. It would definitely make me feel a little safer. I will definitely be installing a few cameras of my own (although some of them will be fake!).
You also have to consider that my friend, who owns the building, will be actively campaigning for security cameras in the neighborhood - with the long-term goal of reducing crime and hopefully increasing property values. -dbc
Looking at past records would probably not be a reliable source of information. In this case they are doing research that will affect the health of people who will be living under unusual conditions for two years, so it's important that the experiment is done under carefully controlled conditions. Also, you would have a hard time gathering data from looking at old hospital records because all of your subjects would have some kind of health problem, and that would probably screw up your results.
I've recently started buying from vendors who are geographically close to me, and I make sure to have them tell me when my shipment will arrive. I live in Missouri and I hate waiting two weeks for my parts to show up.
Can we get some basic stats with the interview? I mean, we all know that Google gets a lot of traffic but how many hits per day/hour/minute? How big is the server farm? How much bandwidth are they eating? How about some other interesting stats? (I'm sure they have plenty!)
dbc
Re:The issue is not Open Source versus Proprietary
on
Warcraft III Gone Gold
·
· Score: 1
Are you saying that reverse engineering is "Committing wrong"? Are you saying that creating software that interacts with closed software is "Committing wrong" (keep in mind that by this line of reasoning both BNETD and Samba are committing wrong). I personally see no moral violation on the part of the BNETD authors, and the legal case against them is shaky at best (DMCA? copyright violation?).
My point is that if companies want to go around suing each other that doesnt bother me. But when companies go around sueing little guys like BNETD who don't have the funds to defend themselves, and who probably wont have any significant effect on the "bottom line" or the sales figures for Warcraft3 or any other game, consumers need to stand up and fight that sort of thing.
I dont think BNETD broke any laws or did anything wrong. The fact that BNETD allows piracy is irrelevant. CD-Burners allow piracy too! Does that mean that the creators of CD-Burners are "Committing wrong"? No! Can CD-Burners be used for positive, legal purposes? Yes. Can BNETD be used for positive purposes, by people who support Blizzard and buy their games? Yes.
you dont have to link to both the article and the parent site - people who want to visit the parent site can use the frickin backspace key
The issue is not Open Source versus Proprietary
on
Warcraft III Gone Gold
·
· Score: 0, Troll
The issue in this controversy is not whether Open Source software is better or more legal or required over closed source. The issue is that Companies should not sue independant not-for-profit individuals just because their work happens to interfere (theoretically!) with their business model!
If two mega-corporations want to sue each other - fine, go right ahead. If Blizzard wants to sue Microsoft, or Microsoft wants to sue Blizzard - that's just great. But for sueing people that are not making money from the product they are being sued over, Blizzard needs to be punished. If bnetd were a commercial product, I would probably still buy WC3.
Slashdot Mirror
Ripping vinyl is a huge pain in the ass. I ripped a few 12" singles once and realized that if anyone walked within about 30 feet of where I was ripping (I was on the 2nd floor of a really old building) the needle might pick up the vibrations of the footsteps and alter the recording. Although I would love to have the time and energy to rip all my vinyl, it's just too much of a pain in the ass. I've actually encountered vinyl rips that have record-skips recorded into them!
-dbc
The answer is Arcanum! I havent played the Fallout series, which were made by some of the same people according to posts here (couldn't get Fallout 1 to run in Windows 2000), but Arcanum is incredible.
The depth of the game surpasses almost every other CRPG I've ever played - you can actually focus your player on being "charming" and just con your way through the game, or you can make a thief and rob *anything* from any store! The list of special character archetypes is awesome - liked "raised by snake charmers: -3 charisma 'cause the snake bite scars made you ugly, extra resistance to poison and never have to fight snakes". There are dozens of modifiers like that. Incredible game, I can't wait to hear what these guys have been working on the past few years.
-dbc001
here's the rest of my favorites:
Pool of Radiance - I built a DOS box just to play this a few months ago and it's still great!
Eye of the Beholder - Oh the glory of near-3D! anyone care to review the Neverwinter mods of EOB and POR? are they any good?
Deus Ex - not quite role-playing but definitely has elements. Deus Ex 2 should be wicked.
Baldur's Gate - very close to my ideal RPG.
Diablo II - mindless but terribly fun. I'd like to see a cross between Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate - make D2 combat a little more strategic with the pause option.
Adventure Construction Set - I was making game mods 20 years ago!
And here's my list of crappiest RPGs ever:
Descent to Undermountain - OH MY GOD I waited so long for this piece of crap
Throne of Darkness - Kind of like Diablo, but removed all the cool parts (like making your own frickin character) and then multiplied all the worst parts by 11!
-
Boogie Down Productions - By All Means Necessary
... bought this on tape in 4th grade.
- Dj SS - Black
... bought this on vinyl in '94.
- Fugees - The Score
... I've bought this album 3 times now - I think it gets "borrowed" by my friends.
- Shamen - Boss Drum
... bought this one when it came out, lost the cd. i'll probly buy it again someday.
- Eagles - The Very Best Of, Stevie Wonder - Innervisions, twisted sister - stay hungry
... bought these on tape back in the day.
- AD&D - Monster Manual 2, Dungeon Master Guide, several dozen adventure modules
... i have these in a box somewhere.
I've got about 1200 records that I have no intention of ripping when I can just download. I also have have a few hundred CDs. And I kind of like downloading books because I can drop a dozen on the laptop for plane trips and such. Of course, I've downloaded plenty of stuff that I never bought, but the point is that I've done a lot of legal stuff on P2P over the years.-dbc
Can anyone point me to transcripts of the speakers? (particularly Declan McCullagh and the Taliban guy!) Or Downloadable recordings would be almost as good...
-dbc
This is slightly off-topic, but I thought I would tell about the problems I've had with Charter. I signed up for the mid-grade (is it bronze?) "pipeline" cable modem service about a year ago, and really liked it. It went down a few times for extended periods, but every time I called they were very good about crediting my account for all the downtime.
Then about sometime in April I got a call from a telemarketer. I really hate telemarketers, so I was pretty pissed, but just as I was about to rage on the guy, I heard the phrase "one month of free digital cable". I'm really not interested in digital cable, and I can't afford it, but I figured I would try it out. We scheduled an appointment for the following Tuesday morning (before noon to be exact), and I skipped work because I was pretty excited.
Well 12:30 came and nobody showed up, and I angrily called Charter. We re-scheduled for a Saturday morning and even though I was pissed that I missed work, I was still kind of excited - the free didgital cable kind of made up for the money I lost from not working. The Saturday appt was from 10am-2pm, and around noon I decided to double-check with Charter to make sure that they were still coming. I was not surprised when they explained that my appointment had somehow been cancelled. They had wasted close to 8 hours of my time. The following Monday I called in to cancel my account with Charter. This is why I fucking hate telemarketers - even though they were offering free stuff, I had still gotten screwed.
After negotiating with Charter's customer support (who were great by the way), I decided to accept their apologetic offer for 2 free months of Digital Cable plus my existing pipeline service, which was close to a $200 credit. That served as a nice apology for all my wasted time. My digital cable went in about May 1st.
About mid-July, I got a bill from Charter for about $130, just as my Mother asked me to help her pick a high-speed internet provider. I called Charter and explained that the bill was in error and that as soon as they cleared it up I would sign my mom up for her account. After spending 45 minutes on the phone with a supervisor, I was told that the bill was correct and that I would still have to pay the full balance. I cancelled my account, and fired off a letter explaining in great detail that I would not pay any fees for services that they had offered for free. I received yet another bill for the full amount.
The moral of the story is that Charter provided a pretty good service but did not hesitate to try to screw me. From now on I will be recording any phone calls that relate to billing issues, because there is a good chance that I will get stuck with this $130 bill even though they offered the service for free. Telemarketers suck. Charter sucks. Big companies suck, don't ever trust them.
-dbc
the web (a poor mans library?)
That may be the dumbest thing I've ever read. Please tell me it was a joke. You do know that libraries are free right?
Thanks for pointing that out guy, it really changes the point I was trying to make. Actually it doesnt matter if he's fat, skinny, short, tall, whatever - it doesnt take 40 fucking Customs Agents to arrest a warez geek.
those 40 gov't-paid employees could be put to much better use.
The sick part of this is that I live in a slightly rough neighborhood - there is a good place to get carjacked a few blocks down the street, there are gangs in the park at the end of my block, and plenty more that I don't know about. And the government is paying 40 Customs Agents to bust a 120 pound warez d00d? It's really fucking disgusting that we waste resources on solving "problems" like warez when there are real problems, like crime and poor healthcare.
dbc
My point was that sharing files is the equivalent of leaving a box on your doorstep full of old cds or books, maybe with a message that says "please return materials when your finished". In both cases, participation is passive, not active. If I leave property (intellectual or otherwise) in a publicly accessible place, you can't hold me responsible when someone else takes it. Of course, if that property happens to be music, the "thief" may already own the music in a different format, further complicating matters.
-dbc
I think it's especially poor that successful companies don't release the source code for out-dated commercial products into the public domain, like id software does with their games. There's no excuse for a video game company not to release the source for 15-year-old games, even if they sell it. I would gladly pay a few bucks for the source to old school games like Pool of Radiance or the Bard's Tale series.
-dbc
I was just looking at Terry Gilliam's filmography on IMDB and noticed that there are two Holy Grail movies. Can anyone explain the difference between "Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail (1996) (VG)" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)". Also, has anyone read any of the books on Gilliam? Are they any good?
-dbc
How can people continue to miss this each & every time the discussion comes up? You wouldnt buy the Puddle of Mudd album because its crap! You said it yourself. Would you buy an album with one good song for $5? I can think of 20 albums that I would buy for $5 that I won't buy now because they're too expensive.
New artists arent hurt by p2p either, because even though a new fan may not buy the album, it will increase attendance at their shows, and as Ms. Ian explained in her article, that's where the money is made.
-dbc
My response to any lawyerdom: "I legally own all of the music that I have stored on my hard drive, and will be prepared to produce receipts and/or the actual CDs for the majority of them (excluding those that might be floating under the seats of my car). I will gladly prove this in a court of law."
If you get a subpoena, all you have to do is hit a few used record shops - definitely a lot cheaper than trying to fight it otherwise. A few hundred bucks and the RIAA has nothing on ya.
So then you might expect the RIAA to say, "but you were sharing them online, therefore distributing them illegally". au contraire, mon shitheads - those files were taken from my computer - i did not actively participate in their distribution.
-dbc
Actually that's a really good point - I pirate movies that don't have special features, but I buy the ones that have cool stuff like the Boogie Nights special edition. I wonder what is the difference in manufacturing cost between CDs and DVDs? Why don't record labels start putting out audio DVDs with cool features, since DVD players are so common now?
I do agree though - a DVD with 4 hours of audio and video (and a menu system!) feels like it's worth $20, while a CD with 74 minutes of shite audio doesn't seem like it would be worth more than $10. On a side note, there are plenty of CDs that I would buy for less than ten bucks, but I would never pay more for.
dbc
I deal w/people whos lives have been devastated by drugs on a regular basis.
I deal with people whos [sic] lives have been destroyed by alcohol on a daily basis. I deal with people whose lives have been destroyed by cigarettes on a daily basis. I even deal with people whose lives have been destroyed by motorcycles on a daily basis!
The fact that something has the potential to damage someone's life does not justify taking it away. I challenge you to find an object or activity that is 100% safe and has no risk of harm or damage to anyone. People's lives can be destroyed by anything - drugs, alcohol, the stock market, automobile accidents, knives, stupidity. That does not mean that all of those things should be legal. It does mean that our society should teach people to approach those activies with caution. Keep in mind that prescription drugs can damage people's lives too.
-dbc
Refillable ink cartridges are an excellent analogy to this XBOX situation - if I remember correctly, the major printer manufacturers are getting sued over the way they handle the pricing of their printer cartridges. The point is that both businesses sell the major hardware so cheap that they lose money on it, assuming that they will make the money back from sales of accessories. From a business standpoint, this approach is flawed because of the changes in the ways consumers approach intellectual property.
Let's extend your analogy a bit. I'll start a car company, and make cars that require a special type of fuel. I'll price the car competetively against others on the market. How long before someone else starts producing my fuel at a cheaper price? Not long. Who cares if it "costs the company money" when you buy from the cheaper source?
Now hackers have provided alternative "accessories" for the XBOX, and no one cares about Microsoft's business plan.
-dbc
The map is incomplete - I don't see Bernard Shifman on there anywhere
What if you don't realize that what you're doing is illegal? What if you are into growing plants, and the cops bust in and confiscate all your cash, computers, and electronics gear because they detected the heat lamp you use to grow tropical plants? What about the case of Steve Jackson Games, a respectable company that was making an innocent game about hacking/espionage/etc? They had all their computers confiscated even though they never actually did anything wrong! What if your friends have done something illegal and it turns out that you are guilty of conspiracy? (that conspiracy thing is no joke, it happened to me).
My point is that you probably do have something to hide, but you may not know it.
While this discussion may be US-centric, keep in mind that the US runs the show. Any issue in the states is a global issue, because Bush & Ashcroft will shove it down your throats if you don't fight against it now.
-dbc
Up until recently I have disliked the idea of cameras monitoring the public, but in two weeks I will be moving into a rather shady neighborhood. A friend of mine used to live in the same area and his fiancee was robbed right in front of his apartment - they took her $2000 engagement ring. Would a few extra cameras deter some crime? Probably. Especially if they monitored them a lot at first, and made a few public busts. It would definitely make me feel a little safer. I will definitely be installing a few cameras of my own (although some of them will be fake!).
You also have to consider that my friend, who owns the building, will be actively campaigning for security cameras in the neighborhood - with the long-term goal of reducing crime and hopefully increasing property values.
-dbc
Looking at past records would probably not be a reliable source of information. In this case they are doing research that will affect the health of people who will be living under unusual conditions for two years, so it's important that the experiment is done under carefully controlled conditions. Also, you would have a hard time gathering data from looking at old hospital records because all of your subjects would have some kind of health problem, and that would probably screw up your results.
dbc
I've recently started buying from vendors who are geographically close to me, and I make sure to have them tell me when my shipment will arrive. I live in Missouri and I hate waiting two weeks for my parts to show up.
dbc
Can we get some basic stats with the interview? I mean, we all know that Google gets a lot of traffic but how many hits per day/hour/minute? How big is the server farm? How much bandwidth are they eating? How about some other interesting stats? (I'm sure they have plenty!)
dbc
Are you saying that reverse engineering is "Committing wrong"? Are you saying that creating software that interacts with closed software is "Committing wrong" (keep in mind that by this line of reasoning both BNETD and Samba are committing wrong). I personally see no moral violation on the part of the BNETD authors, and the legal case against them is shaky at best (DMCA? copyright violation?).
My point is that if companies want to go around suing each other that doesnt bother me. But when companies go around sueing little guys like BNETD who don't have the funds to defend themselves, and who probably wont have any significant effect on the "bottom line" or the sales figures for Warcraft3 or any other game, consumers need to stand up and fight that sort of thing.
I dont think BNETD broke any laws or did anything wrong. The fact that BNETD allows piracy is irrelevant. CD-Burners allow piracy too! Does that mean that the creators of CD-Burners are "Committing wrong"? No! Can CD-Burners be used for positive, legal purposes? Yes. Can BNETD be used for positive purposes, by people who support Blizzard and buy their games? Yes.
-dbc
you dont have to link to both the article and the parent site - people who want to visit the parent site can use the frickin backspace key
The issue in this controversy is not whether Open Source software is better or more legal or required over closed source. The issue is that Companies should not sue independant not-for-profit individuals just because their work happens to interfere (theoretically!) with their business model!
If two mega-corporations want to sue each other - fine, go right ahead. If Blizzard wants to sue Microsoft, or Microsoft wants to sue Blizzard - that's just great. But for sueing people that are not making money from the product they are being sued over, Blizzard needs to be punished. If bnetd were a commercial product, I would probably still buy WC3.
-dbc