I am presently building an MMO service and starting a company to operate, maintain and expand the service. I intend to launch the service in 8-12 months from now. The game client is multi-platform; it uses the Allegro gaming library and currently runs on Windows (Win98 and WinXP have been tested and I suspect it would work on Win95, WinNT and Win2K equally well), Mac OS X, and Linux (currently being developed and tested on Fedora Core 4 although I expect it will run equally well on many popular distributions of Linux). I've been thinking about how to distribute the game client. The business model is a subscriber model; I have no intention on selling the game client, the profits come from service subscriptions. Windows distribution (and Mac for that matter) will be fairly straight-forward. Linux is a completely different matter due to the many different flavors of Linux and the GPL and LGPL licenses. While I have no qualms about releasing the full source to the game client (there are no competitive secrets embedded in the client that would harm my company's profit potential), I have different concerns about releasing the full source code for my game client. 1. How do I protect my customers from receiving a modified version of the game client that is not authorized or recognized by my company? My company and service not only sells entertainment but a very specific philosophy for a very specific audience. I do not want unknowing customers getting the wrong impression about what my company and service is about due to a badly modified version of my game client. While I'm sure copyrights and trademarks come into play, customers will make their decision in a matter of minutes that no amount of post-litigation can repair. Plus I won't really have the time or money to track down and prosecute every infraction. 2. How do I protect the security of my MMO servers from malicious attacks arising from the abuse of having the full source code of my game client? While I agree an answer would be "your servers will be more secure and better in the long run", the practical reality is that I won't have the money to deal with a possible deluge of attacks that would have otherwise been spread out over time from not having source code access. And my customers won't care one bit that my servers are getting more secure if the game isn't playable due to server attacks and outages on a frequent basis. I could potentially end up with bullet proof servers and bankruptcy of my company. 3. Aside from server security, there is the matter of account password security. How can I fathom giving away the full source code and thus giving anyone the ability to network snoop and easily grab customer account/password data? This account password data not only gains access to playing the game but also gains access to customer billing information which then becomes a huge issue. This is probably the biggest issue of the three listed. I would love to contribute to the notion of Free Software and the Internet community. I have benefited greatly from others' contributions and this would be a chance for me to give back to that community. At the same time, the above concerns are enough for me to consider not distributing a Linux game client at all, at least not in the beginning. I would love to hear thoughts from more experienced Linux developers, particularly from those with licensing experience. You can drop me a personal email at runesabre@xxxxxxxxx and if you have legal experience in this area and live in the Austin, TX area, I would love to take you to lunch and discuss these issues and possible solutions further. Kirk Black
