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Classic Shooters Heretic and Hexen Released Under GPL
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Sep 05, 2008 09:13 PM
from the giblets-want-to-be-free dept.
from the giblets-want-to-be-free dept.
phanboy_iv writes "Fans of both of the Raven classics, Heretic and Hexen, have been trying for almost a decade to convince Raven Software to release engine source code for the games under the GPL, much like the DOOM engine on which both of them are based. Well, they finally did it! Source code is available at Sourceforge. Both of these games have had the source available for a while, but under a restrictive license that hindered ports and modifications. Now, thanks to dedicated fans, that's no longer a problem."
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Not needed anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not needed anymore? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
ZDoom and GZDoom certainly do, and they also support Strife and IIRC even Chex Quest.
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Not entirely. Some are capable of playing the levels but without an inventory, others are reverse engineering the inventory, but they don't work quite right. Having the source released under the GPL will mean either better full support in existing engines, or good 1:1 source ports. Likely both.
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Sounds like a good idea to push other game developers to release their sources as well, so we have something to toy with.
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Actually, I spoke too soon. The source for Duke3D is here [3drealms.com]. NUTS TO YOU GUYS NOW, ODAMEX!
just the source? (Score:2, Interesting)
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No, just the source. That's also what id did when they GPL'd Doom -- just the executable stuff, not the actual game data.
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Isn't that a booger?
Being around a few open projects, I've seen more artists demand proprietary licensing for their art work and content, often things they spent a few hours on. Making certain it will never be "free".
Then, there's coders who poured months of sleepless nights working difficult bugs out of their complicated engine, then hand it out for the community to learn from. Often without a second though.
Re:just the source? (Score:4, Informative)
{shrug}. You can get all of the Doom IWADs for $10 with the collector's edition CD, and on Steam you can buy Heretic for $5 and Hexen and its expansion for $5 each. It's not much.
Parent
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The source is really the important thing here. I believe you can still buy all of those games still as part of a collection or second hand.
Having the source means that the software needed to run the game files can be ported to whatever platform is necessary and fixed. It also means that freeware level packs are useful even without paying for the game.
Still, it would be nice if the WADs and such were included as well. But this is pretty significant to a lot of people.
For those wondering what the hell this is about (Score:5, Informative)
Many of the Doom source modifications out there use code from the Heretic and Hexen source bases in order to create a combined port that can support all games, and support the additional engine features that were brought by Hexen in the older games.
However since the Doom source is GPL while the Heretic and Hexen code bases were not, any project doing so was actively violating the GPL, until now.
How I became a programmer, by accident (Score:4, Interesting)
My sucking at this and other FPS games is what lead me to becoming a programmer. Hex editing binaries, cheat patches, etc. led me to open source and hacking.
So yeah these are old news now, but there is some serious nostalgia for some us.
Re:And the result... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Re:And the result... (Score:4, Informative)
ZDoom's problem isn't that it was using non-GPL code, it was that it was trying to use GPL code: version 1.16 used the minilzo decompressor and Qmus2midi, and the whole thing was released as GPL. Version 1.22 had Qmus2midi ripped out, but minilzo was still there and there was nothing in the source indicating what license the whole thing could be distributed under. Well, we know now that it couldn't be distributed due to the mixing of Doom Source Licensed code with GPLed code (not to mention the Hexen bits that were in there), but I don't know what it claimed to be under at the time.
I don't have the source for any 2.0 versions except 2.0.96 handy. That one has no GPL code, although a few files have an exception that if they're used outside of ZDoom or one of its derivatives, then they fall under the GPL. The only piece of GPL code in GZDoom is Fragglescript, and the author of that has granted an exception so it can be linked with GZDoom. The author of GZDoom has put a lot of his own code under the LGPL, mostly to make it more difficult for closed-source ZDoom derivatives ZDaemon and Skulltag to use it...
Parent
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I think some of us may be interested anyway.
A bit of additional info is that the source code for both heretic and hexen are missing the sound libray... From the sourceforge page:
The DMX sound library is not included with the source due to license issues, so you won't be able to link until those sound calls are replaced or removed.
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Re:And the result... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I've learned anything from my time on Slashdot, it's that there's a community for everything. No matter how weird or insignificant a software project is, there will be a dedicated community around it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Kinda like rule 34 then :)
Don't be so dismissive... (Score:2, Interesting)
These are still good things to learn from.
And who knows if they had some clever tricks in them that have been forgotten? I still remember that fast inverse square root function ...
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