id Software's Main Linux Game Developer Resigns

Timothee Bessett, the id Software developer that was responsible for porting many of id Software's popular games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 to Linux, has resigned from the popular game company.

On his blog Timothee Bessett (also known as "TTimo") just had a brief statement posted yesterday regarding his resignation from id Software. "I resigned from id earlier this week. Folks who know me well were not terribly surprised, but I suppose I need to put that out there officially. I joined a small startup in Dallas, gaming related, but not fps or esports. Great people, great tech, and we're going to have a blast."

This is quite sad to see as Timothee was involved with id Software for more than a decade and his first Linux game port for them was Return to Castle Wolfenstein back in 2001. Since 2001 he's largely spearheaded most of id's Linux ports, including Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Doom 3, Quake 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Quake Live.

Besset had ported the client and server code and for some of the game launches even managed to ship the Linux support on the same-day as the Windows release. He was also involved with the engine source-code drops that id Software has done under the GPL license when their older id Tech engines no longer carry a commercial value.

Beyond working on the Linux ports, he also worked on the networking code for the id Tech engine. Timothee Besset had also ported some of the id Tech titles to Apple's Mac OS X.

Most recently he was suspected to have been working on the Linux port of Rage and the id Tech 5 game engine. We were looking forward to a Linux release of the Rage game in 2012, but now we have to wonder what state the Linux code is in with Besset having resigned.

Hopefully id Software will end up hiring a new full-time Linux-focused developer or at least contract the work out to Ryan "Icculus" Gordon, who has ported some id Tech games in the past such as Prey. At least John Carmack, the co-founder of id Software, remains a Linux fan so there is some hope left for a good outcome. There's been an ongoing discussion about Rage for Linux in this forum thread.

While this is a sad day seeing id Software's main Linux developer parting ways with the company after more than a decade of accomplishments, best of luck to Timothee Besset and his future endeavors. Hopefully he'll find his way to working on some of the open-source Doom 3 projects or other interesting projects within the Linux community.