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Valve Updates On Half-Life 2 Code Leak

Posted by simoniker on from the fear-for-your-hax0r-lives dept.

Thanks to ShackNews for their updated report from Valve boss Gabe Newell regarding Thursday's leak of the Half-Life 2 source code. He says: "We're still finding machines internally that have been compromised" in relation to the "infiltration of our network" that led to the code leak, and warns that other developers may also be in danger: "There's anecdotal evidence that other game developers have been targeted by whoever attacked us." But he ends with a hopeful appeal to those who've been helping Valve hunt down the culprits online: "I've been fielding calls from the mainstream non-games, non-technical press all day. Hopefully they will get to report shortly what a mistake it is to piss off a whole bunch of gamers and get them hunting you around the Internet."

6 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:GPL found? by NSash · · Score: 2, Informative

    The person was probably talking about bits of the Havok engine, which is used in HL2. (Although the Havok engine is actually released under the LGPL, not the GPL.) Now, before anyone starts shooting his mouth off about "stolen GPL'd code" in Half-Life 2, Valve purchased a commercial license for the Havok engine, so there's no foul play here.

  2. Re:GPL found? by Wonko42 · · Score: 4, Informative

    From what I've read, there was apparently an initial knee-jerk reaction by some Slashdot dorks claiming that there was GPLed code in there, but a followup post by someone who wasn't retarded pointed out that the code in question was licensed under the LGPL, which allows for such uses.

  3. Re:Hate to say it by NSash · · Score: 5, Informative
    Some people have said that Valve has included GPLed code in the Half Life 2 code. Dunno as to whether this is true, but I'd like to point out that while this is technically not kosher, I suspect that a lot of places do it -- as long as it's out by release time, I very much doubt that anyone will complain.

    They're talking about the Havok physics engine. Two things:

    1. It's LGPL, not GPL
    2. Valve is using the Havok physics engine under a commercial license, so it's legit.

  4. Re:Linux port by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I commented that out, since gcc uses different inline-asm style which im not familiar with, and got a bit further, nowhere near all the way, though. And yes, im quite sure theres a client coming our way, since the graphics and physics engines both get built when using the linux makefiles. Yay!

  5. Re:Two machines on every desktop by arkanes · · Score: 2, Informative
    Developers more than anyone need network access - documentation for libraries, IM communication with third parties that are providing those libraries, just using the internet as it was intended - as an information storage medium to look things up when you get stuck. The relaxing and stress release benefits are important too.

    It all goes back to the same old crap - employers expect total, slavish obedience and loyalty but aren't willing (as a general rule) to give anything back for that. Just being able to blow off steam about an annoying problem (or even co-worker) in an IRC channel does more for my productivity than any other single benefit. Certainly more than any company picnic or other "morale building" exercise.

  6. Re:dont get it by Haeleth · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you'd been looking forward for most of the year to the release of one of the most hyped games ever, and then someone leaked the source code, making it pretty likely that the game's release will be pushed back several months - wouldn't you be, oh, mildly irritated?

    Crackers are happy. A lot of legit hackers and coders are happy as well, because you don't get to see this sort of code every day. But gamers? Gamers don't want source code, they want the damn finished product!