EA's Open-Source Site Is Disappointing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: EA's Open-Source Site Is Disappointing

As Phoronix readers were quick to discover following the boring Ubuntu EA talk yesterday, the open-source web-site for Electronic Arts is also a disappointment...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTEwMDM

[AnonymousCoward]

Modus operandi of Phoronix . First hype things up:

Electronic Arts At Ubuntu Summit; Linux Games Coming?

then when reality doesn't meet the expectations set by phoronix, burn them down:

EA Talks About Gaming At UDS: It's Boring
EA's Open-Source Site Is Disappointing

rinse repeat

[Vadi]

Modus operandi of Phoronix . First hype things up:



then when reality doesn't meet the expectations set by phoronix, burn them down:



rinse repeat

I have to agree with this comment.

It's not too encouraging to have your stuff be bashed.

[M1kkko]

Modus operandi of Phoronix . First hype things up:



then when reality doesn't meet the expectations set by phoronix, burn them down:



rinse repeat

Actually he has been saying for quite some time that the EA's news would not be that exciting and Valve's plans are far more significant.

Still, it was reasonable to expect that EA would announce at least some real, native games for Linux. Therefore EA's talk at UDS was considered a disappointment.

Usually when reality doesn't meet expectations, it only makes sense to burn them down. Not all news can be good news and I'm happy with what Phoronix is doing.

[allquixotic]

Yeah this is the "open source friendly" company that is "operating system agnostic".

They just provide what they're obligated to provide under the licenses in most cases. The rest, they're probably providing it because their lawyers don't want to take the risk that they might be reading the license wrong and are in fact required to provide source (e.g. for WebKit, where AFAIK they are not required to publish the sources).

It's all propaganda. EA is evil. That they're trying to appear not evil just makes them more evil.

[texaswriter1983]

Ah, hello, those are open sourced

First off, I understand that those games are somewhat old, but still NICE TITLES.

ALSO, they are OPEN SOURCED. That's nice progress from EA. Quit crying!!!

[AJenbo]

Does any one know where you can find the source for The Sims? I have looked for it but only found some 200 lines of pseudo code they where tossing around when brainstorming the game.

First off, I understand that those games are somewhat old, but still NICE TITLES.

ALSO, they are OPEN SOURCED. That's nice progress from EA. Quit crying!!!

Are you being sarcastic or did you not read the full article? It's not the games at all, it just some tools they used for some of the GUI in a couple of games.

[nightmarex]

Ahh hello , fail.

First off, I understand that those games are somewhat old, but still NICE TITLES.

ALSO, they are OPEN SOURCED. That's nice progress from EA. Quit crying!!!

EA is trolling hard there is nothing there except some already open sourced utilities (not game code). Well my 2 cents here is simply anything out of EA's corporate spew hole is as good as goat urine without any of the teeth whitening benefits. I would love companies to OS their old games. I understand that some can't due to tools used or included code not owned by them or the code has been lost but that would not constitute the whole and I think it's pathetic that these companies can't release SOME decade(s) old game code.

[jonwil]

I cant go into details but I have had a bit of experience with trying to get companies to release source code to old games. There are all sorts of reasons why they may not want to do it, including:
3rd party IP (sometimes they know what 3rd party code they are using, sometimes its a case where they dont know what code may be in there)
Code they are still using (sometimes they have code that they used in an old engine that is still in use in some form in a newer engine and releasing it may be an issue)
Cheating (even on old titles, if there is multiplayer, releasing the source may lead to cheaters being able to exploit the game in ways not previously possible such as forged network packets)
Copy protection (if the game links to APIs and libraries connected to copy protection, they may need to completly remove anything that depends on the copy protection so as not to reveal any of the secrets)

But in general the biggest issue is the amount of time it takes to examine the old code, make sure they have the legal right to release it (or remove the bits they cant legally release), make sure its got nothing in it that might be an issue (such as swear words in the comments, references to internal computer systems/email addresses/employee IDs/passwords/etc, details of unreleased games or ports etc) and make sure the source they release is usable (e.g. making sure they have all the bits they need)

[GreatEmerald]

Cheating is not an issue at all. People can cheat better when there is no source code - by decompiling or so, they can still find exploits. However, server admins are powerless against that, as the game company no longer supports the game, so there are no further patches. With the source code released, on the other hand, the community itself can fix those issues. That said, game companies might be reluctant to release source code for this reason just because they're unaware that it's not an issue at all.

Removing references? If they had those in their code to begin with, then they were pretty poor coders... There is no reason to put that kind of information in your source code. It would be the equivalent of scribbling that information on a company's financial report - it might be used only internally in the company, but there is no reason for you to put that information there for others to read it to begin with.

Reused code and 3rd party IP are indeed the most important reasons not to release the code (Epic Games don't release their code for the former reason). That, and laziness.