I am curious about what ideas of open source that software like punkbuster could be considered to be actively fighting against.
The GNU software sets forth a couple of simple rights of what I like to call Liberated Software (avoids that whole free beer concept). You should be free to use the software for any purpose. You should be free to modify code. There's more, but those are the two might become sticklers.
Social software is different from regular software in that the majority of the value is in the social structure it interacts with and builds. Integrating punkbuster into your software says to its users "please do not change the software." People don't even have the source, and they're changing it! Essentailly, the way I interpret it, the GNU principals must allow cheating through software modification. Any use includes cheating. I'm not a cheater, I don't like being cheated against. But the conflicting desires need be resolved somehow.
Now, there is a counter-argument. It goes like this: people are still free to play open source games, and free to change them, they just can't play on my server. If you want to cheat, start your own server. But I think HomeLAN proved just how cheaters feel about being sandboxed. Moderated game server saw far more cheating than their Servers for Cheaters.
Another solution I've long considered is a matching service. Just match players in terms of skill. Cheaters, non-cheaters, it doesn't matter. In a way, you might consider it a handicap. Cheaters ruin the game by being significantly better than their opponents, right? Their unfair advantage significantly changes the otherwise fair outcome of the game. What should end up happening is that cheaters play themselves (and perhaps amusingly accuse each other), with a certain amount of simply excellent players getting a most excruciating challenge. Of course, this requires the active tracking and rationing of identities, which probably cannot be done without a fee. The fee being the best way to moderate people from creating new accounts as workaround bans, and also serving to pay other needs.
Justin Dugger