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ect called OpenNap. It was what Ritter had been trying to fend off as long as possible: a knockoff of Napster’s server system. With some technical sophistication, users could go to an OpenNap server instead of Napster’s, and there would be no way for Napster to make a dime, should it survive the lawsuit and start charging for something. The development of OpenNap’s server and client unfolded before Ritter and Shawn in a slow-motion nightmare they were powerless to stop. Developers working on the effort did so openly, often communicating through an electronic mailing list called NapDev. Programmers would ask each other what they had gleaned about one aspect or another of Napster’s workings, and they would trade advice about variants of the Napster client program for non-Windows operating systems, including the Macintosh, Linux, and Be. (Among the names these knockoff efforts took were Macster, Knapster, and even Crapster.) Ritter and Shawn quietly subscribed to the mailing list, keeping their nervous eyes on the rearview mirror.

Both Ritter and Shawn felt conflicted about the open-source threat. Napster was about tearing down the fences around intellectual property, and now its own fence was under attack. It was particularly hard on Ritter, who had long contributed to open-source projects in other areas. He could easily imagine himself on the other side of the battle. And pride made it even harder for both to keep silent on the mailing list as the open-source developers figured out why Napster had done something— or thought they had figured it out—especially if they concluded that it was simply poor design. Finally, a University of Washington student named Evan Martin went too far, dismissing a piece of the system as “shoddy programming.” Ritter couldn’t take it any more.

In early January 2000, Ritter wrote an open letter to the NapDev open-source effort, making clear that he was speaking only for himself and not Napster. It was a mixture of self-respect and moral defensiveness, reflecting a need to explain himself to people whose worldview he largely shared, stock options or no. “We at Napster Inc. have our jobs to do, and you have yours. You don’t know why we implemented the things we did, and we’re not going to explain them to you, mainly because it’s not public information,” Ritter wrote. “You can sit at your computer, possibly between classes, or maybe during a company lunch break, or whenever, and ponder the meaning of why certain things are as they are