Doom 3 Source Code Is About Ready To Go

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Doom 3 Source Code Is About Ready To Go

It looks like id Software will soon be releasing the source code to their very well known Doom 3 game...

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

[tuke81]

Well only thing that could be problematic is Creative's software patent(all tough it could all ready taken care of).

For id tech 4 source, would it be possible to get working native linux installer for games like brink and wolfenstein by community work(maybe upcoming prey2 too).

[Hamish Wilson]

For id tech 4 source, would it be possible to get working native linux installer for games like brink and wolfenstein by community work(maybe upcoming prey2 too).

That would be the nicest option, since a lot of what made id tech 4 special has already been implemented independently in many of the major free engines anyway, so it would add more value to the source code release. Not begrudging the release, but this is not going to be as big a game changer as some of the previous Quake engines.

[Azpegath]

It would be so awesome to see Enemy Territory on this engine. A great game, just in need of some graphic upgrades.

[gbudny]

For id tech 4 source, would it be possible to get working native linux installer for games like brink and wolfenstein by community work(maybe upcoming prey2 too).

No, it is impossible, because we will still need Brink, Prey 2 and Wolfenstein source code.

[doctoren]

No, it is impossible, because we will still need Brink, Prey 2 and Wolfenstein source code.

Unfortunately, gbudny is right. Even though Brink and Wolfenstein are based on id tech 4 several modifications have been added to the engine, like Brink using openGL 3+ for rendering. Splash Damage and Raven could also have added dependencies to 3rd party middleware which would make it harder still to create Linux clients. If you look at all the games that was based on id tech 3, have you ever seen Linux clients for any of them after id tech 3 was open sourced?

On another note it's cool that id continues to open source there old engines even though I personally would rather spend time hacking some of the alternatives which allowes for commercial use.

[gbudny]

If you look at all the games that was based on id tech 3, have you ever seen Linux clients for any of them after id tech 3 was open sourced?

There was one exception, but Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force for Linux is still unfinished game:

"The linux version of the STVEF engine was written by Thilo Schulz. It is based on the ioquake3 engine from icculus.org and allows you to play HOLOMATCH (the multiplayer part of STVEF, including bots). You cannot play the single player campaigns."

http://lg.blogsport.de/2009/04/08/playing-star-trek-voyager-elite-force-under-linux/

http://thilo.kickchat.com/efport-progress/bin/linux/

[Hamish Wilson]

On another note it's cool that id continues to open source there old engines even though I personally would rather spend time hacking some of the alternatives which allowes for commercial use.

There is nothing preventing anyone building a commercial game based on id Software's released engines, you just have to keep the engine code that you build on under the GPL. For example, Steel Storm is a commercial game based of the DarkPlaces engine. You can not keep the engine code proprietary, but your game data can still be proprietary if you so choose. If you hope to sell any games based off older id Software engine code anyway, one would hope it would be the gameplay and not the engine or graphics you were betting your money on anyway, as it would be quite difficult to compete with larger scale projects on those grounds anyway.

And besides, even if the game was fully free, there is nothing stopping you from selling it as a commercial project even then. The GPL does not place any restrictions on sales or resale's of programs licensed under it.

No, it is impossible, because we will still need Brink, Prey 2 and Wolfenstein source code.

It is not impossible, but it is quite difficult as you essentially have to reverse engineer the changes they had done to it. Thus it is only usually older game titles that have this done to them as they are inherently simpler and less likely to depend on third-party middle-ware.

[doctoren]

There is nothing preventing anyone building a commercial game based on id Software's released engines, you just have to keep the engine code that you build on under the GPL. For example, Steel Storm is a commercial game based of the DarkPlaces engine. You can not keep the engine code proprietary, but your game data can still be proprietary if you so choose. If you hope to sell any games based off older id Software engine code anyway, one would hope it would be the gameplay and not the engine or graphics you were betting your money on anyway, as it would be quite difficult to compete with larger scale projects on those grounds anyway.

And besides, even if the game was fully free, there is nothing stopping you from selling it as a commercial project even then. The GPL does not place any restrictions on sales or resale's of programs licensed under it.

Sorry, you are of course right. I just had the impression that you needed a license to use the engines commercially.

[AnonymousCoward]

There is nothing preventing anyone building a commercial game based on id Software's released engines, you just have to keep the engine code that you build on under the GPL.

What you describe here is the LGPL. The GPL requires you to also release the code that links to the GPL'd code under a GPL compatible license. In this case this means that not only the engine source code but also the game source code must be released under a GPL compatible license.

For example, Steel Storm is a commercial game based of the DarkPlaces engine. You can not keep the engine code proprietary, but your game data can still be proprietary if you so choose

Sure the game data can be proprietary. But the makers of Steel Storm have also not released the game source code and are in direct violation of the GPL.