– by Tina Gasperson –

bnetd, an Open Source Blizzard.net game server emulator, has closed up shop, leaving
only a brief good-bye message at its Web site, after its ISP received a
cease and desist letter from Blizzard Entertainment.

The letter received by Internet Gateway is reprinted below:

February 19, 2002

Internet Gateway Inc.
tjung@igateway.net
noc@igateway.net
hostmaster@igateway.net

Dear Sir or Madam:

This letter is to notify you, pursuant to the provisions of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, that we believe one of your customers is
infringing Blizzard Entertainment’s, a division of Vivendi Universal Games,
Inc. (“VUG”), copyrighted materials. Specifically, Blizzard Entertainment is
the owner of the copyright for the computer games Diablo(r) II and StarCraft(r)
and the multi-player server software run by Blizzard Entertainment on its
Battle.net(r) site. The following site hosts and/or distributes software that
violates Blizzard Entertainment’s copyright:
http://www.bnetd.org/
The aforementioned site either hosts or distributes software which illegally
modifies and/or alters Blizzard Entertainment copyrighted software or
bypasses anti-circumvention technology, thereby infringing upon Blizzard
Entertainment copyrights. Accordingly, Blizzard Entertainment demands that
you act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the web page listed
above in order for you to claim a safe harbor under the DMCA from liability
for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. Please immediately
delete or disable access to this web page and remove its contents from view.
Should you have any questions, please contact the undersigned at
piracy@blizzard.com or 949-955-1380 extension
1616.
I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained
of is not authorized by Blizzard Entertainment, VUG, its agents or the law,
and that the information in this notice is accurate. I declare under penalty
of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that I am
authorized to act on behalf of all of the aforementioned entities.

Sincerely,
Rod Rigole
Corporate Counsel

Sources close to the bnetd project, licensed under the GNU GPL, say that Rigole told them Blizzard believes
bnetd violates the DMCA because the software doesn’t require users to
enter their games’ CD key in order to play, and because of that it is a
form of copy control circumvention.

Cached versions of some of the pages are reachable through
Google.com, and the files are mirrored and downloadable at CS.NMSU.Edu.

In recent months, Blizzard servers hosting multiple-player games like Diablo had suffered from denial of service attacks that caused poor game performance and a flood of complaints from users. Blizzard responded with this letter to its customers:

We have become aware of the fact that an individual or group has
initiated a server attack on both Battle.net and Blizzard's web
site. As a result of this illegal activity, many of our customers
are having difficulty logging on to the Battle.net game service
and accessing Blizzard's web pages. We are in the midst of
implementing a solution, but we wanted to let you know that the
situation is a direct result of external attacks on our servers,
and not a problem with Battle.net's stability.

The FBI and certain European law enforcement agencies have been
notified, and we are working in conjunction with them to identify
the individual. Attacks on our servers will not be tolerated, and
Blizzard fully intends to prosecute those responsible to the
fullest extent of the law.

If you have any information about the above activity, please
email hacks@blizzard.com.

And in its legal FAQ, Blizzard attempts to forbid emulation of its servers, lending further insight into the attack on bnetd:

Does Blizzard Entertainment® allow or support other Battle.net® like or emulation servers? Can I host one of these rogue servers?

No. Except as set forth in the next paragraph, Blizzard Entertainment® does not support or condone network play of its games anywhere
but Battle.net®. Specifically, you may not host or provide matchmaking services for any of our games or emulate or redirect the
communication protocols used by Blizzard Entertainment® in the network feature of its games, through protocol emulation, tunneling,
modifying or adding components to the game(s), use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for
any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming
networks or as part of content aggregation networks without the prior written consent of Blizzard Entertainment®.

There is no “next paragraph” as implied above.

Before it was shut down, the bnetd project had 10 listed developers
and was above the 95th percentile of activity at Sourceforge.net with a stable product.

jochem writes: “After the Bug Squashing Party of last weekend there is much rejoice about the upcoming release of woody. “The good news are that the base system is back in good shape. There are still bugs in some important packages, but most of these seem fairly controllable.” Read all about this and more …”

LinuxPR: “This release debuts the calendar/scheduling section of Aethera using
KOrganizer as a plug in, and the update to Korelib 0.8 component
technology. Most of the details for the project roadmap can be found at
www.thekompany.com/projects/aethera, but this is subject to change as
we are constantly researching new features. The web site has also now
been updated, so it is now current. Bug reports, suggestions and ideas
can be sent to aethera@thekompany.com.”

NewsFactor Network writes: “Several of you are likely aware that Square USA, the division of Square that created the CGI dynamo movie called Final Fantasy, is closing its doors unless a buyer or investor steps forward. Here’s an idea: Pixar should buy Square USA.”

“PLUG (Perth Linux Users’
Group Inc), a non-profit association for the Linux and Open Source
community, today announced that it has been successful in its bid to host
the Linux.conf.au (LCA) in January 2003. LCA is a technical conference for
professionals, enthusiasts, and students of Linux and Open Source.
Technical papers are presented in a lecture style environment, with keynote
presentations by a select few luminaries from the Linux and Open Source
community world-wide.”The Perth Linux Users’ Group aims to promote and assist the Linux and Open
Source community through fortnightly seminars and workshops providing the
opportunity to connect face-to-face with industry speakers and other Linux
users. In addition to the free email discussion list, PLUG provides news,
technical support, resources and forums on the web site
(http://www.plug.linux.org.au). As part of the bid preparation for the 2003
conference, PLUG produced a five minute video to invite people to attend.
This video is available from a number of servers on the Internet from
England, the USA, and Australia. You can find it at
http://perth2003.linux.conf.au/.

Linux.conf.au is a national ‘roaming’ conference under the auspices of
Linux Australia Inc (http://www.linux.org.au/). Its original incarnation
was under the name “Conference of Australian Linux Users” (CALU), held in
Melbourne at Monash University in 1999. In January 2001 it was renamed to
“Linux.conf.au” (http://www.linux.conf.au/), and held in Sydney at the
University of New South Wales under the direction of the Sydney Linux User
Group (SLUG). In February 2002 it was held in Brisbane at the Univeristy of
Queensland under the direction of the Home Unix Machine Brisbane User Group
(HUMBUG).

LCA has a very high standing in the international community for being a
very technically focused, yet relaxed conference schedule. All presenters
are selected from the community are of the highest calibre.

IBM is positioned as a major supporter of the Linux community, and will
continue as a key sponsor of Linux.conf.au in 2003. Other world-wide
organisations are expected to support LCA 2003, as well as national and
local businesses. The first Call For Papers will be released shortly.

#####

About Linux

Linux is a core part of a modern multi-user computer operating system
developed by a world-wide network of enthusiasts and professionals, and is
available for free under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
This license is special in that it specifically permits the end user access
to the underlying source code that creates the Linux kernel, and permits
them rights to modify it and redistribute it. The GPL is available from the
Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org). It is this model of license
that leads to a “peer review” model of software development, since no part
of the program remains undisclosed to any interested party.

Many organisations including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer and Dell
Computer are adopting Linux kernel based operating systems for a variety of
tasks, from network servers to personal desktop machines.

The Linux kernel, in combination with a large selection of “user space”
tools and utility programs are combined to create a complete computer
operating systems, for example, Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, and MandrakeSoft.

As well as operating on commodity Intel based personal computers, Linux
also runs on a number of other types of computers, such as large mainframes
and commercial network servers, down to pocket organisers and wrist watches.

More information on Linux is available from http://www.linux.com/.

Linux(R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

MEDIA RELEASE CONTACTS:
Perth Linux Users’ Group Inc

James Bromberger
+61 417 772 286 (GMT +0800)
james@rcpt.to

Linux Australia Inc
Gary Allpike
+61 400 885 567 (GMT +1000)
spice@spice.net.au

PUBLICITY CONTACT:
LCA 2003, Perth Linux Users’ Group Inc
Jacqueline McNally
+61 8 9474 3021 (GMT +0800)
jacqueline@decisions-and-designs.com.au

C#-or-C$? writes: “There is a lot of confusion regarding what .NET really is. OSNews has put together an informative article, explaining in plain english what .NET is and its implications in the way businesses, operating systems & platforms, users and developers will be working in the very near future. What’s different from other similar articles is that this one has hit the nail in the head, explaining both .NET as a whole and Microsoft’s dubious strategy in a simplified way.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
From the “things that could happen if Mono is incorporated
into Gnome” department: Intel, having gleefully taken advantage of the
MIT licensing on Mono’s class libraries, enforces its patents
against every entity making use of its modifications, including the Gnome
project, effectively shutting it down.

You say Intel wouldn’t do that to Mono, one of the Open Source answers to Microsoft’s .NET technology. Maybe not. Some considerations: Intel
has a love/hate relationship with Microsoft, and has been the target of
what some say are strongarm
tactics by Gates and company. Who’s to say that Microsoft isn’t
behind the scenes, influencing Intel’s moves? Arguably, Microsoft would like nothing better than to see all Open Source development stopped. Then there’s the
partnership between Intel and HP. Did you know that Hewlett-Packard and Intel have a
“front” organization to which they’ve assigned dozens of patents
over the last 10 to 15 years? It’s called the Institute for
Development of Emerging Architectures. (The emerging architecture being
64-bit chips.)

Carly Fiorina, giving the keynote talk at LinuxWorld NYC 2002, didn’t try to hide the fact that Hewlett-Packard
practices operating system polygamy for the sake of the customer. At any
moment, Microsoft could become the jealous wife who stamps her foot and
threatens withholding of favors. What Intel-strings would HP pull to keep
MS happy?

Keep in mind the rivalry between Microsoft
and Sun. Remember the fight over Java? They’ll do just about anything to knock each other off kilter. Sun continues to taunt Microsoft with the free StarOffice suite, a collection of business applications specifically designed to compete with MS Office, at zero cost to the consumer. Sun has adopted Gnome as its desktop window manager of choice. If MS could get a dig on Sun by knocking GNOME out, do you think it’d do it?

Miguel de Icaza, the CTO of Ximian and one of the first Gnome developers, is also the Mono project leader. He said he’d like to see future versions of Gnome based on .Net technology.
Even if Gnome refuses to be infected by Mono, just by changing the license, de Icaza has opened the door
for patent holders to get entangled in the Mono project and possibly in
any number of Free Software projects that decide to make use,
intentionally or unintentionally, of patent-encumbered Open Source
software that evolves from those libraries. How can Open Source software be patent-encumbered?

First, some background

The problem with software patents is easily illustrated if we use music
and songwriting as an analogy, like Simson Garfinkel, Richard Stallman,
and Mitchell Kapor did in their 1991 article “Why
Patents are Bad for Software.”

Songs are created from individual notes combined with chord
progressions. There are really only 12 notes to choose from, whether
one is composing a melody or placing the melody over a pleasing chord
arrangement. When someone writes a song, his copyright on that song
covers the original combination and arrangement of some or all of those
12 notes and the progression of harmonies created by the chord
selection. No one is allowed to copy the author’s melody without his
permission, but the notes and the chords that make up the song are freely
available for use by anyone. In fact, most, if not all songs have note
progressions that have been used in other songs before, kind of like
algorithms.

What if all of a sudden the U.S. Patent Office decided that musicians could
patent chords or certain note phrasings? Say a composer decided that this
note progression was unique: C, F#, E, D, C and the patent office,
being unfamiliar with music, agreed with him? Now the composer can
force anyone who writes a song that uses his “invention” to pay him any
fee he deems appropriate, or stop singing it. It sounds ridiculous. But
if this happened, we would soon see an end to the seemingly endless flow
of new songs. What starving artist could afford the royalty payments?

On a larger scale, this is what is happening with software patents. The
difference is that with software, there are many, many more “notes” to
choose from in the creation of an application or process, which makes
the process of that creation more complicated and difficult to understand
from the patent office’s perspective. It also makes a programmer’s life
dangerous because she never knows when she might be violating a software
patent. What if at the very same time she wrote her program, another
company filed patent applications on the very same processes and
algorithms she used? It has
happened, in the case of the LZW compression used in the creation of
GIF images.

Software patents can nullify the freedom of free software

If company A modifies a piece of free (as in speech) software, adding
patented procedures in the process, it is possible that software could be
encumbered by restrictive patent licensing terms. For instance, company
A could require royalty payments from company B at any time during
company B’s use of the “free” software that includes patented
processes. Company A could further restrict the “freedom” of such
software by refusing to grant a patent license to Company C,
effectively, if not technically, declaring null and void the “free”
software license.

When Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation drafted the GPL
and subsequently the LGPL, they wanted to do all they could to protect
developers and users from the encumbrances of software patents, so they
included the following statements:

“… Software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of
any free program. We wish to make sure that a company cannot
effectively restrict the users of a free program by obtaining a
restrictive license from a patent holder. Therefore, we insist that
any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be
consistent with the full freedom of use specified in this
license.”

“If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do
not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under
this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a
consequence you may not distribute the Library at all. For example,
if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of
the Library by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly
through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this
License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the
Library.”

Other licenses, such as the MIT (or X) license adopted by Mono for its
class libraries, do not explicitly require a patent license grant. Some
experts say that the MIT license and others like it, including the BSD
license, carry an “implicit” patent license grant. But this has not been
tested.

We are surprised we heard little complaining when Ximian CTO and
Mono project leader de Icaza told The
Register, “I’d like to see Gnome applications written in .NET in
version 4.0 — no, version 3.0. But Gnome 4.0 should be based on .NET. A
lot of people just see .NET as a fantastic upgrade for the development
platform from Microsoft.” de Icaza took issue with The Register over the headline on the article, but he didn’t deny that he made the statements as quoted. We don’t know what, if anything, will come of
the Mono license change, and of course, de Icaza is not the CTO of
Gnome, only of Ximian. However, we’re also not sure why Intel insisted on
the MIT license instead of the LGPL,
but you can be sure it has everything to do with protecting so-called
intellectual property.

So, even if
they are not part of the Free Software religion, shouldn’t Open Source
software developers be doing everything they can to keep software patents
out of their projects? If you think Intel. or any other company, would do
whatever it takes to protect their profits, then the idea that they
would insert patented processes into the Mono libraries, sit back
while Gnome makes use of them, and then try to cripple or even shut down
Gnome through sky-high royalties or refusal to grant license doesn’t
seem implausible. What better reason to use the GPL or the LGPL? What was
de Icaza thinking when he adopted the MIT license?

NewsFactor Network writes “Be Inc. has filed suit against Microsoft, alleging that the software giant effectively prohibited the sale of PCs with multiple preinstalled operating systems, including Be’s BeOS. Had BeOS been preinstalled on various PCs from different OEMs, the company’s fate likely would have been very different. Let’s hope that Be’s lawsuit brings to light any and all new anticompetitive business practices that Microsoft may have exploited to extend its illegal monopoly.”

Wired reports that “The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled a new approach to software patents, which a top commission official said would draw criticism from the United States because Europe would have tougher criteria to grant a patent.”

Advogato: “Release early, release often. For programmers that’s written in stone. However, how many non-programmers try (insert favourite opensource/free OS here), fire up that puppy, and find that the ‘released early’ application they sat down to use is ‘buggy’. While it is freshmeat to you and I, to these new end-users, it’s what they’re running away from. And guess what? There is currently no good solution for this… those bugs are generally uninteresting and newbies don’t program yet.”