“THE OPEN SOURCE movement got a Christmas present at the end of
1999 some assembly required. John Carmack of id software, arguably
the greatest games programmer ever, released the source code for
Quake, the wildly popular shoot-em-up. Quake, already several years
old, has maintained popularity because it allows players to battle
one another over the internet, with hundreds of servers hosting
round-the-clock battles….”
“Within minutes of id’s announcement, gamers and hackers the
world over were downloading the source code. Within hours they were
compiling new versions of the game. Within days people began using
their new knowledge of the games inner workings to cheat. A problem
new to the Open Source movement began to surface: what to do when
access to the source code opens it up to abuse….”
“All of this matters much more than you would expect a game to
matter. With Open Source now associated with truth, justice,
and the Internet Way, and with Carmack revered as a genius and a
hero, the idea that the combination of these two things could breed
anything so mundane as cheating caught people by
surprise….“