An update to the Battlefield 1942 Website (thanks Frans) has further thoughts after hearing feedback on their recently announced anti-cheating plans (story). Here's the deal:

With the recent announcement of the 1.4 patch and our aggressive stance against cheating, some misconceptions about the patch were made. We’d like to take this time to clear a few things up, and make a special announcement.

First and foremost, server side mods will not be killed with the 1.4 patch. This means that mods like Desert Combat will continue to function as they have in the past. Secondly, we’ve listened to all of the concerned players who don’t want to lose their favorite client side mods, like the merciless mod. To help make Battlefield 1942 a great experience for everyone, DICE and EA have come up with a solution that should work for all players. In the 1.4 patch, there will be a server side option regarding content checks. When this option is turned on by the server admin, players who are using client side mods will not be able to connect to the server. When this option is turned off, players can join the server with any of the client side mods that they have. We feel that this option provides support for both players that enjoy their client side mods (merciless mod), and those that want to ensure everyone in the game is playing with the same skins/crosshairs etc.