Doom 3 BFG On Linux Is Still An Active Pet Project

Last week marked the one year anniversary of id Software open-sourcing their Doom 3 BFG engine changes. While they didn't release a Linux client for Doom 3: BFG Edition, a small group of open-source developers did a community Linux version via the RBDOOM-3-BFG project. That though appears to be the only major development work still around the open-source Doom 3 code.

It was last December on Phoronix when I first wrote of Doom 3 BFG being ported to Linux by some independent developers. The RBDOOM-3-BFG project was quick to move along while other Doom 3 open-source projects haven't cultivated. Most recently I wrote about RB-DOOM-3-BFG in September when the project was still seeing new Git activity.

In realizing last night that the Doom 3 BFG code drop was around this time last year, I was checking out to see if there were any other open-source Doom 3 engine projects sprouting up and making headway. Sadly, aside from The Dark Mod and RB-DOOM-3-BFG, there is not much going on for this open-source id Tech 4 code.

It was in November of 2011 when the original Doom 3 source-code was published followed by the immediate creation of the ioDoom3 project. While the ioquake3 project continues to thrive as an open-source id Tech 3 engine project and there's many games based off the code, the ioDoom3 project has been far from a success.

The ioDoom3 Git repository hasn't seen any code changes since April and there's only 41 commits to its GitHub repository. There's been no communication among their developers recently and all other channels have been silent too, aside from spam piling up in the ioDoom3 forums.

So sadly two years after the original Doom 3 / id Tech 4 engine code was put out under the GPL and one year after the BFG engine changes were published, there isn't much to show for it compared to the id Tech 3 days. When it comes to the LinuxRBDOOM-3-BFG port, the most recent activity was mid-November when various fixes landed, OpenAL support for doomclassic, and other changes made. For those wanting to check out the BFG Linux port, check out its GitHub project page.