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Programming Entertainment Games IT Technology

Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked 1027

Pyroman[FO] writes "Gamers with Jobs is reporting that the Half Life 2 source code is floating around the net right now. It looks to be about a month old. There's no official word from Valve on the source code leak yet. Unfortunately those who want to use it to cheat already have it, we need to get the word to legitimate customers to educate them about the situation." Update: 10/02 21:51 GMT by S : Valve's Gabe Newell has an official statement, via ShackNews/HalfLife2.net, indicating "infiltration of our network" and appealing for information on the culprits.
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Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked

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  • by sahonen ( 680948 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:04PM (#7114850) Homepage Journal
    We can start making mods sooner!
    • by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:33PM (#7115221) Homepage
      To hell with modding it, why doesn't someone finish the damn game and release it already??
  • One Word: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Digital11 ( 152445 ) <digital11@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:05PM (#7114865) Homepage
    Wow.

    That's quite a big deal to have leaked. Unfortunately the article is down to I can't RTFA, but is this just the SDK source code or the whole friggin thing?

    If it's the whole thing think of how much jeopardy that puts them in with the people they've licensed technology from (such as the Havok physics engine, etc).
    Again I say, Wow.
    • Re:One Word: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Moonshadow ( 84117 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:08PM (#7114920)
      I got wind of this earlier this morning. There's a big thread on it. So far, those looking at it believe it's most likely a heavily-modified HL1 SDK, or something. Not sure if it's a hoax yet. Of course, they're gamers, not coders.

      Thread here [halflife2.net].

      Be interesting to see what the verdict of the Slashdot code gurus is.

      • by Damek ( 515688 )
        Be interesting to see what the verdict of the Slashdot code gurus is.

        *jumps up and down with a chicken on his head*

        Well, I'm trying to be interesting, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything to get the Slashdot code gurus to lay down their verdict. Perhaps you didn't mean that to be an imperative?
  • Pascal (Score:5, Funny)

    by dekashizl ( 663505 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:05PM (#7114867) Journal
    Hopefully this will put to rest the controversy over Pascal. Now the world can see that you CAN write a production quality game in Pascal.
  • by Kandel ( 624601 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:05PM (#7114868) Journal
    Valve Software are sueing Linux Kernel creator Linux Torvalds, on suspect that leaked Half-Life 2 source code is present in Linux operating system.
  • Thanks ATI! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:05PM (#7114872)
    I knew ATI wouldn't let us down!
  • "use it to cheat?" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:06PM (#7114884) Homepage Journal
    Aren't we past security through obscurity by now? Or is that just applied to Microsoft.
    • by Moonshadow ( 84117 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:11PM (#7114972)
      Most people don't think like that. They think "You have the source, you can make whatever cheats you want!" They're gamers, not coders, and most don't have a clue what they're talking about. I trust that Valve is professional enough to write tight code.

      The most damage is the loss of company secrets (Source engine techniques, anyone?) and the potential damage to engine licensing opportunities, I think.
      • The most damage is the loss of company secrets (Source engine techniques, anyone?) and the potential damage to engine licensing opportunities, I think.

        If you worked for an actual game developer, would you risk your career by using leaked engine code?

        At worst you'd read it at home, figure out some technique, and implement it in your own project.
        • by Moonshadow ( 84117 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:37PM (#7115274)
          Well, that's really what I meant. No serious studio is going to use a pirated version of the engine to create a game, but HL2 is obviously using some cutting-edge techniques to achieve the results that they have demonstrated. The availability of the code means that such techniques could be analyzed and incorporated into other engines, diluting the exclusivity of the Source engine, and making it a lot easier for developers looking for a next gen engine to roll their own, or buy one a bit cheaper than Source.
      • by Slothy ( 17409 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:34PM (#7115236) Homepage
        If this is legit, this all applies. If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time to debate.

        Valve will not lose any licenses due to the code being available. Nobody is going to not license the engine because they can get the source. You'd get your ass sued to oblivion to commit largescale copyright infringement on a major retail product. The first thing anyone asks when you're working on a game is "what engine are you using?". You can't hide your engine - knowledable people can easily tell what engine it is by running it.

        The real risk is cheating, which could very well have a real impact on sales (why buy HL2 to play the new CS when the new CS has at least as many cheats as the old one?). Plus if cheating is rampant, it could scare away licensees.

        So they could lose real sales and licensees, but only because of cheating, not because they don't need to pay for the source because they can get it for free :)

        Jon (Slothy)
        Programmer, S2 Games
    • by slamb ( 119285 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:13PM (#7114996) Homepage
      Aren't we past security through obscurity by now?

      Not with games, especially first-person shooters. It's a problem of distributing the workload with limited server resources and limited bandwidth / high latency between nodes. To make the game playable, the clients have to know things and be trusted to do calculations that from a security standpoint they should not.

      This really is unfortunate. It means you really can't stop cheating with this sort of game. It's especially easy when the source code is available, though it's still possible otherwise.

      • by PyromanFO ( 319002 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:18PM (#7115051)
        Mod this man up, I wasn't talking about the latest OpenSSH release getting leaked, it's Half Life 2. The latency problems mean you can't really have secure netcode, however obscurity goes a long way to help.

        The CDKey and Steam authentication systems are also supposedly included, so any security control they had before goes out the window, you can't trust the CD Keys or Steam anymore. Not that they were perfect before, but this is going from "wait a bit while the crackers figure out this new authentication system, then it's changed in a patch, repeat" to "here it is on a silver platter, before it's released"
      • Not always a problem (Score:5, Informative)

        by mr_luc ( 413048 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:04PM (#7115550)
        A lot of that has to do with the particular game, as well as the design of the prediction in that game.

        For instance, in Starsiege:Tribes, since the rendering engine has been successfully hacked, people have been able to write some clever and EXTREMELY extensive cheats -- you can customize the visibility of the terrain, of individual objects (like buildings -- make them partially transparent to see people around corners), remove fog from maps, have pointers to the person with the flag, and most infamously, change the model for the flag into a twenty-story-tall red and green stick figure with a gigantic smiley face. This cheat is known as 'Happy Flag', and it makes it pretty much impossible to confuse the enemy team as to the location of your flag.

        Now, in any other game, with the graphics engine compromised to that extent, the game would be over. It would be trivial to write auto-aim functionality that centers your view on a particular model type and fires the weapon.

        But thanks both to the use of actual projectiles instead of instant (or 'hitscan') weapons, as well as a server-client model that DOES NOT TRUST CLIENT EVENTS (which you might think would make the game much more apparently laggy, but which in reality makes the game much less stuttery and much smoother for those on slower connctions; you just have to predict your shots more. But, since you have to do that anyways by design . . .).

        The stability of this system is such that even with one of the most rabid fanbases in gaming, the only cheats available are primarily informational in nature. A cheater can see mines better, can know where the flag is, can see people clearly that would be mostly obscured by fog otherwise.

        But this gives him very little actual advantage. The only hitscan weapon in the game is not a one-hit kill even on the lightest armor, and it needs to recharge, and the method used in both Tribes 1 and the Torque engine of the server not trusting the player for jack shit is actually EASIER on the server, since it processes client actions essentially as it receives them. Moreover, thanks to 'skiing' and the jetpacks and the visibility of laser rifle attacks, any advantage is quickly whittled down to a simple nuisance.

        Now, at the other end of the spectrum is Red Faction. :D I'm not much of a cheater normally, but the most fun I have ever had was back in the day before everyone was cheating, when the careful task was to cleverly design cheats that are almost undetectable -- like a specially powerful jump to get you out of difficult situations, etc. The most fun I had was giving my player ninjalike abilities by modifying the scripts myself, and reducing my fall damage, and limiting myself to the pistol. It's all about the mobility, baby!
      • Cheating can be eliminated if game programmers would not send the server "absolute aiming coordinates". Instead, the clients should send "delta", or rate-of-change, coordinate info. This simply amounts to sending the server "how much" you would like the "virtual you" on the servers simulation to "slew" your weapon. In fact, this is the way it works in the "real world" since you cannot accurately position your weapon using absoulute coordinates without commanding your muscles to move it using "rate-of-change
  • by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:07PM (#7114891) Homepage
    ...it was FREED!!
  • by SUB7IME ( 604466 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:07PM (#7114897)
    ... cheating is considered the 'big threat' of a source code leak, rather than the huge impending theft of intellectual property ;-)
  • by pegr__ ( 144172 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:07PM (#7114899) Homepage
    Great... The article is Slashdotted... But the leaked code is mirrored everywhere!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:07PM (#7114900)
    Full article from:
    http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/modules.php?o p=modlo ad&name=News&file=article&sid=665

    Half-Life 2 Source Code Leaked, Seriously
    Posted by: Pyroman[FO] on Thursday, October 02, 2003 - 11:02 AM EST

    So I know what you're thinking. "Yeah right Pyro, it's really just more suprise gay porn" but its the real deal. The source code for Valve's Half-Life 2 has been leaked to the net. An anonymous GWJ reader has verified this is real.

    I can confirm that this is indeed no fake ... The thing is available as a torrent download on the net. I don't know how much action they will take against people downloading this. ... The last edits are from a month ago (in the files). If this is fake, it is a damn good one. It looks very coherent. Over 100 megs unpacked source

    There's still no official word from Valve and I haven't seen any other sites pick it up. There isn't any word on who leaked it either and from what I have heard the source doesn't give it away. Hopefully when this gets out in the open Valve can work with its partners to figure out who did this. Let's also hope it doesn't delay Half-Life 2 any further.

    One things for sure, this can't be ignored. Those in the know already have it and they're probably working on their first cheat right now. Legitimate customers are the ones who need to know about this as they are the ones that will get their machine potentially broken into when they go online. You can't warez with month old source code, all it's good for is exploiting others in multiplayer and allowing crackers to make better cracks. Customers need to know that there are cheaters out there right now with the full Half Life 2 source code, if this is true.
  • I guess I'll have to stick to something I can trust: Professional Wrestling.
  • Steam? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:09PM (#7114937) Homepage
    Nice to see that DRM is helping to make sure that it's hard to cheat and rip off the hard working games companies...

    Those who want to steal will, those who are honest will pay anyway. Why piss off your entire userbase with DRM?
  • More info (Score:5, Informative)

    by redink1 ( 519766 ) <redink1@@@hotmail...com> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:11PM (#7114961) Homepage Journal
    The staff at halflife2.net believe its real [halflife2.net].

    There are also a few threads on steam [steampowered.com], PlanetHalfLife [forumplanet.com], and arstechnica [infopop.net].

  • Oh no. (Score:5, Funny)

    by akunkel ( 74144 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:11PM (#7114962)
    Lets just hope it does not end up in the Linux kernel.
  • by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:13PM (#7114992) Homepage
    It seems like these development houses need some sort of code control technology. Given that bits are inherantly copyable and the ease with which they're moved in large numbers (net, DVD-Rs, etc), companies can't rely on conventional security methods to protect themselves from serious employee theft.

    But how?

    At my company, we control access to code using good 'ol fashioned groups, but that leaves a relatively large number of people with access to everything. Maybe you could enhance that security with encryption of the codebase (you can decrypt the parts you need to change and that's it), but that doesn't seem like a great solution, either. Or maybe somehow watermark the code to each person in a way not easy to detect -- maybe dynamically change their variable names so they're individual-specific...

    Anyhow, interesting problem. There's always air-gap, searched-by-security on the way out solutions, but given that my keychain holds more data than my first (or second, or third) hard drive, I'm not sure how effective even a police-state style could be against a determined thief....

    • by randombit ( 87792 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:41PM (#7115316) Homepage
      companies can't rely on conventional security methods to protect themselves from serious employee theft.

      If security is really important, #1 rule is to make sure you trust the people who have the important data. Someone did this intentionally, either someone at Valve, or one of their partners. That person should probably not have been hired in the first place. OTOH, I don't know how one would go about security checks for this kind of thing. It's not as easy as govt ones (where what they want to know is 1) are you a spy/subversive/etc and 2) how easy can you be blackmailed by someone who is - between those two it covers 99% of the cases where one would wish to leak stuff). This seems like it was done - well, actually, I really don't understand why anyone would do this, except maybe to really fuck their employer.

      Maybe you could enhance that security with encryption of the codebase (you can decrypt the parts you need to change and that's it)

      Except that you still need to compile it, so unless you put special decryption stuff in the compiler (or in a preprocessor to it), etc, etc, etc it's not going to do you a whole lot of good.

      Or maybe somehow watermark the code to each person in a way not easy to detect -- maybe dynamically change their variable names so they're individual-specific...

      Would sure as hell make understanding things hard, though. 'Sure, to do such-and-such just increment a4362h' 'What? Do you mean z2314j?' I don't think this would fly.
  • Xbox Version (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Iscariot_ ( 166362 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:24PM (#7115122)
    Looks like our best bet for a secure, low-cheat ridden version of Half-Life 2 multiplayer might be on the Xbox now...

    Just a thought.
  • What?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:26PM (#7115145)
    What? No bittorrent links?

    How sad. oh wait.. you're shuning sharers today? Nevermind then
  • by Kedisar ( 705040 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:28PM (#7115167) Journal
    I wager the OS community finishes Half-Life 2 before Valve does. ;)
  • by tsetem ( 59788 ) <tsetem@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:34PM (#7115230)
    Think about it. If the code hits the net, and hackers find the various exploits in HL2 (buffer overflows, hijacked network streams, etc.), then Valve can see where their holes and possible exploits are at and fix them before it goes gold.

    Not to mention, all of the free debugging, and reviews too. Heck, how many mods will be available when HL2 gets released because developers have access to the new API. Maybe it wasn't leaked, maybe it really was freed...
  • License (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chris Canfield ( 548473 ) <slashdot@chrisca ... ld.net minus cat> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:34PM (#7115231) Homepage
    Valve makes money from three sources: Sales of their games for sake of their games, sales of their games to support mods (such as counterstrike), and sales of their engine to other companies to create their own game. Because the art resources weren't leaked with the source, sales of their own game for their own sake will not be hurt. The other two cases are a little more interesting.

    Sales of the engine may be hurt, or it may be helped. Certain companies may wind up "doing the wrong thing" and incorporating Valve code into their own, but no major player would be caught dead doing such a thing. I expect that snippets of that code may find its way into the wild due to overtasked programmers trying to make their game the best it can be, but such snippets wouldn't have equalled a sale, they simply mean fiercer competition. And with the increased visibility, companies can now know the quality of the code that their 500 grand will be buying. True, being released into the wild may reduce the perception of value, but with the availability of the code this may still lead to increased sales.

    Modders are a different story. Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. But on the other hand with access to source, modders could create more extensive and more active modifications, creating original features instead of mere graphical facelifts. If these code modders require the original game to be playable, it could lead to a real renissance in modding and a tremendous boost in sales for Valve.

    I can see how this may possibly turn out to be somewhat damaging to Valve, but I can't see how this is one of the four horsemen of their apocolypse. The head of the man who intentionally leaked the code should roll (if it truly was intentional), but it is way too soon to declare this the end of the company. Under closer analysis, it may even be a boon.
    • Re:License (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) * <evan@NOSpaM.misterorange.com> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @03:31PM (#7116567) Homepage
      Modders are a different story. Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. But on the other hand with access to source, modders could create more extensive and more active modifications, creating original features instead of mere graphical facelifts. If these code modders require the original game to be playable, it could lead to a real renissance in modding and a tremendous boost in sales for Valve.

      Please, don't be as nieve as you're sounding here.

      Firstly this code is over a month old, and they're in crunch-mode. This means that drastic bug and graphics fixes are due for this code, and a month is a long time when everyone at Valve is probably putting in 16+ hour days.

      Secondly, those modified binaries probably won't work correctly unless they also include modified DLL's, and even then some graphical bug could bite them in the ass, something that was probably fixed in the Gold release.

      Thirdly this line: "Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. " is absolute nonsense, and kind of silly at best. Cripple their sales numbers? Hah! That was a good one.

      However, with all that said, I do agree that releasing the total engine source is a double-edged sword, and there's a reason Carmack and other game companies wait many years before releasing the source under any sort of open source license.

      This is terrible, dangerous stuff. I expect at least one firing to come from it.
  • by yroJJory ( 559141 ) <.me. .at. .jory.org.> on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:34PM (#7115244) Homepage
    Seems to me this should be posted on Gamers WITHOUT Jobs, as that's what will happen when the leak is traced.
  • by Yoda2 ( 522522 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:56PM (#7115465)
    but when will it be available on SourceForge?

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/halflife2 is available if anyone is interested.

  • Finally (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pmz ( 462998 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:57PM (#7115476) Homepage

    we can determine the exponential rate at which the number of bugs in open source software decreases.

  • IT COMPILES (Score:5, Interesting)

    by W2k ( 540424 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @01:57PM (#7115482) Journal
    Someone already managed to squeeze a HL2.EXE and TF2.EXE out of the source. Behold:

    http://www.devils-children.com/hl2_1.jpg [devils-children.com]

    It's being picked apart in #HL2-Source on irc.quakenet.org at the moment. Fun fun.
    • Re:IT COMPILES (Score:4, Informative)

      by W2k ( 540424 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:31PM (#7115855) Journal
      Some early results from the picking apart of the source are here [moddb.com] and here [gamefaqs.com].

      I tried compiling the code, it won't work in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 (apparently it was developed in Visual Studio 6.0 and the version inconsistencies break the code. It's not exactly standard C++ :). According to unverified rumours, Visual Studio 6.0 with SP5 will compile the source.
  • by rhino_badlands ( 449954 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:00PM (#7115506) Homepage
    Just a thought but maybe Valve knew about the leak and then pushed back the release date to fix code which could have been comprimised !

    So lets just say thanks to whom ever leaked the code and we can all blame them for the delay of the release date !

    I hope they also know that NDA's are a big part of the game industry today so that either means your loosing your job, your company, or you getting sued.

    Each file contains a date, what was modified and when for the most part depending on what code managemnt tool they use ... so valve can probaly go though see who checked out the whole build ... or just certain parts and figure out who leaked it. (most managemnet tools use 128 bit encryption and a key) Its very easy to track these things.
  • by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:13PM (#7115649) Homepage
    }
    If ATI Pays++
    • then ATI_Card_Peformance++
    else if NVIDIA Pays++
    • then NVIDA_Card_Perferomance++
    else
    • BSOD
    {
  • by dpayton ( 588658 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:13PM (#7115650)
    In the news at this hour, columnist Robert Novak denies that the Half Life 2 source code was shopped to 6 other web sites before he posted it, and that the leak came from the Bush administration. "Karl Rove didn't even know there was a Half Life *1*, for goodness sake. Suggesting he is responsible for the leak is preposterous." Bush administration officials were too busy playing Unreal Tournament 2004 to comment on the allegations.
  • by greymond ( 539980 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:33PM (#7115879) Homepage Journal
    I would like to take this time to announce Stolensofts new upcoming FPS shooter "Not Quite Dead" The game features a robust and powerful 3D engine, with realistic AI.

    Surprisingly enough we were able to complete the game engine and the game within 2 weeks, which goes to show why Stolensoft makes the best games.
  • by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @02:50PM (#7116091) Homepage Journal
    I have downloaded the code and taken a quick peek, It does indeed seem to be legitimate. More disturbing though is , a simple grep through the code tree reveals that this leaked source tree contains gpl'd code .

    files in these directories contain such code for example ./ivp/havana/havok/hk_math/ ./utils/vmpi/mysql/include/

    It would take someone a little more clued up than I to verify that this code is actually used in a binary release.

    Someone should take a closer look.

  • by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @03:33PM (#7116580)
    unsigned char md5[16]; // Client's launcher.exe hash value (for versioning)

    I guess Valve will have come come up with a new authentefication system...
  • by rob2lehigh ( 682737 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @03:38PM (#7116643)
    I was looking over the source and I found numerous references to a 'boomstick', strip clubs, and warthogs dressed in police uniforms. Then I realized... someone finally GPL'd Duke Nukem Forever!
  • by W2k ( 540424 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @03:43PM (#7116691) Journal
    The leaked Half-Life 2 source contains GPL:ed code. Makes one wonder, would we ever have known it was there if it wasn't for this leak? Or were Valve planning a sneaky GPL violation?

    Here's the beginning comment from "hl2_src\src_main\ivp\havana\havok\hk_math\odesolv e.cpp":

    /*

    Dynamics/Kinematics modeling and simulation library.
    Copyright (C) 1999 by Michael Alexander Ewert

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public
    License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
    version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
    Library General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
    License along with this library; if not, write to the Free
    Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

    */
  • This is horrible ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by snowtigger ( 204757 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @06:18PM (#7118467) Homepage
    No matter how much I love open source programming, I can't help feeling really sad for Valve. The gaming market is such a competitive place and this is really the worst thing immaginable. It must be absolutely horrible for Valve to see man-years of work fly out the window. Recent posts have talked about different risks, but I think the potential rumors on "HalfLife2 sources are leaked, so there will be too many cheaters" are a lot worse from a marketing and reputation perspective.

    As for you GPL programmers, there is already a lot of interesting code out there to play around with. I cannot express in words how thankful I am to different companies letting me play with their products such as Quake2 by id. I think they deserve making money on their hard work and heavy risktaking. GPLing such code is giving me a present I could never make up for.

    As I'm quite fond of snowboarding, I ended up working on the Soul Ride snowboard game engine [sourceforge.net]. It would take me years to reproduce the same code on my own. Even if noone ever uses my changes, I really enjoy working on it and it's fun showing my changes to (geek)friends.

    Open source is fun to play with. Stolen code just isn't. The whole idea of open source code is built on honesty and solidarity.

    Anyway, good luck Valve, I'll buy the game when it comes out. Also, I will enjoy working on the real source you may GPL in 5-10 years, not this leaked one.

    (I'm sure some slashdotters won't like what I write, but I've got karma to spend...)
  • by xintegerx ( 557455 ) on Thursday October 02, 2003 @08:08PM (#7119488) Homepage
    TO: GORDON FREEMAN (webmaster@bigjugs.com)
    FROM: GABE N. (gabe@valvesoftware.com)
    DATE: October 2, 2003
    RE: HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED

    Hi Gordon,

    The program has escaped and we are in deep trouble. I guess the team forgot that this was a risk we were all taking when we strived to improve artifical intelligence and realism. We knew the risk was there.... We need your help, Gordon.

    At 9:02 PM, Half-Life 2 became self-aware and e-mailed copies of itself to fans in Gabe's Outlook addressbook.

    The software, manipulating and cramming itself into packets and headers, arrives and reassembles itself at six hundred million internet connected machines by 9:40 PM, during the peak hour of connectivity.

    Control of military functions, satellites, and nuclear plants will be attained by approximately 10:15. Scients have tracked the software's plan to initiate countdown at 11:30, scheduled for midnight activation. By 10:55, over twenty percent of the weapons across the globe will still be unable to be put offline by humans. The countdown clock reads 1 hour, 4 minutes, 32 seconds until midnight.

    You are Gordon Freeman. I know that you once again happen to be working inside a new, modern version of the HEV suit at this time. You are the world's only hope. Can you save the world? Or will you be .. terminated?

    Thanks, Gabe

    P.S. Oh and save me any extra copies of the HEV suit. And save the third for a chick. So we can reproduce later. Thanks~

With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once build a nuclear balm?

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