From:	gfoot AT mc31 DOT merton DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk (George Foot)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Quake Editing Utilites
Date:	15 Feb 1997 02:56:56 GMT
Organization:	Oxford University
Lines:	45
Message-ID:	<5e38lo$nrp@news.ox.ac.uk>
References:	<2 DOT 2 DOT 32 DOT 19970213044916 DOT 0069e530 AT delilah> <5durbn$39b AT flex DOT uunet DOT pipex DOT com> <5e36he$lf7$1 AT news DOT inc DOT net>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	mc31.merton.ox.ac.uk
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

: I am a huge zealot of free software, and im an bigger zealot that
: commercial software should come with source code.

Yep, freely available source code is definitely good for the industry as
a whole.

: HOWEVER,

: If i understand correctly, the quake source was not released by
: id, but by some renegade third party.
...

You understand correctly. If I understand correctly. Um... yes, we're 
both right.

: Id love to see ID just conceed the source code is out there and let
: everyone who has the *registered version* be able to keep a copy of the
: sources *for their own personal use only*

I'd love to see this too. It'd be a noble move on id's part. Now that there
are copies circulating, there can be no secrets in the code - anyone
sufficiently interested will find out in the end. Licensing registered
users to use and abuse the code would be no practical loss - you still need
the map files, mdls, skins, etc etc, before you can play. The only problem
would be the possibility of people modifying the code to allow the shareware
version to do things it shouldn't be doing, like loading external maps. But
they'd still need the other support files, as I mentioned above.

When I bought the registered version, I had already played it on a friend's
computer. I didn't buy it for the extra levels and monsters - I found them
disappointing. I bought it for the game engine - the possibilities using
QuakeC were so immense. However, if the source code itself was released, it
would allow a large number of people to attempt to improve it. By natural
selection one would hope that the best would survive, resulting in a better
overall standard. Persuading a professional company that this is a good
thing would be difficult, though... they'd lose profits.

Of course, in id Software's case this is all hopelessly complicated by the
fact that id Software have split up into several separate companies, all
of whom are still using the Quake code AFAIK. So it would be three times as
hard in this case...

-- 
George Foot <gfoot AT mc31 DOT merton DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk>
Merton College, Oxford.

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