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Freespace 2 Source Code Released

Posted by chrisd on from the time-wasting-perfection dept.

Initri writes "I read a news article (here) on Gamespot that the Freespace 2 source code has been released by Volition. You can download it there, or you can also download it here. Since I don't have the game installed anymore, I wasn't able to try out the code, but it did successfully compile under MSVC 6.0. Looks like there's a lot of learning potential here." Freespace 2 was one of my favorite games, and I wasted many hours playing it.

5 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Quoth the code... by ceejayoz · · Score: 5, Informative

    /*
    * Copyright (C) Volition, Inc. 1999. All rights reserved.
    *
    * All source code herein is the property of Volition, Inc. You may not sell
    * or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based on the
    * source.
    *
    */

  2. The secret to hard encryption by Traa · · Score: 5, Funny

    line 447, projects\freespace2_public\code\Parse\Encrypt.cpp

    "ushort haha_you_dumbass = 0xe2A8;"

  3. The Situation Around this by greg2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a major contributor to the fan community of Freespace 1/2 I'll give you the background on this. Freespaces 1 and 2 were Originally relesed when Volition used Interplay as their Publisher. Since then Volition has been bought by THQ, a rival publisher although Interlplay still heald the rights which is why thes has been a bit sluggish. Interplay, as you know, was consumed by Titus recently and with a lot af campaigning by Dave Baranec (Head Programmer for Volition), on behalf of the fan community managed to get it relesed. Go over to http://www.3dap.com/hlp (Hard Light Productions) which is where the main hub of FreeSpace Development exists now since Volition's official BB was closed due to abuse. And don't forget to check out the forums. There is also a project going to create a Freespace Like game from scratch.

  4. Descent development by shannara256 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, first off, there's more information at http://www.freespace-2.com/ddn/sources/freespace2/ , along with a rar version that's about 2.7 meg.

    The source code for Descent 1 and for Descent 2 has also been released, and you can find them at http://www.freespace-2.com/ddn/sources/freespace2/ , along with information about the engine and a mailing list.

    I'm not entirely sure, but since Parallax developed Descent 1 & 2 for Interplay, and Volition developed the Freespace games for Interplay, I think that Interplay would be the one to get credit, at the very least for convincing the other two to release the source. Interplay is earning major karma points...

    -Jason-

  5. kernel, compiler, and other OS Components by yerricde · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have seen many VB apps claim to be under the GPL; but since Visual Basic has no open source compiler, no sir, they are not.

    It doesn't need a free compiler to be free software. (Wasn't Emacs GPL'd before GCC was finished?) The GNU GPL, section 3, states that "However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable." So as long as you distribute Visual Basic's runtime separately from the application, it's possible to GPL a VB app. (VB.NET makes this even easier because the .NET runtime is available from Windows Update.) However, a free app that relies on a non-free compiler is still useless to the Free World.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?