Addons free from now on, per Blizzard: KeyClone okay?

[Tehtsuo]

Maybe Microsoft / Intel should prohibit Blizzard from makeing a profit off of the use of their products.

Although "WoW" is a popular addon to Windows, seems that Microsoft has full control of what runs on THEIR software.

Blizzard paid for the right to develop their software. They paid for the compilers, which even if not written by MS, paid for the right to include runtime libraries to let them run on Windows. Anyway, the analogy is far from a good fit.

I write software for a living, I'm stating this upfront so my bias is clear.

I look at it this way, without WoW, the addons won't work. So someone pays for an addon, which requires WoW to work, what does the addon developer pay to Blizzard for making WoW? It's isn't your monthly subscription and it isn't the developers if they even have one. No where did the developer recieve rights to make profit off of a derivitaive work.

Keyclone and HotKeyNet and all the other MB programs work outside of WoW. This only affects programs that rely on WoW's internal APIs to even exist.

Edit: Replied before I saw this was 80 bazillion posts long. Still stand by my statement.

- Souca -

So you are saying it's OK for Microsoft to mandate no one can charge for .NET applications and that they all must be free and unobfuscated?

.NET is a free API and tools are available to develop entirely for free... just like LUA and the interface UI.

Windows is to .NET Applications as WoW is to WoW Addons.

Dangerous.
Slippery.

And while IANAL I would say dancing on non-compete laws.

Sorry, but there's no precedence that would put Microsoft at risk for content included in applications written to run on Windows. There is precedence that puts game companies at risk for content distributed to run in their games.