Doom 3 Source Code Is About Ready To Go

[whizse]

So I guess this is about the game logic written in QuakeC? If so, they are free to license and distribute it as they see fit.

(Unless it was based on GPL'ed QC, but that seems unlikely).

[AnonymousCoward]

The game has never been released under GPL. It?s released under proprietary license, which refers to CC and GPL (engine is GNU GPL v2, art assets ? CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).

http://www.blendernation.com/2010/09/20/steel-storm-episode-i/

I do not know if that clarifies everything though...

This is illegal. You cannot combine GPL'd code with proprietary code and release it under proprietary license. This is a clear violation of the GPL.

[Hamish Wilson]

Steel Storm is based on the GPL engine Darkplaces, and its media license is even "almost" FOSS too with the CC-BY-NC-SA license. This makes it possible to use its engine enhancements (like a in-game editor, a really nice menu system, etc) also in other open-source games!

I think this is actually not a bad compromise between trying to cover some expenses and still making open-source games, and that commercial efforts are not strictly incompatible with FOSS game development can be discussed here) It would be cool though, if they would consider a "ransom" design also, i.e. that the game becomes completely FOSS after a certain sum of sales has been reached.

http://freegamer.blogspot.com/2010/09/steel-storm-indi-and-open-source.html

The game has never been released under GPL. It?s released under proprietary license, which refers to CC and GPL (engine is GNU GPL v2, art assets ? CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).

http://www.blendernation.com/2010/09/20/steel-storm-episode-i/

I do not know if that clarifies everything though...

[Shining Arcanine]

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.



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.

It is possible to get alternative licensing terms from ID Software, which would circumvent the GPL.

[curaga]

There have been games going the other way too, Urban Terror went from being on ioq3 to a proprietary license for Tech3 just to keep their future secret sauce.

[AnonymousCoward]

Care to elaborate? I got source code when I bought the game,

What you got is the source code for the engine.

but I'm not sure if anything is missing?

What you are missing is the source code for the game.

[whizse]

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.

Care to elaborate? I got source code when I bought the game, but I'm not sure if anything is missing?

[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.

[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.

[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.