Five years on -- one addition

Posted Sep 30, 2010 16:36 UTC (Thu) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048)
In reply to: Five years on by pboddie
Parent article: Red Hat Responds to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Request for Guidance on Bilski

I just explained the key differences, but I'd also like to look at it from the customers' perspective. With Blizzard's games and that "bnetd" server, all that people needed was an Internet connection and a legitimately purchased copy of those Blizzard games (meaning a cost of $50 more or less) to play them with/against others. In the mainframe case, there's a massive lock-in problem and it's a huge market. There's no Blizzard-related lock-in, other than people perhaps being addicted to some of those games ;-)

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Five years on -- one addition

Posted Sep 30, 2010 17:54 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

I see things the other way around.

the game software is perfectly usable on any PC, it can even be used to play against other users directly without the bdnet server (at least on a local LAN where you are not behind NAT devices). Saying that it's illegal to replicate the Internet accessable server that the local games can talk to isn't reasonable.

I've already said elsewhere that I don't have a big problem with IBM's stance.