Nezgruhel wrote:
I like the article... but I can't say I agree with anything this Bartlett fellow had to say.
Seems like another "take the power from the people, pro big business, I'd kill open source if I could" cutthroat corporate tight***.
I agree. I think the whole article is a bit biased against the transition from emulation to commercial development, which is odd, since EA has hired many of the best emulation developers.
To paraphrase the current lead programmer on the UO team (who I spoke to in person):
?Yeah, we?ve hired many people from the emulation scene. This one guy e-mailed us after working on some, and pointed out how we were sending many useless packets ? we figured, ?Hey, this guy already knows enough about our protocol to find major flaws and fix them, why not hire them? A lot less training for us.?
Also, Richard Garriott, the creator of everything Ultima (except the perverse EA stuff), has always been in favor of people taking his ideas and expanding them, recreating them, or using them in a clever way ? he has given his blessing to many recreation projects. It is too bad he no longer owns the rights to Ultima, and cannot give legal permission as well.