Imo, addon writers have every right to charge for their code. Doesn't mean I'll pay for it, but maybe someone will :P

IMO Carbonite and QH arent even that great. Get Tourguide instead, its easier to use, takes less memory, and is more thorough on what to do/where to go.

Tourguide is completely free and i love it.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU SUPPORTING THIS?

First, Blizzard adds advertisements to the forums because they need to make more money right? 11 million monthly subscriptions have GC driving a pinto to work everyday I'm sure. Though I don't think adds should have advertisements, if you download the add, it's your choice to filter through that garbage. Don't like the advertisement? Don't use the add. It's amazing how cleansing the freedom of choice can be.

Second, though I am personally not a user of any add on that requires me to pay for it, this is a country where people get paid for their ingenuity. Blizzard is, essentially, saying that they are the only ones that can make any money on this game.

Third, though the policy on addon code is understood, let's not pretend that Blizzard doesn't at least look at the code that someone else wrote, if only to save them time, when it comes to adding game features. I know this argument can be shot down because no one at blizzard apparently even glanced at a mod like Omen when they put in their built in crap of a threat meter, but they could have used it. So Blizzard is now not only saying that you can't charge for the mod, but we have exclusive rights to steal your intellectual property. Again, I know Blizzard has some of the best programmers in the world, but intellectual property that saves them man hours is still intellectual porperty that saves them cash, and it never even belonged to them.

LONG LIVE BLIZARD AND IT'S CONTINUING SODOMIZING OF WOW FOR GREATER PROFITS!

Because adding advertisements to the forums and killing Carbonite has a substantial effect on the game, right?

I am a software architect, so this situation is not a surprise. I love open source software and use it daily, but this issue is pretty clear cut IMHO.
Some key points as I see them:
- Wow is a proprietary platform and there is no sense of it being "open" in any sense of the word (and there are MANY)
- There was no formal agreement between companies to allow them to make money off their add ons. Thus their business model was always shaky at best.
- Glider case just resolved and was a nightmare for Blizzard.
- Premium addons could be in danger of allowing some players an unfair advantage over others who pay money to a company Blizzard has nothing to do with.
- We can now, finally, put to bed the argument over wowmatrix!
- Closed source, "proprietary" addons could contain code that causes WOW trouble. Might just be a bug and not necessarily intentional. Blizz obviously wants them (and you) to be able to examine the code.

As much as this is a bad thing, it is nice to see the "open source" portion of this. (pseudo open source of course!) This means that others can pick up where some left off, branch and improve etc. A very positive change.
There will be casualties, but then is that such a bad thing for most players? Most players use free tools anyway?

The real problem is their being able to arbitrarily kill an addon. Hopefully they will not use this ever but they really can do what they want here. There is a fine line between great addon and unfair advantage in their mind as far as I can tell. (from GC's posts)
For example: he spoke of cooldown timer addons being a bit of a cheat.
What about decursive? Healbot? I vaguely remember (I don't have a healer) him talking about them in less than favourable terms?

Now that glider has been defeated and this bunch of lawyering is obviously one of the results. All paid mods are going down with it also. I guess the theory is that if there is no market, there are no evil market players.
Hopefully their suit wearing types will not invoke some overreaction to all the helpful mods out there as well. I doubt it though - bad PR is not something they want.

Thank you C Anthony for providing some actual real life legal basis for all these arguments

"Blizzard is, essentially, saying that they are the only ones that can make any money on this game."

Not "this" game, "their" game. It belongs to them. So ... yeah, that's what they're saying.