ahh yes i forgot about that one, i didnt realize they were sold i thought they were just engineering samples, i didnt bother biulding a new box until core 2 was out... probably why lol good catch!!
Why would sony release something like this and NOT release a generation 2 PSP with all of this capability?:( not that the PSP is the greatest thing ever but still why have to handhelds like this and not one kick ass one that has all this.. ?
yes as i was pointing out to the poster, as well as it was purchased and not built by Intel. but when you read the story and it talks about two seperate things.. a CHIP and WAFER plant it sets the tone for the posts i suppose
That old place was slated to be Fab16.. its nickname is now SLAB16.. its been sold in case your interested and the Gov. there (county i believe) basically but a screetching halt by pulling the BOND out from underneath Intel's feet after the slab was laid down.. so blame that on local government or there would have probably been a new factory announcement there in Austin as well.. seeing how there were at one point great plans to develope in that area.
Intel has had Fabs making chips in Isreal since 6inch technology (Fab8 flash only now) there is also Fab18 (200mm factory flash factory only as well) IF Fab28 is built (if its officially announced) then it will be a Logic/Flash site as well but even some 486 machines were made in isreal:P
your THIRD world state happens to produce over 80% of all P4's that the world uses... its got the largest continuous cleanroom space in the world and the only HIGH volume 300mm factory for intel (Ireland is ramping up quickly though.. F24)... Fab7 which was the original fab in New Mexico was shutdown (on 6 inch wafer technology the only one now left for Intel is currently in Isreal Fab8) and is being refitting as a temporary capacity its NOT testing like what you think.. its Assemply/Test (basically testing the chips and seeing which ones to actually make into a full fledges processor...) this is to relieve constraint on the current A/T sites until the new one is announces and built... and after that it will become a DataCenter (probably 2-3 yrs).. oh and Intel employees over 6000 people in New Mexico as well incase your interested.
The article is pretty much what you said.. somebody writing about something they dont know about.. and on an OFFICIAL note Intel hasn't officially announced the Isreal Plant ONLY Fab32 (the AZ plant) has been officially announced as on the roadmap.
Ireland already has a new 300mm Factory called F24, and its ramping up on some of intels (current) latest technology as we speak.. its on the same site as the old fab (200mm)
Actually "THEY" didnt build that.. they bought it and tried to retro-fit it. And yes the tech crash... and recently accounements take the lifespan of that site out to 2010+ (without getting anything added to their workload)
Buy liscensing IP from SCO you in turn denounce the GPL liscence on the Linux Code. Which means if they are cought distributing any linux GPL material on their sites then they can be sued for violation of the GPL.. am i right?
I work for a rather Large company, and Thousands of employees use these 600 series the E and the X.
In the 2.5 yrs ive had mine the battery has been replaced 2x and they stopped really supporting giving you new ones, instead IT's solution is to buy you an extra power supply or two.
For business trips it works.. but if it were a personal laptop i would be upset.
They replace them on a 4 yr cycle so im already over the half way piont.. i only hope my replacement isnt the same way.. it will probably be the T-30 or the successor to that model.
Not a bad idea just have the iPOD connected to a camera... the iPOD itself will power the recording media.. so the battery to the camcorder would last longer right?:)*
As in the story here this is another example that im sure will be ridaculed from those that do not play online games or dislike them.. but here it is:)*
As with any online game Dark Age of Camelot has built a community of close friends, but in this instance over 800 users from 3 different Realms (sides or teams of the server) gathered in total peace for over 2 hrs to Tribute the death of a fallen friend. Thanks to the Order of Imperial Knights (MMORPG GUILD) for the video. Shortly after Italian servers also held a tribute for Bruic Elfslayer of Forsaken Guard (MMORPG Guild) Rest well Bruic, Well miss ya -Percival Server Community
my responce on the boards indicated in this story. sorry the other post messed up so i hit a lot of returns.. to lazy to take out all the tags from theother forum
Assuming this interview is true and this is a VC representative, and noting that my beliefs are mine and not anyone elses i will now reply to this.
P-T: what is your stance on making open source software illegal?
Vivendi Rep: [b][i]If[/i] the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.[/b]
This is the KEYWORD here IF.. nothing of this sort has happened with the Authors of bnetd, they are not making any profit from this it is OPEN SOURCE...
P-T: Why is Vivendi suing on the claims of making the BNetD software for money? It's open source, no one is making any money off of it.
Vivendi Rep: [b]The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit. [/b]
You have to be kidding me? you are saying that you are basing a lawsuit off of a belief?
So i believe that Microsoft will support pirated versions of Blizzard Games in the future releases.. from this respect we think you should SUE Microsoft?
same thing here programmers using there OWN minds not making any profit or breaking any laws here are being sued on a belief that they "MAY" want to use this in the future?
while your at it sue all the handgun owners in America because they "MAY" kill someone in 3.3 yrs.
oh and dont forget to sue Blizzard for potentially looking at the opensource code and adding it into there own server.. you do know that commands inside the OpenSource server were there and then they Magically appeared inside the real one right? maybe the courts should look into this aspect.. you know a major corporation using GPL code and not adhering to the liscense is probably a bad thing
all the things i just mentioned are based on "IFs"... and as you can see they all look as reputable as the one from the interview.
P-T: Is use of DMCA and attacking bnetd simply a publicity stunt to hype up Warcraft 3 before it's release? Were the supposed losses due to piracy used to justify the increased prices (compared to Diablo 2 regular and collector's edition) of Warcraft 3 regular version (from $30 to $50) and collector's edition (from $50 to $80)?
Vivendi Rep: No. We feel as though the intellectual property of the Battle.net coders has been stolen by the BNetD project. As far as I know, there are no publicity aspects involved in the suit against BNetD. It is a legal issue that needs to be cleared up and this is the way that we can do that.
First of all the DMCA stuff was dropped. They are now claiming Patent infringment.. basically saying that there property was stolen..
BUT the law says that you may reverse engineer for purposes of interoperability. The coders NEVER saw the battle.net code.. unless they are claiming that they broke into there systems.. Basically their claim is that since there is a bug in the code in there server AND in BNETD they must have copied it. But this is obviously not the case..
The method of reproducing the code was by taking network traffic (TCP DUMPS) and painstakingly reconstructing every single message that battle.net gives back EVERY ONE.. the point here being that if battle.net sends a message because of a bug then you would hope that if the BNETD coders are doing a good job then they will also do this. there claim here is not at all a good one and makes them look like they opened there mouths before thinking.
P-T: Did Blizzard/Vivendi ever consider purchasing bnetd and fsgs technology as a way to improve and lessen the load off their b.net servers?
Vivendi Rep: I don't know. It's a possibility.
The question here is will BNETD sell? the answer is NO its Open source.. even if they buy it the code that is GPL is legally usable by anyone and can still be maintained. infact im not sure but i think that unless released under a different liscence.. when buying it they would have to release ALL changes to the code.. that is IF you can buy GPL code?
P-T: What do you think about the attempted hiring of a successful cracker of the Warcraft III Beta by Blizzard?
Vivendi Rep: Hiring your largest threat is one easy way to get rid of the threat of piracy.
Nothing to do with BNETD.. this project is totally different.. BNETD OPENLY refused to begin work on this part of the server until final release.. like they have done on all projects. They are obviosly going after the wrong people but think there money will make this fact not be an issue.
P-T: What positive outcomes (for the gaming community and product development) do they expect to achieve by pursuing the lawsuit?
Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.
Theft of intellectual property? what a crock.. the BNETD coders thought of how to program this just like the Blizzard ones.. they used the messages to see what to send BUT the code is all thought you cant just set down and look at the message and write a server without heavy thought process.. and if you think you can i challenge you to do so..
Again the DMCA is referenced.. yet the actual lawsuit says copyright stuff nothing about hte DMCA... second of all piracy has a definition.. look it up.. reproducing code from a network dump for interoperability is NOT one of them..
if they are refereing to Copied games being played on the BNETD servers then my answer is this
what about KALI.. they distro'd it with early games.. same thing there.. what about other links.. FSGS was a link on the site from Blizzard for a while. What about the fact that they allow multi-player action on IPX or LAN w/o cdkey checking?..they make it sound like BNETD is the bad guy here.. the cdkey thing is totally invalid they provide ways to play w/o the cd-key checking so how can BNETD be the source of all of its loss of revenue due to supposed copied games? infact.. MOST people that copy it play it on a LAN at college.. yet there is NO cd-key check there..
the BNETD site, support and coders have NEVER condoned copying hte games.. the developers OWN copies of the games.. hell even Warcraft II BNE.. and that is a waste of money.
P-T: Do you feel that the huge number of pirated Blizzard games will hurt BNetD in the court cases?
Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.
So are they going to take into account the number of LAN games that are pirated?.. NO why you say? well because you cannot keep tabs on that.. just like you cannot keep tabs on our servers.. Blizzard has NO CLUE what number of people play the game on BNETD with pirated games.. hell probably more play on BLIZZARD with pirated games and cd-key generators when they get a bad key.. they just generate a new one and play again.
---------------
There it is. I feel as though I got a few good answers out of him, and I hope that this helps to answer any possible questions that you all might have. My impression is that Vivendi really doesn't know as much about the dirty details of the situation, and they are filing suit on a truly legal basis. Once again, I hope this helped, and I am hoping to get some answers from the same representative over email.
my responce on the boards indicated in this story.
Assuming this interview is true and this is a VC representative, and noting that my beliefs are mine and not anyone elses i will now reply to this.
P-T: what is your stance on making open source software illegal?
Vivendi Rep: [b][i]If[/i] the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.[/b]
This is the KEYWORD here IF.. nothing of this sort has happened with the Authors of bnetd, they are not making any profit from this it is OPEN SOURCE...
P-T: Why is Vivendi suing on the claims of making the BNetD software for money? It's open source, no one is making any money off of it.
Vivendi Rep: [b]The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit. [/b]
You have to be kidding me? you are saying that you are basing a lawsuit off of a belief?
So i believe that Microsoft will support pirated versions of Blizzard Games in the future releases.. from this respect we think you should SUE Microsoft?
same thing here programmers using there OWN minds not making any profit or breaking any laws here are being sued on a belief that they "MAY" want to use this in the future?
while your at it sue all the handgun owners in America because they "MAY" kill someone in 3.3 yrs.
oh and dont forget to sue Blizzard for potentially looking at the opensource code and adding it into there own server.. you do know that commands inside the OpenSource server were there and then they Magically appeared inside the real one right? maybe the courts should look into this aspect.. you know a major corporation using GPL code and not adhering to the liscense is probably a bad thing
all the things i just mentioned are based on "IFs"... and as you can see they all look as reputable as the one from the interview.
P-T: Is use of DMCA and attacking bnetd simply a publicity stunt to hype up Warcraft 3 before it's release? Were the supposed losses due to piracy used to justify the increased prices (compared to Diablo 2 regular and collector's edition) of Warcraft 3 regular version (from $30 to $50) and collector's edition (from $50 to $80)?
Vivendi Rep: No. We feel as though the intellectual property of the Battle.net coders has been stolen by the BNetD project. As far as I know, there are no publicity aspects involved in the suit against BNetD. It is a legal issue that needs to be cleared up and this is the way that we can do that.
First of all the DMCA stuff was dropped. They are now claiming Patent infringment.. basically saying that there property was stolen..
BUT the law says that you may reverse engineer for purposes of interoperability. The coders NEVER saw the battle.net code.. unless they are claiming that they broke into there systems.. Basically their claim is that since there is a bug in the code in there server AND in BNETD they must have copied it. But this is obviously not the case..
The method of reproducing the code was by taking network traffic (TCP DUMPS) and painstakingly reconstructing every single message that battle.net gives back EVERY ONE.. the point here being that if battle.net sends a message because of a bug then you would hope that if the BNETD coders are doing a good job then they will also do this. there claim here is not at all a good one and makes them look like they opened there mouths before thinking.
P-T: Did Blizzard/Vivendi ever consider purchasing bnetd and fsgs technology as a way to improve and lessen the load off their b.net servers?
Vivendi Rep: I don't know. It's a possibility.
The question here is will BNETD sell? the answer is NO its Open source.. even if they buy it the code that is GPL is legally usable by anyone and can still be maintained. infact im not sure but i think that unless released under a different liscence.. when buying it they would have to release ALL changes to the code.. that is IF you can buy GPL code?
P-T: What do you think about the attempted hiring of a successful cracker of the Warcraft III Beta by Blizzard?
Vivendi Rep: Hiring your largest threat is one easy way to get rid of the threat of piracy.
Nothing to do with BNETD.. this project is totally different..
BNETD OPENLY refused to begin work on this part of the server until final release.. like they have done on all projects. They are obviosly going after the wrong people but think there money will make this fact not be an issue.
P-T: What positive outcomes (for the gaming community and product development) do they expect to achieve by pursuing the lawsuit?
Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.
Theft of intellectual property? what a crock.. the BNETD coders thought of how to program this just like the Blizzard ones.. they used the messages to see what to send BUT the code is all thought you cant just set down and look at the message and write a server without heavy thought process.. and if you think you can i challenge you to do so..
Again the DMCA is referenced.. yet the actual lawsuit says copyright stuff nothing about hte DMCA... second of all piracy has a definition.. look it up.. reproducing code from a network dump for interoperability is NOT one of them..
if they are refereing to Copied games being played on the BNETD servers then my answer is this
what about KALI.. they distro'd it with early games.. same thing there.. what about other links.. FSGS was a link on the site from Blizzard for a while. What about the fact that they allow multi-player action on IPX or LAN w/o cdkey checking?..they make it sound like BNETD is the bad guy here.. the cdkey thing is totally invalid they provide ways to play w/o the cd-key checking so how can BNETD be the source of all of its loss of revenue due to supposed copied games? infact.. MOST people that copy it play it on a LAN at college.. yet there is NO cd-key check there..
the BNETD site, support and coders have NEVER condoned copying hte games.. the developers OWN copies of the games.. hell even Warcraft II BNE.. and that is a waste of money.
P-T: Do you feel that the huge number of pirated Blizzard games will hurt BNetD in the court cases?
Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.
So are they going to take into account the number of LAN games that are pirated?.. NO why you say? well because you cannot keep tabs on that.. just like you cannot keep tabs on our servers.. Blizzard has NO CLUE what number of people play the game on BNETD with pirated games.. hell probably more play on BLIZZARD with pirated games and cd-key generators when they get a bad key.. they just generate a new one and play again.
---------------
There it is. I feel as though I got a few good answers out of him, and I hope that this helps to answer any possible questions that you all might have. My impression is that Vivendi really doesn't know as much about the dirty details of the situation, and they are filing suit on a truly legal basis. Once again, I hope this helped, and I am hoping to get some answers from the same representative over email.
BnetD has never shipped with any graphics included that are of Blizzards. They might have had some on the websites that represent it. But a simple cease and desist and take them down sent out to EVERY single FAN site in the world would suffice for this.
You cannot prove this in any way. Unless you had developers from Blizzard under Oath LIE about the code. Any joe with TCP dump would impliment the server the same way.. blindly w/ all the bugs since by only seeing network traffic they only see what is happening not a bug is happening. So it can also be argued that since there are limited ways to do the same thing that they will be similar.. very similar if one is built to respons EXACTLY the same way the other is. And that unless they coders (they did not) had access to server code OR Blizzard can prove they broke in physically or otherwise to Blizzard Corp. or there computers and STOLE it as they claim, then they have a very weak case.
By definition a Mimic reacts the same way.. so you can assume it was built in a similar fashion even though they were built by different people at different times.
Blizzard is only protecting their investment. They developed the protocol and the software and the system and the clients and everything involoved. All of their newer products include support for BATTLE.NET and they used it as a value-added feature of those games (what value it is to you is, of course, debateable). Weather or not they charge for their services is not important. What is important is that by having a central multiplayer server it helps them, in their own minds, curb piracy to a limited extent. They've basically limited pirates to only being able to play by themselves and on lans.
Remember, they don't see their customers as honest people. They see a few honest people and a scourge of pirates, hocking their warez. To them, BnetD is an outright attemt from the pirates as a way of compensating for the lack of BATTLE.NET support in the pirated version of the game. Obviously, the developers of BnetD would disagree with this assessment, but lets see which arguement holds water.
Blizzards argument: People are _using_ bnetd to play pirated copies of our released games and pirated copies of a game still in development. Wrong. BNETD has NEVER supported use of unreleased games from Blizzard, they specifically stated in the forums that they will not begin work on support for WC3 until it is released. While bnetd _can_ be used to host honest servers, the majority of bnetd servers seem to allow pirates and hooligans to steal and exploit our software.They support KALI which does this it was even shipped with early versions of some Blizzard games. They also make no mention that single player and regular TCP and LAN connections let you play w/o any CD-Key check.
BnetD argument: BATTLE.NET sucks. It sucks so hard that we took it upon ourselves to develop our own server software to play with. We were also curious as to how the BATTLE.NET protocol worked. We are honest owners of the games we play and expect that everyone else will do the same now that we've given it away. We cannot implement the CD-KEY check because you won't tell us how.
Facts:
- Blizzard is under NO OBLIGATION to make "open" the BATTLE.NET protocol.
- the BnetD had NO RIGHT to reverse-engineer the BATTLE.NET protocol. Even if they did, it's a moot point because: They didnt reverse engineer the PROTOCAL, its open to your eyes with any TCP dump program. They wrote a program that mimics the way that the real battle.net servers react to every situation they encounter. Basically looking at A LOT of TCP dumps for hours on end. If there is a bug (which they wouldnt have known about anyways) they would see the reaction in the packets they look at and make there server respond the same way. They did this without any use of CODE and nothing was illegal in doing this.
- the BnetD provides a way to circumvent the copy control measures of the BATTLE.NET portion of Blizzard's games (the "copy control measures" being the cd-key check).Please see statement above..
At any rate, Blizzard should look to what Sierra/Valve did with the Half-Life keyserver. I think that Blizzard sees BATTLE.NET as a way for people to play a game with persistant characters. What they don't seem to understand is that there are thousands of people out there who are willing to run free and legitamite servers - to help improve overall performance. They should have a central key-server that people must authenticate against before being able to connect to a 3rd party server (and this doesn't have to expose their algorythim as they claim).
While I don't think they should, I do think that Blizzard has the right to ask for the BnetD project to be terminated. I think they should also drop the ".NET" from BATTLE.NET because a network is a connection of multiple server computers that provides services to multiple clients. BALTTLE.NET is only one server (internally there may be dozens, but externally there are only the Blizzard owned/controlled servers).
What you are saying here has nothing to do with BNETD at all.. writing a small server based on TCP dumps from communication is far... FAR from actually writing the AI side of a MMO.. the economy system, the weather system the load balancing.. bnetd is not intended for this it is not really a game server as battle.net is not a game server either (well until closed diablo II)
it is simply a forum to meet and start up tcp games without having to call your friend and tell him ok connect to IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx now..
its mainly a chat server with the ability to hook up players with each other to play a game serverd on your LOCAL computer.. the only reason to keep a connection to bnet.d or battle.net is to report ladder stats, game stats, and be able to chat while in game with someone that is in a chat room...
the Pay to PLAY model is for the MMO "WoW" not for Battle.net
Slashdot Mirror
ahh yes i forgot about that one, i didnt realize they were sold i thought they were just engineering samples, i didnt bother biulding a new box until core 2 was out... probably why lol good catch!!
P4 was never multi core... multi processor yes... but core no...
Why would sony release something like this and NOT release a generation 2 PSP with all of this capability? :( not that the PSP is the greatest thing ever but still why have to handhelds like this and not one kick ass one that has all this.. ?
yes as i was pointing out to the poster, as well as it was purchased and not built by Intel. but when you read the story and it talks about two seperate things.. a CHIP and WAFER plant it sets the tone for the posts i suppose
That old place was slated to be Fab16.. its nickname is now SLAB16 .. its been sold in case your interested and the Gov. there (county i believe) basically but a screetching halt by pulling the BOND out from underneath Intel's feet after the slab was laid down.. so blame that on local government or there would have probably been a new factory announcement there in Austin as well.. seeing how there were at one point great plans to develope in that area.
Intel has had Fabs making chips in Isreal since 6inch technology (Fab8 flash only now) there is also Fab18 (200mm factory flash factory only as well) IF Fab28 is built (if its officially announced) then it will be a Logic/Flash site as well but even some 486 machines were made in isreal :P
your THIRD world state happens to produce over 80% of all P4's that the world uses... its got the largest continuous cleanroom space in the world and the only HIGH volume 300mm factory for intel (Ireland is ramping up quickly though .. F24)... Fab7 which was the original fab in New Mexico was shutdown (on 6 inch wafer technology the only one now left for Intel is currently in Isreal Fab8) and is being refitting as a temporary capacity its NOT testing like what you think.. its Assemply/Test (basically testing the chips and seeing which ones to actually make into a full fledges processor...) this is to relieve constraint on the current A/T sites until the new one is announces and built... and after that it will become a DataCenter (probably 2-3 yrs) .. oh and Intel employees over 6000 people in New Mexico as well incase your interested.
The article is pretty much what you said.. somebody writing about something they dont know about.. and on an OFFICIAL note Intel hasn't officially announced the Isreal Plant ONLY Fab32 (the AZ plant) has been officially announced as on the roadmap.
Ireland already has a new 300mm Factory called F24, and its ramping up on some of intels (current) latest technology as we speak.. its on the same site as the old fab (200mm)
Actually "THEY" didnt build that.. they bought it and tried to retro-fit it. And yes the tech crash... and recently accounements take the lifespan of that site out to 2010+ (without getting anything added to their workload)
Buy liscensing IP from SCO you in turn denounce the GPL liscence on the Linux Code. Which means if they are cought distributing any linux GPL material on their sites then they can be sued for violation of the GPL .. am i right?
so if i install this on a spare 500Mb HD and store it away im safe? :P
Being affiliated with this situation id like to thank the EFF for their efforts :)
I work for a rather Large company, and Thousands of employees use these 600 series the E and the X. In the 2.5 yrs ive had mine the battery has been replaced 2x and they stopped really supporting giving you new ones, instead IT's solution is to buy you an extra power supply or two. For business trips it works.. but if it were a personal laptop i would be upset. They replace them on a 4 yr cycle so im already over the half way piont.. i only hope my replacement isnt the same way.. it will probably be the T-30 or the successor to that model.
Not a bad idea just have the iPOD connected to a camera ... the iPOD itself will power the recording media.. so the battery to the camcorder would last longer right? :)*
As in the story here this is another example that im sure will be ridaculed from those that do not play online games or dislike them.. but here it is :)*
As with any online game Dark Age of Camelot has built a community of close friends, but in this instance over 800 users from 3 different Realms (sides or teams of the server) gathered in total peace for over 2 hrs to Tribute the death of a fallen friend. Thanks to the Order of Imperial Knights (MMORPG GUILD) for the video. Shortly after Italian servers also held a tribute for Bruic Elfslayer of Forsaken Guard (MMORPG Guild) Rest well Bruic, Well miss ya -Percival Server Community
my responce on the boards indicated in this story. sorry the other post messed up so i hit a lot of returns.. to lazy to take out all the tags from theother forum
.. you know a major corporation using GPL code and not adhering to the liscense is probably a bad thing
... and as you can see they all look as reputable as the one from the interview.
.. even if they buy it the code that is GPL is legally usable by anyone and can still be maintained. infact im not sure but i think that unless released under a different liscence .. when buying it they would have to release ALL changes to the code.. that is IF you can buy GPL code?
.. this project is totally different..
.. and if you think you can i challenge you to do so..
.. FSGS was a link on the site from Blizzard for a while. What about the fact that they allow multi-player action on IPX or LAN w/o cdkey checking? ..they make it sound like BNETD is the bad guy here.. the cdkey thing is totally invalid they provide ways to play w/o the cd-key checking so how can BNETD be the source of all of its loss of revenue due to supposed copied games? infact.. MOST people that copy it play it on a LAN at college.. yet there is NO cd-key check there..
.. the developers OWN copies of the games.. hell even Warcraft II BNE .. and that is a waste of money.
.. NO why you say? well because you cannot keep tabs on that.. just like you cannot keep tabs on our servers.. Blizzard has NO CLUE what number of people play the game on BNETD with pirated games.. hell probably more play on BLIZZARD with pirated games and cd-key generators when they get a bad key.. they just generate a new one and play again.
Assuming this interview is true and this is a VC representative, and noting that my beliefs are mine and not anyone elses i will now reply to this.
P-T: what is your stance on making open source software illegal?
Vivendi Rep: [b][i]If[/i] the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.[/b]
This is the KEYWORD here IF.. nothing of this sort has happened with the Authors of bnetd, they are not making any profit from this it is OPEN SOURCE...
P-T: Why is Vivendi suing on the claims of making the BNetD software for money? It's open source, no one is making any money off of it.
Vivendi Rep: [b]The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit. [/b]
You have to be kidding me? you are saying that you are basing a lawsuit off of a belief?
So i believe that Microsoft will support pirated versions of Blizzard Games in the future releases.. from this respect we think you should SUE Microsoft?
same thing here programmers using there OWN minds not making any profit or breaking any laws here are being sued on a belief that they "MAY" want to use this in the future?
while your at it sue all the handgun owners in America because they "MAY" kill someone in 3.3 yrs.
oh and dont forget to sue Blizzard for potentially looking at the opensource code and adding it into there own server.. you do know that commands inside the OpenSource server were there and then they Magically appeared inside the real one right? maybe the courts should look into this aspect
all the things i just mentioned are based on "IFs"
P-T: Is use of DMCA and attacking bnetd simply a publicity stunt to hype up Warcraft 3 before it's release? Were the supposed losses due to piracy used to justify the increased prices (compared to Diablo 2 regular and collector's edition) of Warcraft 3 regular version (from $30 to $50) and collector's edition (from $50 to $80)?
Vivendi Rep: No. We feel as though the intellectual property of the Battle.net coders has been stolen by the BNetD project. As far as I know, there are no publicity aspects involved in the suit against BNetD. It is a legal issue that needs to be cleared up and this is the way that we can do that.
First of all the DMCA stuff was dropped. They are now claiming Patent infringment.. basically saying that there property was stolen..
BUT the law says that you may reverse engineer for purposes of interoperability. The coders NEVER saw the battle.net code.. unless they are claiming that they broke into there systems.. Basically their claim is that since there is a bug in the code in there server AND in BNETD they must have copied it. But this is obviously not the case..
The method of reproducing the code was by taking network traffic (TCP DUMPS) and painstakingly reconstructing every single message that battle.net gives back EVERY ONE.. the point here being that if battle.net sends a message because of a bug then you would hope that if the BNETD coders are doing a good job then they will also do this. there claim here is not at all a good one and makes them look like they opened there mouths before thinking.
P-T: Did Blizzard/Vivendi ever consider purchasing bnetd and fsgs technology as a way to improve and lessen the load off their b.net servers?
Vivendi Rep: I don't know. It's a possibility.
The question here is will BNETD sell? the answer is NO its Open source
P-T: What do you think about the attempted hiring of a successful cracker of the Warcraft III Beta by Blizzard?
Vivendi Rep: Hiring your largest threat is one easy way to get rid of the threat of piracy.
Nothing to do with BNETD
BNETD OPENLY refused to begin work on this part of the server until final release.. like they have done on all projects. They are obviosly going after the wrong people but think there money will make this fact not be an issue.
P-T: What positive outcomes (for the gaming community and product development) do they expect to achieve by pursuing the lawsuit?
Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.
Theft of intellectual property? what a crock.. the BNETD coders thought of how to program this just like the Blizzard ones.. they used the messages to see what to send BUT the code is all thought you cant just set down and look at the message and write a server without heavy thought process
Again the DMCA is referenced.. yet the actual lawsuit says copyright stuff nothing about hte DMCA... second of all piracy has a definition.. look it up.. reproducing code from a network dump for interoperability is NOT one of them..
if they are refereing to Copied games being played on the BNETD servers then my answer is this
what about KALI.. they distro'd it with early games.. same thing there.. what about other links
the BNETD site, support and coders have NEVER condoned copying hte games
P-T: Do you feel that the huge number of pirated Blizzard games will hurt BNetD in the court cases?
Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.
So are they going to take into account the number of LAN games that are pirated?
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There it is. I feel as though I got a few good answers out of him, and I hope that this helps to answer any possible questions that you all might have. My impression is that Vivendi really doesn't know as much about the dirty details of the situation, and they are filing suit on a truly legal basis. Once again, I hope this helped, and I am hoping to get some answers from the same representative over email.
my responce on the boards indicated in this story. Assuming this interview is true and this is a VC representative, and noting that my beliefs are mine and not anyone elses i will now reply to this. P-T: what is your stance on making open source software illegal? Vivendi Rep: [b][i]If[/i] the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.[/b] This is the KEYWORD here IF.. nothing of this sort has happened with the Authors of bnetd, they are not making any profit from this it is OPEN SOURCE... P-T: Why is Vivendi suing on the claims of making the BNetD software for money? It's open source, no one is making any money off of it. Vivendi Rep: [b]The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit. [/b] You have to be kidding me? you are saying that you are basing a lawsuit off of a belief? So i believe that Microsoft will support pirated versions of Blizzard Games in the future releases.. from this respect we think you should SUE Microsoft? same thing here programmers using there OWN minds not making any profit or breaking any laws here are being sued on a belief that they "MAY" want to use this in the future? while your at it sue all the handgun owners in America because they "MAY" kill someone in 3.3 yrs. oh and dont forget to sue Blizzard for potentially looking at the opensource code and adding it into there own server.. you do know that commands inside the OpenSource server were there and then they Magically appeared inside the real one right? maybe the courts should look into this aspect .. you know a major corporation using GPL code and not adhering to the liscense is probably a bad thing
all the things i just mentioned are based on "IFs" ... and as you can see they all look as reputable as the one from the interview.
P-T: Is use of DMCA and attacking bnetd simply a publicity stunt to hype up Warcraft 3 before it's release? Were the supposed losses due to piracy used to justify the increased prices (compared to Diablo 2 regular and collector's edition) of Warcraft 3 regular version (from $30 to $50) and collector's edition (from $50 to $80)?
Vivendi Rep: No. We feel as though the intellectual property of the Battle.net coders has been stolen by the BNetD project. As far as I know, there are no publicity aspects involved in the suit against BNetD. It is a legal issue that needs to be cleared up and this is the way that we can do that.
First of all the DMCA stuff was dropped. They are now claiming Patent infringment.. basically saying that there property was stolen..
BUT the law says that you may reverse engineer for purposes of interoperability. The coders NEVER saw the battle.net code.. unless they are claiming that they broke into there systems.. Basically their claim is that since there is a bug in the code in there server AND in BNETD they must have copied it. But this is obviously not the case..
The method of reproducing the code was by taking network traffic (TCP DUMPS) and painstakingly reconstructing every single message that battle.net gives back EVERY ONE.. the point here being that if battle.net sends a message because of a bug then you would hope that if the BNETD coders are doing a good job then they will also do this. there claim here is not at all a good one and makes them look like they opened there mouths before thinking.
P-T: Did Blizzard/Vivendi ever consider purchasing bnetd and fsgs technology as a way to improve and lessen the load off their b.net servers?
Vivendi Rep: I don't know. It's a possibility.
The question here is will BNETD sell? the answer is NO its Open source .. even if they buy it the code that is GPL is legally usable by anyone and can still be maintained. infact im not sure but i think that unless released under a different liscence .. when buying it they would have to release ALL changes to the code.. that is IF you can buy GPL code?
P-T: What do you think about the attempted hiring of a successful cracker of the Warcraft III Beta by Blizzard?
Vivendi Rep: Hiring your largest threat is one easy way to get rid of the threat of piracy.
Nothing to do with BNETD .. this project is totally different..
BNETD OPENLY refused to begin work on this part of the server until final release.. like they have done on all projects. They are obviosly going after the wrong people but think there money will make this fact not be an issue.
P-T: What positive outcomes (for the gaming community and product development) do they expect to achieve by pursuing the lawsuit?
Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.
Theft of intellectual property? what a crock.. the BNETD coders thought of how to program this just like the Blizzard ones.. they used the messages to see what to send BUT the code is all thought you cant just set down and look at the message and write a server without heavy thought process .. and if you think you can i challenge you to do so..
Again the DMCA is referenced.. yet the actual lawsuit says copyright stuff nothing about hte DMCA... second of all piracy has a definition.. look it up.. reproducing code from a network dump for interoperability is NOT one of them..
if they are refereing to Copied games being played on the BNETD servers then my answer is this
what about KALI.. they distro'd it with early games.. same thing there.. what about other links .. FSGS was a link on the site from Blizzard for a while. What about the fact that they allow multi-player action on IPX or LAN w/o cdkey checking? ..they make it sound like BNETD is the bad guy here.. the cdkey thing is totally invalid they provide ways to play w/o the cd-key checking so how can BNETD be the source of all of its loss of revenue due to supposed copied games? infact.. MOST people that copy it play it on a LAN at college.. yet there is NO cd-key check there..
the BNETD site, support and coders have NEVER condoned copying hte games .. the developers OWN copies of the games.. hell even Warcraft II BNE .. and that is a waste of money.
P-T: Do you feel that the huge number of pirated Blizzard games will hurt BNetD in the court cases?
Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.
So are they going to take into account the number of LAN games that are pirated? .. NO why you say? well because you cannot keep tabs on that.. just like you cannot keep tabs on our servers.. Blizzard has NO CLUE what number of people play the game on BNETD with pirated games.. hell probably more play on BLIZZARD with pirated games and cd-key generators when they get a bad key.. they just generate a new one and play again.
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There it is. I feel as though I got a few good answers out of him, and I hope that this helps to answer any possible questions that you all might have. My impression is that Vivendi really doesn't know as much about the dirty details of the situation, and they are filing suit on a truly legal basis. Once again, I hope this helped, and I am hoping to get some answers from the same representative over email.
BnetD has never shipped with any graphics included that are of Blizzards. They might have had some on the websites that represent it. But a simple cease and desist and take them down sent out to EVERY single FAN site in the world would suffice for this.
You cannot prove this in any way. Unless you had developers from Blizzard under Oath LIE about the code. Any joe with TCP dump would impliment the server the same way .. blindly w/ all the bugs since by only seeing network traffic they only see what is happening not a bug is happening. So it can also be argued that since there are limited ways to do the same thing that they will be similar .. very similar if one is built to respons EXACTLY the same way the other is. And that unless they coders (they did not) had access to server code OR Blizzard can prove they broke in physically or otherwise to Blizzard Corp. or there computers and STOLE it as they claim, then they have a very weak case.
By definition a Mimic reacts the same way.. so you can assume it was built in a similar fashion even though they were built by different people at different times.
Blizzard is only protecting their investment. They developed the protocol and the software and the system and the clients and everything involoved. All of their newer products include support for BATTLE.NET and they used it as a value-added feature of those games (what value it is to you is, of course, debateable). Weather or not they charge for their services is not important. What is important is that by having a central multiplayer server it helps them, in their own minds, curb piracy to a limited extent. They've basically limited pirates to only being able to play by themselves and on lans. Remember, they don't see their customers as honest people. They see a few honest people and a scourge of pirates, hocking their warez. To them, BnetD is an outright attemt from the pirates as a way of compensating for the lack of BATTLE.NET support in the pirated version of the game. Obviously, the developers of BnetD would disagree with this assessment, but lets see which arguement holds water. Blizzards argument: People are _using_ bnetd to play pirated copies of our released games and pirated copies of a game still in development. Wrong. BNETD has NEVER supported use of unreleased games from Blizzard, they specifically stated in the forums that they will not begin work on support for WC3 until it is released. While bnetd _can_ be used to host honest servers, the majority of bnetd servers seem to allow pirates and hooligans to steal and exploit our software. They support KALI which does this it was even shipped with early versions of some Blizzard games. They also make no mention that single player and regular TCP and LAN connections let you play w/o any CD-Key check. BnetD argument: BATTLE.NET sucks. It sucks so hard that we took it upon ourselves to develop our own server software to play with. We were also curious as to how the BATTLE.NET protocol worked. We are honest owners of the games we play and expect that everyone else will do the same now that we've given it away. We cannot implement the CD-KEY check because you won't tell us how. Facts: - Blizzard is under NO OBLIGATION to make "open" the BATTLE.NET protocol. - the BnetD had NO RIGHT to reverse-engineer the BATTLE.NET protocol. Even if they did, it's a moot point because: They didnt reverse engineer the PROTOCAL, its open to your eyes with any TCP dump program. They wrote a program that mimics the way that the real battle.net servers react to every situation they encounter. Basically looking at A LOT of TCP dumps for hours on end. If there is a bug (which they wouldnt have known about anyways) they would see the reaction in the packets they look at and make there server respond the same way. They did this without any use of CODE and nothing was illegal in doing this. - the BnetD provides a way to circumvent the copy control measures of the BATTLE.NET portion of Blizzard's games (the "copy control measures" being the cd-key check). Please see statement above ..
At any rate, Blizzard should look to what Sierra/Valve did with the Half-Life keyserver. I think that Blizzard sees BATTLE.NET as a way for people to play a game with persistant characters. What they don't seem to understand is that there are thousands of people out there who are willing to run free and legitamite servers - to help improve overall performance. They should have a central key-server that people must authenticate against before being able to connect to a 3rd party server (and this doesn't have to expose their algorythim as they claim).
While I don't think they should, I do think that Blizzard has the right to ask for the BnetD project to be terminated. I think they should also drop the ".NET" from BATTLE.NET because a network is a connection of multiple server computers that provides services to multiple clients. BALTTLE.NET is only one server (internally there may be dozens, but externally there are only the Blizzard owned/controlled servers).
What you are saying here has nothing to do with BNETD at all.. writing a small server based on TCP dumps from communication is far ... FAR from actually writing the AI side of a MMO .. the economy system, the weather system the load balancing.. bnetd is not intended for this it is not really a game server as battle.net is not a game server either (well until closed diablo II)
it is simply a forum to meet and start up tcp games without having to call your friend and tell him ok connect to IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx now..
its mainly a chat server with the ability to hook up players with each other to play a game serverd on your LOCAL computer.. the only reason to keep a connection to bnet.d or battle.net is to report ladder stats, game stats, and be able to chat while in game with someone that is in a chat room...
the Pay to PLAY model is for the MMO "WoW" not for Battle.net