Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

kotaku.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 307 posts

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#81

Post by Svekax »

huehehue wrote: post #46

Damn people are tearing this guy apart, the reddit threads are particularly brutal. It's a video game. The finder has no obligation to risk legal trouble so that a game can be modified, played, or even preserved. I'm all for archiving these sorts of things, and agree there's probably no great reason to keep the source private. But if I have the (likely) stolen property of a large company and they ask for its return,…

You buy a box of old documents on Ebay. It contains an original manuscript of The Fellowship of the Ring with J. R. R. Tolkien's edits and notes in the margins. Tolkien's estate demands the copy back so they can burn it. You should mail it to them because they own it, right? It's just a book, right?

No, you shouldn't. They owners shouldn't be able to destroy it for the same reason we have laws protecting monuments and historical sites. When something has historical or cultural value, the public has a right to preserve it even against the wishes of the owner.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#82

Post by scrollaway »

BigJono wrote: post #77
chickenfries wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I think there's a huge difference between Activision Blizzard games and either Valve or Bethesda games. Sure, Valve and Bethesda have probably contributed more gaming experiences to the world across their many games and their liberal policy towards modding. There are only a few Blizzard games, but they're better and they make much more money. It's a tightly controlled experience, but the quality control means Bl…

>but they're better Citation needed. I've played a ton of AAA multiplayer games over the years. Hearthstone is hands down the worst one that I've given a fair chance to (>20-30 hours of playtime). To say that it's better than Counter-Strike (which many regard as the epitome of competetive FPS gaming and has stood the test of time in that role for almost as long as Starcraft has done the same for RTS) is an absolute j…

To compare a turn based CCG to a competitive FPS is an absolute joke.

To generalize your dislike of a CCG, one of Blizzard's multiple games, into an argument against GP is a joke.

Whether modders would make as positive an impact in HS as they did in Valve games is very unclear, and I say that as the author of a Hearthstone simulator and founder of a community and company heavily involved in Hearthstone modding, reverse engineering and third party tooling.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#83

Post by goldenkey »

scrollaway wrote: post #43
detaro wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since tickets are "only" $199 normally anyways, the ticket is clearly not the expensive part of "going to BlizzCon all expenses paid".

Right. When they fly people in (such as the press) the hotel accomodations alone ends up being worth 1.5-2k for the stay (3-4 nights, $500 ish a night at the Hilton anaheim), and I suspect he's going to be there a bit longer as they'll surely show him around the Blizzard campus in Irvine (and they did say they'll take him out for drinks etc). I would estimate they are likely spending up to 4k usd on this guy, just fr…

That's a joke for what that CD was worth in sheer value to the community of hackers and gamers and modders worldwide for years to come. Once he made that reddit post he sealed his fate. Should hsve just silently torrented it from a coffee shop over Tor. Silly kid.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#84

Post by emn13 »

huehehue wrote: post #53
jpgvm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not normal source code. It's not like you found the source to the latest Halo game or something. This is like finding the source to the original Halo game, of little to no commercial value but of immense cultural value. Where possible these artefacts are archived so they will be around long after the companies have folded. Unfortunately it's just not possible most of the time as companies end up taking their sof…

Not too sure about "no commercial value" considering the impending release of StarCraft: Remastered

Correct: the right to distribute a game with that branding and those mechanics is valuable if you have the means (such as any copy of the source) to do so.

The source by itself is hardly (monetarily) valuable, pretty much to anybody. Blizzard clearly still has other copies, and anybody else wouldn't be able to do much of anything commercially with the code.

It's quite possible somebody has even already reverse engineered much of it, rendering it even less valuable by itself, even to copy-cats.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#85

Post by Dylan16807 »

jakebasile wrote: post #68
scrollaway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unclear whether it's a legal obligation given that the disc was found, it's even less clear whether it's a moral obligation. If you didn't know anything about Blizzard, what would you speculate? Someone elsewhere in the thread for example is speculating Blizzard would destroy the copy -- if I thought that'd be a possibility, I would personally never send it their way and you could in no world convince me it's mo…

It probably isn't strictly a legal obligation to return the physical disc barring stolen property stuff, but it would definitely be illegal to redistribute copyrighted code without a license to do so. Maybe you could claim some type of fair use but it wouldn't be transformative so I can't see how. As for morality, I apply the golden rule: if someone found the code I wrote for a groundbreaking piece of software, and I…

> As for morality, I apply the golden rule: if someone found the code I wrote for a groundbreaking piece of software, and I didn't want to open source it, I'd really like for them to respect my wishes and return it.

What if you said that after the copyright had expired? Would you still say it's immoral to release it against your wishes?

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#86

Post by kgu »

I can't find it viscerally in me to take moral issue with the guy releasing the code. I understand it belongs to Blizzard, but I just don't feel sorry for them. Not defending that, just stating a fact about the absence of an emotion in me.

That said: if you believe the guy would've been right to distribute the code, it follows that you believe the right thing for Blizzard to do is to release the code themselves. Instead of arguing morality here, one might spend one's energy articulating that argument to Blizzard instead.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#87

Post by peterwwillis »

So, instead of giving back to their community, or giving some underprivileged kid an opportunity to have an amazing experience, or donating to Child's Play, or something for someone who might need some help, Blizzard instead pays for the expensive flight, hotel, con, and drinks for a 32 year old white male computer nerd who accidentally found a CD in a storage unit and then agonized over returning it until being threatened by a lawyer.

And everyone is upset - not from the waste of money or opportunity to do good, but upset that they didn't get to steal someone's property. This speaks volumes about that community's values.

edit: I hit the post rate limiter so I can't reply, so i'll add this: demographics have a direct correlation to opportunities people get (as every startup hiring manager knows) and his particular demographic gets the most benefit even though they need it the least. I'm not saying this as a sjw, I'm just sick of people like myself (also a 32 year old white male computer nerd) getting handed an unnecessarily gratuitous amount of favor while people who could actually use a hand get jack shit. Perhaps my feeling is misguided, but it still felt gratuitous and wasteful.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#88

Post by [deleted] »

jakebasile wrote: post #44

It looks like someone found a copy of Blizzard's copyrighted source code, returned it to Blizzard, and got a reward. Why are people upset about this? It seems like the right thing to do to my mind. If someone found a copy of my own source laying in the street I'd be very happy if they returned it instead of releasing it on the net.

[deleted]

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#89

Post by d--b »

Come on guys... Had any of you made Starcraft, you'd be very happy to have the disc back. Blizzard's behaved ok I believe in flying the guy to blizzcon and giving him the perks he got.

While it's interesting to have the code, there's probably nothing really amazing about it. However, the game is still being played, so releasing the source code may help people cheat.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#90

Post by cjhopman »

jpgvm wrote: post #49
jakebasile wrote: post #44

It looks like someone found a copy of Blizzard's copyrighted source code, returned it to Blizzard, and got a reward. Why are people upset about this? It seems like the right thing to do to my mind. If someone found a copy of my own source laying in the street I'd be very happy if they returned it instead of releasing it on the net.

It's not normal source code. It's not like you found the source to the latest Halo game or something. This is like finding the source to the original Halo game, of little to no commercial value but of immense cultural value. Where possible these artefacts are archived so they will be around long after the companies have folded. Unfortunately it's just not possible most of the time as companies end up taking their sof…

This is exactly why I dig up the bodies of influential historical figures every chance I get.
Post reply on HN