Textmode Quake 2

Artemis writes: "Following the Quake 2 source code release under the GPL, here's the follow-up of the famous ttyquake, it's a text mode Quake II called aaquake2 which has just been released. Time for more 3d text mode gaming fun! The site includes screenshots for those of you who haven't seen Quake-turned-Text before."

Comments

Example for mandatory open sourcing

[ShieldWolf]

This gives us an interesting example of what Lawrence Lessig suggested earlier: mandatory source code release after a set period of time for software, which follows a reasonably short period of exclusivity.

This guys speech, as weird and freaky as it is ;), would have not have come to light if Quake II had not been open-sourced after it ceased to become cutting-edge technology. By releasing the code after a reasonable period of time Carmack has given us a golden lesson in copyright. By putting the source in more hands we get more speech and interesting ideas put into the public domain, this is the kinda of thing closed source and excessively long copyright terms deny, e.g. Looking forward to David Fincher's Catcher in The Rye? Keep waiting, that book will still be in copyright over 70 years from now, and he will be long dead.

-Shieldwolf

PS - of course I know the software is still under copyright, e.g. GPL via Id Software, I merely mean that it is gives you an IDEA of how this could work.