On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 09:50:17PM -0500, John R. Dennison wrote:
> Ok, seriously, this has gone far enough.  AutoPhaser?  Client ability to
> override server FeaturePackets?

I admit, that is a bit too much.

> With the recent deprecation of RSA an admins ability of blocking clients
> is limited without server changes; changes which a rogue client
> developer can trivially bypass in any event.  

The argument for the necessity of RSA for server admins to block clients does
not stand because the server admins stopped blocking clients in the first place
many years ago.  The argument that MacTrek was the reason for disabling RSA is
weak; when MacTrek added RSA support, the server admins should have re-enabled
RSA, but that didn't happen.  The entire RSA key infrastructure was pointless
to maintain because it was not used, though perhaps it did offer the "threat"
of revocation for a "rogue client."

> This type of crap with Bill has been going on for far too many years
> now; this needs to be dealt with once and for all.  Feature packets
> exist so admins can limit client abilities on their servers and present
> an even playing field.  What makes Bill think he is above the law (per
> sae) and has the ability of doing whatever it is he wants?

Actually, my recollection is that the intent of FP was to offer backwards
compatibility for older clients.  Eventually this morphed into disabling
certain borgish or semi-borgish features in blessed clients during INL games.

Your position seems to be that Netrek needs to be sustained and maintained
according to standards of the past.  There is merit to this argument, as many
of the code changes (in my useless opinion) in the last decade to both the
clients and the server would have created an uproar to old clue who were on the
INLC, WNLC or otherwise respected in the community.  Should we then revert all
these changes, too?  Towards what end?