Blizzard got an injuction against MDY last week about MDY’s Glider bot. They have now followed that up with a request for an injunction preventing MDY from open-sourcing Glider, which is certainly a novel request.
On the one hand, I see Blizzard’s point. Once the bot source is out there and available for use, they will be unable (mostly) to detect all of the different ways that people could modify the core bot play. Sure, each person that used the bot would then be violating the terms of service, but Blizzard wouldn’t have much luck in identifying them all. And without identifying them, Blizzard can’t ban them from the game. And without banning them from the game, there’s almost no way to ensure that they don’t fix up the “super PvP” mode that Glider’s devs claim to be close to, which disrupts my game play.
On the other hand, I don’t think the courts should be able to prevent a person or company from open sourcing their software assets. MDY built their own product, and if they want to open source it, I think they have the right to do so.
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