samba - Feb 2002 - Urgent information (legal stuff) about the future of SAMBA

I am sending you this email because of an incident which threatens the very
existance of Samba.  Earlier today, the bnetd project was shut down to the DMCA.
Since bnetd is alot like Samba, I figured you would be interested.  Bnetd is a
server that pretends to be a battle.net server (starcraft multiplayer).  This
server was created by reverse engineering the communcations protocol, just like
Samba was.  However, blizzard is now going after this project using the DMCA. 
Since Samba, like bnetd, is a reimplementation of a propriatery protocol and
server, I believe Samba could be in danger.  If Blizzard succeeds in shutting
down the bnetd project, Microsoft could use the same argument against Samba. 
Please take whatever precautions are necessary to either prevent or reduce the
damage of such actions against Samba

My understanding is that SMB isn't a proprietary protocol, it's an open,
documented one.  So I suspect Samba is okay.  Also, I think it'd be hard to
argue that SMB (at least in its current state) is an anti-circumvention
technology.  IANAL.

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick [mailto:nick255@myrealbox.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 1:12 AM
To: samba@samba.org
Subject: [Samba] Urgent information (legal stuff) about the future of
SAMBA


I am sending you this email because of an incident which threatens the very
existance of Samba.  Earlier today, the bnetd project was shut down to the
DMCA.  Since bnetd is alot like Samba, I figured you would be interested.
Bnetd is a server that pretends to be a battle.net server (starcraft
multiplayer).  This server was created by reverse engineering the
communcations protocol, just like Samba was.  However, blizzard is now going
after this project using the DMCA.  Since Samba, like bnetd, is a
reimplementation of a propriatery protocol and server, I believe Samba could
be in danger.  If Blizzard succeeds in shutting down the bnetd project,
Microsoft could use the same argument against Samba.  Please take whatever
precautions are necessary to either prevent or reduce the damage of such
actions against Samba


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