[OT] Software Legalities (GPL, Intellectual Property, and more..)

[Marc Lanctot]

Hi,

First I'd like to thank everyone who responded to my last email about 
gaming in Linux / virtualization.

I have been building OpenMTG, a free and open-source (GPL-licensed) 
program I intend to be a free version of the popular Magic: The 
Gathering collectible card game. It is similar to Firemox but different 
in design and architecture, though I might just fork Firemox depending 
on what happens.

Eventually, I plan to allow people to play it online via applets and 
building a community where people can play against each other, quite 
like the existing Magic: Online game but totally free and open source 
(using virtual money).

I intend to use it for my research too.

Everyone I've told this idea to says that Wizards of the Coast will 
never let me get away with it. That sucks. I'd like to know how they can 
prevent me from doing it. Other than obvious statements like "they have 
money and therefore good lawyers", I'd like to know the actual legal 
issues this would cause, and how I can prevent any problems if possible. 
  I've seen things like this been done... eg. Wargus & Freecraft, 
Freeciv, and Firemox is still going. Brettspielwelt has many free games, 
so does Richard Rognlie's popular PBeM server. If these people can 
circumvent the legal issues, why couldn't I? Should I just abandon the 
idea altogether?

Thanks in advance,
Marc

-- 
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
   -- Steven Wright
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists