[quake3] Re: gpl anticheater

[fs]

On Mon, Sep 05, 2005 at 01:49:24AM +0100, Tim Angus wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 12:46:45 -0700 Zachary wrote:
> > I personally don't think any GPL punkbuster style program would be
> > effective, though I would certainly welcome people to try.
> 
> It's unfortunate, but yes. At a fundamental level the client needs to be
> trusted to some degree. Any anti-cheat mechanism therefore needs to
> pretty much rely on obscurity as its primary means of operation. I don't
> really see how this is possible with an open source program.
> 
> The double whammy is that since Q3 is now GPL, it cannot be distributed
> with any closed source libraries. So implementing a free-as-in-beer
> alternative to punkbuster is hampered slightly. Correct me if I'm wrong
> (IANAL etc.), but there is no problem with a GPLed application linking
> against a non GPL library? At least, not if you dynamically load the
> library at runtime as Q3 does with libGL. Right?

I was having that idea even before q3 was gpl'ed and I'm less of a
programmer and more of a gamer so bare with me :]

I was thinking about it as a team project that would work with certified
builds either of its own or co-operative gpl projects that provide those
"certified" builts. That would probably take out the problem of having
cheats on the q3 binaries themselves.

As for the anticheater itself, I said I'm not a programmer but I was
hoping if there was a way to do it.

If it's documented to be absolutely impossible how about certified
builds of the anticheater itself? something like giving the source but
data parts of it to be of the anticheater team. Or a double licence or a
special gpl-like licence.

And what about evenbalance's punkbuster itself, is it anhackable?

And what about suse/redhat, etc. linux, they provide gpl software with
non-free libraries.

Sorry if I've become tiring to some of you but I'd like to see those
ideas that come from the gaming community (it's not just me that
thought about it) to be dismissed only if they are really impossible.

thanks for listening.