I hate most of WoW private servers (2020)

github.com

41 points·hugodutka··6 comments

Unfortunately, this guy severely misunderstands how GPL works.

>In simple words, this license says the following: use the code to do whatever you want, without paying anything, as long as any modification to the original code is also released under the same license. Basically, the license of these projects requires those who use them to publish any changes to the public.

This is not how GPL (2.0 as used by the projects being discussed here) works. There is no obligation to share source code of software that only runs on your server.

>The open source philosophy is clear: you can use that code for free, provided that any modification of it MUST be made public.

This is not how "open source philosophy" works.

He is confusing GPL with AGPL, which would indeed mandate server operators to share their source code with any player that asks for it.

Just for my own clarification, this is true as long as they don't also ship their server as a compiled binary right? If these servers were to distribute their programs they would have to release the source as GPL as well, right?

Yes

This is a lot of what drove Classic WoW's popularity (Blizzard reporting more new subscribers than they'd had in the games history) including mine

I don't give a shit about the landgrab private servers have as they try to scoop up as many players as they can (and probably, ideally funnel them to the cash shop) I just want to play the game I enjoyed 15+ years ago

The other problem with that landgrab attitude is they simply can't sustain the numbers for a massively multiplayer online role playing game. A server with 10 players on one side and 15 players on the other at "peak" is a dead server, be it an official one or a private one

Long live Warmane.

Love live Warmane

Reply on news.ycombinator.com