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Myth 2 Server Goes Open Source
iMacGuy writes: "As announced on Bungie.net, the Myth 2 Internet Server will be shutting down on February 15. However, they have released the source code. It runs on Linux currently, and can be ported to Windows, *BSD, and Mac OS X."
I'm rather ambiguous about the open source "movement", but I have to appreciate any company that gives out their products when they no longer are being supported. I've been screwed too many times with products that were truly good, but just a year out of date.
:) ), it simply allows their software to be even better supported. It extends the "shelf-life" of the software - maybe they'll make some money from the $5 bargain bin, even if the company is no longer running the server for the product. It also allows for very quick security fixes, and for playability fixes that usually take weeks to months for companies to implement. I can already invision custom designed servers for different groups.
Hopefully other companies will take bungie.net's lead and release server software as well. In my mind, it can't hurt the company (although some way will probably be pointed out to me
Or this might just be my ever idealistic mind... Til later.
If you think it was "movies on computer," you probably weren't a very good player. Ah, the joys of King of the Hill on Venice, with the WW2 plugin... your squad gets torn apart in about 5 minutes but you can still hold the flag long enough to win. "Woot" and stuff.
In fact it was Bungie's networking code for Myth II that was so good it was originally a replacement for, and later became a new version of, Apple's net gaming library (NetSprockets).
Anyway, Myth II is a gaming environment. Here's the story from the Myth Vault on bungie.net web site, in case it gets
Myth Game Server Open Source
February 7, 2002
By Mordia
Nothing in this world is permanent, and this must also be said of gaming servers. Over the past five years many of you have enjoyed the thrill of playing the Myth games online, as well as experienced the pains of a downed server or a rank reset. Ah! Memories! The time has come, however, to bid farewell to the old and tired Myth II game server.
We are finally and officially closing the doors on the Myth gaming servers for all time. Myth II online's last day will be Friday, February 15.
However, we realize that by doing so we leave a lot of people without a place to call home. So, what we intend to do is give it to you. Any of you who want it. The server that is. On this site you will find downloadable the Myth II metaserver source code. Do with it what you will!
Want to be an admin? Go for it! Want to make your own ranking system? Everything you need to do so is here. Have a yen for a custom WW2 server? You can make it!
This is the raw Myth II metaserver source code, stripped of a few proprietary bits of code, but still run-able. You can modify it in any way you want and use it for most anything you want. The only real conditions are that you don't then try to sell it and that you leave all the copyright and other legal notices with the code. Be sure to read the short, but very legal license agreement that comes with it before going nuts, but afterwards, go nuts.
The Myth Vault site will serve as a central location for the Myth game server development community, with a forum for people interested in discussing the code and the possibilities. In the future this site may also offer links to fan run servers, leader boards, order databases, whatever--that's all up to you.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's really too bad the Open Source trademark was rejected, because tactics like this lead to a lot of genuine confusion about what open source software really means.
...and can be ported to Windows, *BSD, and Mac OS X.
hell, why stop there? i've always wanted a Myth 2 server that'd run through my hotsync cradle, or, alternatively, through my official sega broadband adaptor.
Isn't Bungie a fully owned subsidiary of M$? I wonder if the Bungie folks consulted their masters, and if they did, does this portend a possible softening of M$'s hard line against Open Source? There's more to this, I feel it (whether this is a nod to Open Source from M$, or if this will be followed by a reigning in of Bungie's autonomy, I don't know).
BlackGriffen
it runs on linux?
isn't Bungie a MS-owned company (i belive they were bought out so that Halo would go on X-Box)
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
Ironically enough, the literal content of your post is correct. It's not true. The code is being released, but not, as the headline claims, as open source.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
An alternative to bungie.net for both Myth and Myth II has existed for a few months now via mariusnet. Marius did a great job reverse engineering the b.net protocol during the days of closed source while b.net began to falter. The site has quick and easy instructions on how to redirect your Myth app to the marius.net server.
mh
If you read the license you'll find that the code is licensed for "non-commercial purposes only", so it's not open source in the sense of the OSD.
I'd rather have them publish the source code than not, but I'm disappointed that it's mislabeled as an "open source" release, when it's not.
At the Myth Village fan site, there was a post to their forums detailing the termination of the entire Myth III team back in November. Part of the following discussion has posters pondering the possibility of turning it loose to the open source community. None of it involves any sort of official stance on the subject, but it's a quick interesting read anyway.
I image that it would be highly unlikely. Given that there are proprietary bits of code not being released with the Myth II server, and work is still continuing on Warcraft III, there may be some overlaping in the engines that they don't want to spill.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Note that this isn't Myth II itself, but the metaserver, which allows people's copies of the game to find each other and negotiate games.
This doesn't mean they're opening the Myth II engine; it just means that when bungie.net isn't running a Myth II server, people who want to play online can still do so.
Myth 2 (and it's predecessor Myth 1) is a great game. I make sure to use "is" as opposed to "was" simply because it was groundbreaking in truly unique way. Tactical battle in Myth 2 is something that has never been equaled in another game, IMHO. Myth brought the idea that unit positioning matters, and that's something that's rare to see in RTS games.
:D
If your soldier is right up against an enemy, and you have another soldier behind him, he can't do squat in terms of attack -- he's got to walk around. Team formation is something that is thus extremely important for success in this game. Most RTS that I've played haven't exactly figured this out yet, and just how much fun it is. True, it's kind of a pain, but once you've gotten over the learning curve, it starts to make sense "which general should win" given the tactics s/he uses.
The use of land formations was revolutionary for its time. "High ground" really meant something in terms of firing range. Your dwarves can fire almost the entire screen length if they're tossing into a valley. Your archers start to look pretty good, too.
And then there was the idea of veterans. This was pretty cool. Essentially, you'd get "your team" from the last battle (if you'd won), and they'd get shields for each of their kills. The more shields, the more accurate they'd be when killing again. Of course, the "newbies" are hilarious (and frustrating, too): sometimes, you'd get a dwarf that would desimate (sp) his entire team by chucking a grenade straight up! LOL
I never got particularly good at multiplayer Myth, because I came into the scene about a year after the game had been released; instead, I contented myself by beating other newbies.
I haven't tried Myth 3 either, so I can't speak for it. Myth 2 is a great game. If you can find it for $10, give it a go -- it's worth it.
(I don't work for Bungie, I'm just a big fan.)
Is the confusion because they both abbreviate their online services b.net?
Bleh!
Yes, Microsoft owns Bungie. No, Micorosoft does not normally release their source code. Yes, Myth II's server runs on Linux.
Am I missing something? I ask because I fail to see the dilemma, or surprise, or whatever it is that has people hot and bothered in this situation.
First off, Microsoft does not immediately impose a Win32 regime on companies it acquires. They do not operate on their image, or on a basis of "we hate Open Source and Linux." They operate for profit, and killing software that's already been implemented simply to show off that they don't need Linux or Open Source is not profitable. MS acquired Hotmail a long time ago IIRC, and they're still dependent on FreeBSD servers for some of it. Bungie wrote their server for Linux (whether before or after they were acquired by MS) and there is no point in forcing them to develop it for Windows instead. Also, the fact that Bungie has given away the code to that server does not imply that Microsoft is "embracing" Open Source, it simply means that someone decided keeping the official servers up was too expensive, but that it would be shitty to just cut people off, and that releasing the source code could only make profits go up (see the bargain bin thing in another post). I'm sure Microsoft has no problem with anything that does not cut into profit and could potentially increase it.
The argument that could be made is that image does indeed affect people's esteem of and confidence in MS, but in this case we're not dealing with MS directly but a subsidiary company. Bungie releasing source code does not hurt MS's ego. If MS released the code to FrontPage or WinXP, that would be different... but they haven't.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I KNOW. I screwed up. Myth is from Bungie and Warcraft is from Blizzard. I've just finished playing an epic 8 player Warcraft II game and had the name frickin' stuck in my head. Now that I've finished my Doritos I can think.
I meant to say Halo. Bits of code from Myth III may have found their way over to Halo. I know they're different in many respects, but there's a good chance that two projects being worked on side by side can share a lot of code. And since Micro$oft is the parent...
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
They don't claim that it's Open Source. It's the Slashdot author, iMacGuy, who was careless in his choice of headlines.
Unfortunately, "Open Source" was a crappy certification mark in the first place, because it's too descriptive.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
It's not Open Source. Instead, it's Source-Available software. That's the kind of software where the source is available but its use is restricted. For example, BitKeeper is Source-Available software.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If you haven't tried the new Aleph One builds of Marathon, they allow you to play the original game with full OpenGL goodness and add many things that makers of new scenarios (yes, many people are still building Marathon scenarios) can take advantage of such as real 3D models (remember, the original is sprite based) and scripting, as well as a few hundred other improvements; check the Engine Development section of their site. There is also the M1A1 project at http://bighouse.bungie.org/m1/which allows you to play Marathon 1 on the A1 engine (Mac OS X and Mac OS only, and closed source due to the use of Bungie art, sorry)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
Second of all, even if the mislabeling is only in the slashdot headline, I still have a legitimate case that labeling this software "open source" is incorrect. This is not like hacker vs. cracker where a minority is trying to redefine a term from the majority. The term open source was popularized by OSI and most people, when they see "open source", do think of the OSI meaning.
So, for anyone, slashdot editor or Microsoft, to mislabel this software as "open source" is misleading, whether intentional or not.
"In fact it was Bungie's networking code for Myth II that was so good [macworld.com] it was originally a replacement for, and later became a new version of, Apple's net gaming library (NetSprockets)."
Actually that isn't quite true. Bungie and Apple worked on the networking library together (the legendary Uber project) but the library's history is rather mirky here. Apple later took Project Uber and released it under their Public Source license as the "OpenPlay" library.
Unfortunately the code was in such a bad way that it's taken a very long time for anyone to do anything useful on it. Some volunteers have wrappet NetSprocket on top of OpenPlay. And that is where most of it's usefulness lies.
I have trouble with passwords among other things.
I hope this results in people running their own dedicated servers for the less popular mods. Some of the most fun I've had playing online games was with the Pirate mod and Civil War mod for Myth 2, but unfortunately the games mostly being played on the bungie server were simple WW2-recon ones.
I do not mean to get flamed by this. And I do not mean to invoke an argument. But here is something that I am boggled about.
On the Open Source site there is the Apple Public License source Agreement. Please look at sections 1.8 and 2.1. It is stated explicitly that the Apple sources cannot be used in a commercial setting. Comparing that to the Microsoft Broad Source license the same is said.
Now why is the Apple Public License considered Open Source and not the Microsoft? I am seriously asked because I am release some Open Source myself and found this aspect boggling.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"We provide a service. It's not worth our while anymore, but it might be to you, so have fun."
They violate the letter, perhaps, but that is the spirit. Thanks Bungie!
/Brian
Tom, the term you're looking for is "Source Available", not "Open Source". Your source isn't open because I can't use it for commercial purposes.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Under the GPL, if you supply the source, you have permission to make any changes and redistribute as you wish. You don't have to ask the copyright holder for permission, nor pay any fees. A source-available license restricts what you can do.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Technically you are right, but when Bungie was bought they retained control over their work... If Microsoft (you know, the complete entity) had say so I would bet they wouldn't have be able to release the code.
It was very poorly written and does not compile as is. It's a wonder it ran at all.
.NET services could steal GPL code and run them internally inside the .NET framework with proprietary extensions. Then not release those extensions because they are not distributing the code, only using the code internally.
I dislike the comercial clause, but I wonder how legal a clause like that really is.
As far as I know, copyright is what covers source code, and copyright merely restricts duplication, not use. You can't write a book and put a clause that restricts how the information in the book is used. If Coke published a manual of operation for it's business then someone could start another Cola company based on those procedures, as long as they legally bought the number of copies of the book they needed. They could even publish a seperate book with changes that apply to the first book, as long as the second book didn't violate fair use.
This is why no one has ever taken the GPL to court, because if you won the case and broke the GPL, then you would lose the right to redistribute GPL code. It is a form of legal kung foo, using the oppenents strength against them.
What I am going to do is do the first step of a black box implementation. I will take this code and write up a full spec in the next 2 months. It will fully explain every aspect of operation of a Myth II server. Someone else can then use my work to implement a myth II server that is fully open.
I am wondering if we need to add a new clause to the GPL to make sure that any client that is connected to a GPL'ed server is allowed to access that servers code as well. It seems to me that these
-- Never make a general statement.