Parsec To Be Released As Open Source

Mark Bainter writes "The Parsec creators have announced today that they are going to release the Parsec project source code early next month. From the site: 'The source release will include platform support for Win32, MacOS X, and Linux, and contain both OpenGL and Glide rendering code. It will include almost everything that has been part of the earlier LAN-Test releases, as well as our new client/server code that is already far along in development. However, it is our hope that this release will be picked up by the Parsec community for further development, supported by members of the original Parsec Project. This release will be the last official release of the original Parsec Project. It had been our intention to achieve a full-featured release including Internet game play in 2002. However, we were always doing this in our spare time, and since it is taking us too long to reach our original goal, we do not want to keep the Parsec community waiting any longer and have thus decided that it is time to change Parsec's development model to an open source approach.'"

Comments

The obvious question

[vlad_petric]

Why did they wait so much to release it as open source? I'm just wondering if their initial plan wasn't to change from Freeware to Commercial at some point. They've most likely realised that they won't be able to make money out of it, and decided to opensource it so it doesn't die (a site that wasn't updated for almost a year can be considered a near-death experience). Anyway, they did do a great job and I'm glad that the opensource gaming is enriched with a free-as-in-beer space shooter.

Re:So there you have it

[feed_me_cereal]

I kinda agree with you about opensource games, at least, open-source games that tons of people are working on. A large group seems to suck all the creativity out of a game, but why are you bashing Parsec so soon? They JUST made their game opensource today. It hasn't failed yet. I'm kind of skeptical, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Hell, I'm considering joining the project.

Re: Gripe...

[Black Parrot]

> I mean really - how hard would it be to put a one line description about what the Parsec project is in the article body?

One of the things that really irks me at Sourceforge is when you pull a list of all the games under development they tend to tell you what language they're programming in and what gee-whiz rendering technology they're going to use, but don't say the first word about what the game is.

Re:Now, now...

[Osty]

and yet, here you are.

You seem to have no other response, lately.

Could you maybe once address your users' concerns? It may be a little difficult for you to grasp, but the real world is not black and white. Liking a site does not mean that a person doesn't have opinions on what's good or bad about how a site is run, just as a person may dislike a site yet still believe it is doing some things right (for example, Kuro5hin -- I dislike the site because of the extreme leftist/socialist viewpoint espoused by both the staff and the readers/contributors, but I think it's a very well-done site and is run much better than Slashdot). Here's a thought -- run a poll along the lines of, "Do you have any gripes with the way we run Slashdot? Yes/No" and see what happens. Now, take the number of "Yes" answers and assume those are users that would leave Slashdot if they followed your implicit advice. Where does that leave your userbase? What about the comments (ie, the lifeblood of Slashdot -- without comments, Slashdot would never have become popular in the first place), since the people who are likely to answer a poll are also likely to post a comment? Can you afford to lose such a large chunk of users (and make no mistake, you will get a large number of "yes" answers so long as the question is worded fairly)?

We're not necessarily asking that you change anything (although I'm sure most of us wouldn't mind if the Slashdot editors would periodically read their own site to avoid duplicates, or run their stories through a spelling checker before posting). Simply acknowledge that you've heard our problems, and explain to us why you're not planning on changing anything if the concerns are valid (and no side-stepping, saying something along the lines of, "Slashdot is just Rob's personal site that happens to enjoy some popularity"). Is that so hard to do? Apparently, because all we get are one-liner comments that insult ("you must be an idiot if you have problems with the management and yet are still here") or ignore the problems.

Re:So there you have it

[Herr_Nightingale]

Another observation: a large group might suck, but many small groups might make something cool. Perhaps not as cool as StarCraft, but cool nonetheless...
You can separate the game engine from the graphics, sound, and everything is modular. I've seen a couple interesting open-source 3D engines, and I think it's VERy possible that a good game or several will come out eventually.
The bad part: it takes forever, because virtually nobody has the time to create a Doom 3 in their free time. Or even a Commander Keen. As one guy says,

Software development is one hundred percent design

You need vision to create a great game, and large open source projects tend not to have that vision. Is that why there aren't any great games built by large open source collaboration? Maybe. I think it's more likely attributable to the clone problem .. nothing truly new is being created by the commons. Would you rather read a sci-fi novel written by forty people, or one written by somebody with a burning vision (Asimov, Heinlein, etc)?

Also check out http://home.t-online.de/home/BuschnicK/

(offtopic)

[timothy]

Complaining about Slashdot's moderation system is a fine and legitimate thing to do -- but I'm honestly puzzled by the folks who spend a lot of time both griping about the site's moderation .. and posting offtopic comments :)

If you have tweaks you think would make the moderation system better, or suggestions for better moderation systems altogether, why not suggest them on sourceforge, where the coders can act on them? Rob does read email, too, but the FAQ specifically addresses this ... the malice of a small handful of people means that Rob and the other coders spend a lot of time trying to make the moderation less "gameable" and more of a helpful, positive tool for making the discussion more enjoyable / useful / however-you-want-to-see-it. Mitigating the Beavis factor, in other words -- and Slashdot is the doorstep that a few delinquents use to leave their flaming paper bags. Constantly.

You've probably seen people in bars / clubs / stores / public parks [wherever ;)] sourly complaining about how badly it sucks to be wherever they are. My response was flippant, but I mean it with a smile, not trying to be a jerk. It's like the widely applicable punchline "Well stop doing that!"

I'd like everyone who reads the site to be happy, but I can't enforce that :) [Brian: "There's no pleasing some people." Ex-Leper: "That's just what Jesus said!"]

It's true that Slashdot has a history, that Rob's "site just got popular," etc, but the lengthy diary entry someone posted into this story's comments I think shows how these topics are anything but ignored. Constant tweaking is bound to constantly leave some people upset with any particular change, but the intent is to improve the system, and I certainly think the overall moderation system (loosely speaking -- including, say, the foes / friends aspects of it) has gotten a lot better.

timothy

Re:(offtopic)

[Osty]

Who exactly was complaining about moderation issues? I certainly wasn't. I agree this is off-topic, but there is no on-topic place to discuss it. A major gripe that I've had, and that many others have had (play this down as "a vocal minority" if you will, but we're just the people who voice the concerns others have) is that the Slashdot editors seem to not take their jobs seriously. You (collective "you", not necessarily you in particular, though you're as guilty as the rest) have consistently and constantly posted duplicate stories (triplicates sometimes!), poorly written stories that totally miss the point of the target news items, editorials with horrendous spelling and grammatical mistakes (I'm sure I'll make some, so I probably shouldn't talk, but I do make an effort to keep my posts clear of such errors), un-called for editorial additions to stories that don't warrant it, not adding editorial additions to stories that do (how often do you post stories about some new product, toy, or technology where not everybody knows what it is, nor is it obvious from the name, and the site has been taken down due to the Slashdot effect so no-one can figure out what the story was about anyway?), irresponsibly linking to small sites causing them to have outrageous bandwidth bills (blah blah if you don't want to be linked, don't put up a web site blah blah whatever), and more.

These are not things that can be solved with code, a trap many geeks fall into way too often. It's a people issue, and that's exactly what we're complaining about -- people. Most editors refuse to acknowledge that there's a problem (example: Rob's lengthy diary entry goes on and on about moderation issues and changes, without ever once touching on the inability of his editorial staff to keep up to date on what stories have been run so as to avoid duplicating posts), or worse think it's just all a big joke (how many times have we seen something along the lines of "Yeah, yeah, this story's a duplicate, whatever" in an update to a duplicate story?).

Like it or not, "Rob's personal site" is big, and has a huge user base. As an editor of the site, your concerns should lie with making as many users as happy as possible. You can't make everybody happy all of the time, but you can damned well try. When it comes down to it, we're the people that visit the ads and pay for the subscriptions. Without us, Slashdot would be in even more dire financial straits than it already is. (Extrapolating from the financial woes of parent company VA WhateverThey'reCalledNow, and not with any concrete information about Slashdot's financial well-being, save that without a large user base in the first place, VA * would never have been interested in Slashdot to begin with.)

Re:But What Licence

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've seen, they don't really care what you do with it, as long as it's not a commercial purpose (IE selling it, with or without the source code). I guess they don't want to, in the future, end up paying to play the game that they started but couldn't finish.

Re:Now, now...

[Osty]

Did you not notice the category of the story? This is a story for gamers, and most serious gamers know what Parsec is. If you don't know what it is, the editor provided a very handy link to the site. How can you be too lazy to click the link, but have the energy for half a page of criticism?

So because I'm not a "serious" gamer, I shouldn't bother reading this story? Or maybe I am a serious gamer, but I don't often play space simulations? As well, by the time I got to this story (literally less than an hour after it was posted), the site was down. Slashdotted. Great, how am I supposed to figure out what "Parsec" is now?

However, I was not the one with the initial complaint. Mine followed Timothy off-topic as he made a flippant reply to a post criticizing Slashdot's editorial integrity. Try looking at usernames next time so that you don't confuse posters.

Also his insult was in reply to an insult, but you didn't care to take the AC to task for the same flaw that you faulted the editor with.

Is it really an insult when it's true, though? I found the anonymous coward's post to be witty and insightful, rather than insulting and trollish. Had I any moderation points (and for some reason, it's been a very long while since I have had any ... hrm), I would've moderated the post rather than reply. However, I don't, so I didn't, and did the next best thing -- reply to Timothy's flippant post, voicing my own concerns and issues that are mirrored by both the super-parent of this thread and the anonymous coward that agreed with him.

You people take this site and yourselves way too seriously.

I never said I was perfect.

Re:So there you have it

[Anonymous Hack]

Commercial games are made by tons of people too, and they don't suck. What makes original open source games suck is "too many bosses, not enough laborers". In a company one or two guys are responsible for design, everything else is done by the grunts. No arguments, no "hey wouldn't it be better if...", just write the code, write the music, if the designers don't like it, do it again. Most open source programmers don't like being the grunts, because they already do that at work... so they all want to "design".

One of the good things about Linux is you have one guy at the top who is saying what does and doesn't go in. Ditto with OpenBSD. Yeah, there might be some discussion, but at the end of the day the project is being driven by one mind, and everyone is cool to go along with that - if they want it to do something else, they get a custom patch. That's the way open-source games should be developed, but it's hard to drum up enough interest in one to get it working that way. Linus had to go a long time by himself before he got the crowd around him he does now, so did Theo, so did Bill Gates, so did the top game designers.

So yes, i agree that one person's drive makes it happen initially, but in the long run it's having the support of a lot of people who are happy to bow to that one person's wishes that makes a good thing great.

Not completely open

[mattr]

"Commercial quality freeware" .. "we intend to continue disallowing commercial uses of Parsec".

I don't get where the line is that something becomes "open source". BSD obviously is open. GPL, okay I understand copyleft. I also understand one liscense I saw where the stuff could not be used for kiddie porn-like exploitation.

But talk about viral, if someone starts hacking with it and develops their own "commercial quality" game, he is doomed to the same problem that the authors had, which is that because he can't sell it, he cannot possibly afford to compete with commercial games!

This seems to be a case of people attempting to foist misguided moral choices on other people whom they somehow still hope (many mysterious cheap hands) will acheive their dream for them.
Not that I personally want to use their code, it's just confusing that there are so many "open source" liscenses out there. Hate to say it, but I'd much rather see something like Helixcode, maybe if it is commercial then a royalty can be paid the authors. And where does the line between free and commercial get drawn?

I'm sorry, it sounds like lots of fun and one day maybe I'll try playing it. But I don't get the reasoning behind releasing something to the community while maintaining restrictions on it. We all grow up, I guess these guys did. Grownups often like to get paid for their time, or at least have the illusion of free will. I think this could attract more talented programmers and game people if it didn't have the noncommercial requirement.

Space combat

[Harald74]

Anyone else tired of the "battleship model" of space combat, with heavily armed and armoured ships duking it out, taking multiple hits before finally succumbing to accumulated damage?

I figure space combat will be more similar to submarine combat. Space is huge, the ships will be fragile, weapons will pack a massive punch. These factors will force ships to rely on sensors, hiding and avoidance to achieve their aims.

I imagine that we will have ships hiding in asteriod belts, on moons and near planets, patiently waiting for their prey, unleashing a barrage of missiles and then try to disappear again while the target is busy applying countermeasures to the incoming missile swarm.