Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the more-code-for-everyone dept.
Mandoric writes "Verge2, a fairly popular 'Create-your-own-RPG' system, was GPLed today. Basically, this system allows one to create a console/Japanese style RPG with routines for graphics, audio, etc. already in place. Source is available here"
Re:Is GPL the new name for throw-away?
by
Rupert
·
· Score: 5
I actually like this trend of freeing old software. While it would undoubtedly make us all feel better if all software was free, there are good reasons to keep a program closed-source. If the environment changes (and it does) then the advantages of closed-source can evaporate, leaving it in the best interests of everyone to open-source it. If it works, or contains worthwhile code, people will use it. If not, it will die. Either way, it's all upside.
I think one of the best points in this model is that you no longer have to support clients that are ridiculously back-level. Publish the source code and have them fix it themselves or pay some random hacker to do so.
How to free up *other* old games?
by
Robotech_Master
·
· Score: 4
As I mentioned in an "Ask Slashdot" I submitted the other day but was never posted, there are other old games that a lot of people would love to see open-sourced. For example, Darklands, the 1992 Microprose/SSI RPG of medieval Germany. It was originally supposed to be part of a larger set of games, but Microprose never got around to doing the sequels. It was buggy at first, but in many respects was far ahead of its time; people are still playing it today.
But even though the game itself is no longer sold, and even shows up on abandonware sites for people to download, its source is still locked away in Microprose's vaults, doing no conceivable good to anyone. Writing to support@microprose.com hasn't done any good, though people have been trying for eight years.
Any thoughts?
-- Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
If you actually read further on the page, you would see in the previous day post:
I'm open-sourcing the V2 codebase either today or tomorrow. What I'm going to do first however, is release the old DJGPP trees from the public work-in-progress release of V2 (or maybe it was a version or so after that, I forget). It will have a few things missing, such as the CD audio code, and perhaps the FLI code, I'm not sure yet--this is all due to the fact that the source will be released under the GPL license.
That means what was released today is an old version, and the new one - "(which actually work! *gasp*)," - will come in a few days. Well, I guess we should wait and see.
In a similar topic, Jet3D has recently released its source (its the 2.0 version of the open-source Genesis 3D engine. A CVS tree is being set up, and a linux port of this breathtaking engine would be great!
Is this an RPG is the sense of a `rôle-playing game', that is, a shared experience with coöperative story-telling drawing upon the skills and imagination of the players to pretend to be something they're not? Is this a mere video `game' masquerading as an RPG--you know, just a pseudo-random `roll-playing game' involving rolls of the dice rather than a `rôle-playing game' involving play-acting using alternate personæ?
This is probably revealing of my complete naïveté in these matters, but so be it. It's a real question, and I'd like to know the answer. I honestly don't know which kind of RPG (roll or rôle) it is, and would like to.
I believe I can attribute much of my early interest in computing to gaming experiences during my tender years. I was employee number nineteen or so working for the notorious Gary Gygax back in Lake Geneva at TSR Hobbies during junior and senior high school. I hated the tedious mechanics of die rolls, although delighted in inventing new formulæ for various gaming systems. I wanted some kind of mathematical basis for all the endless systems (combat, magic, etc), but didn't want to think about it once it got running.
That way everyone could really get into their assumed rôles. Group story-telling was always what RPGs were really about, and where they were at their best. It didn't matter whether you were playing Dungeons and Dragons, Boot Hill, Empire of the Petal Throne, Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, In the Labyrinth, Rune Quest, Chivalry and Sorcery, Space Opera, or any of the other classic RPGs. It was the childlike wonder of dynamically invented worlds that made these games truly excellent. It's like the `make believe' games children have always played, and which adults sometimes play as well.
I was also wondering whether someone might have a regular tarball of this stuff that actually comes with files that aren't SCREAMING AT YOU, Makefiles that actually work, source code that isn't polluted with spurious carriage returns all over it, READMEs that bother describe what the thing is for or how to build it? A Configure script and and patches that let it compile under standard C would be nice, too.
I guess I'm spoiled by begin used to:
$ tar zxf foopack-1.00.tar.gz $ cd foopack-1.00 $ sh configure $ make all test && sudo make install
I've always wondered why programs that get autoconfed don't come with a makefile that knows to automatically run configure the first time if it hasn't been run before. That way you can "just type make".
(PS: I am fully aware that my spelling in this posting has the air of Wardour Street about it. I was trying to exaggerate the visual distinction between rolls and rôles, so decided to go with the flow.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I actually like this trend of freeing old software. While it would undoubtedly make us all feel better if all software was free, there are good reasons to keep a program closed-source. If the environment changes (and it does) then the advantages of closed-source can evaporate, leaving it in the best interests of everyone to open-source it. If it works, or contains worthwhile code, people will use it. If not, it will die. Either way, it's all upside.
I think one of the best points in this model is that you no longer have to support clients that are ridiculously back-level. Publish the source code and have them fix it themselves or pay some random hacker to do so.
ESR wrote an interesting essay on this subject.
--
E_NOSIG
As I mentioned in an "Ask Slashdot" I submitted the other day but was never posted, there are other old games that a lot of people would love to see open-sourced. For example, Darklands, the 1992 Microprose/SSI RPG of medieval Germany. It was originally supposed to be part of a larger set of games, but Microprose never got around to doing the sequels. It was buggy at first, but in many respects was far ahead of its time; people are still playing it today.
But even though the game itself is no longer sold, and even shows up on abandonware sites for people to download, its source is still locked away in Microprose's vaults, doing no conceivable good to anyone. Writing to support@microprose.com hasn't done any good, though people have been trying for eight years.
Any thoughts?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
If you actually read further on the page, you would see in the previous day post:
I'm open-sourcing the V2 codebase either today or tomorrow. What I'm going to do first however, is release the old DJGPP trees from the public work-in-progress release of V2 (or maybe it was a version or so after that, I forget). It will have a few things missing, such as the CD audio code, and perhaps the FLI code, I'm not sure yet--this is all due to the fact that the source will be released under the GPL license.
That means what was released today is an old version, and the new one - "(which actually work! *gasp*)," - will come in a few days. Well, I guess we should wait and see.
In a similar topic, Jet3D has recently released its source (its the 2.0 version of the open-source Genesis 3D engine. A CVS tree is being set up, and a linux port of this breathtaking engine would be great!
This is probably revealing of my complete naïveté in these matters, but so be it. It's a real question, and I'd like to know the answer. I honestly don't know which kind of RPG (roll or rôle) it is, and would like to.
I believe I can attribute much of my early interest in computing to gaming experiences during my tender years. I was employee number nineteen or so working for the notorious Gary Gygax back in Lake Geneva at TSR Hobbies during junior and senior high school. I hated the tedious mechanics of die rolls, although delighted in inventing new formulæ for various gaming systems. I wanted some kind of mathematical basis for all the endless systems (combat, magic, etc), but didn't want to think about it once it got running.
That way everyone could really get into their assumed rôles. Group story-telling was always what RPGs were really about, and where they were at their best. It didn't matter whether you were playing Dungeons and Dragons, Boot Hill, Empire of the Petal Throne, Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, In the Labyrinth, Rune Quest, Chivalry and Sorcery, Space Opera, or any of the other classic RPGs. It was the childlike wonder of dynamically invented worlds that made these games truly excellent. It's like the `make believe' games children have always played, and which adults sometimes play as well.
I was also wondering whether someone might have a regular tarball of this stuff that actually comes with files that aren't SCREAMING AT YOU, Makefiles that actually work, source code that isn't polluted with spurious carriage returns all over it, READMEs that bother describe what the thing is for or how to build it? A Configure script and and patches that let it compile under standard C would be nice, too.
I guess I'm spoiled by begin used to:
I've always wondered why programs that get autoconfed don't come with a makefile that knows to automatically run configure the first time if it hasn't been run before. That way you can "just type make".