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Microsoft Releases Allegiance Game Source
Zenin writes "Microsoft has graciously released the source code to Allegiance for free on their site. Allegiance was released back in 2000, and rated the 'Best Game No One Played' by GameSpot - this little- known multiplayer space-combat/team-RTS was pretty innovative, yet never took off in the mainstream. Nevertheless it quickly developed a fanatical following - a dedicated community who reverse engineered the game to enable complete mods, expand server power, and much more. A million thanks to Joel 'solap' Dehlin and the rest of the Allegiance development team for making this happen!"
First off, why is this article not on the front page?
Second, I don't see anything denying the ability to create a Linux port. Is this right? I must admit I'm very surprised to hear this. I've never heard of this game, but I'm intrigued by the fact that Microsoft is releasing source code to the public!
Is this some sort of trick? I find it ironic that microsoft is giving allegiance to open source. Sure, it's not free (as in liberated), but it's a step in the right direction.
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
This source code is going to have a lot of useful information for the transgaming guys.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I must say I'm impressed! I've been playing this game with said community for months now, and on the alleg.net forums, people have actually discussed trying to buy the source code from MS. Now that it's out there, I really can't wait to see what kind of mods the community will come out with.
My respect for MS just jumped up a notch... Still negative, but closer to zero.
"The amount of intelligence on this planet is a constant. The population is growing." -Cole's Axiom
So... it actually worked fine. You were just unwilling to comply with the conditions it worked in.
No, they aren't. That's exactly the point. Even if MS doesn't know about them, it's still theirs, by the letter and spirit of that clause.
No, they aren't "theirs". They are still yours, to do with as you please, save for allowing MS to do with as they please as well (should they even care). You aren't handing copyright over to MS of your work, only agreeing that MS may use it gratias(sp?) as well. But MS can't restrict your usage of your copyrighted code in other projects or restrict is use by others beyond any limitations you place on it yourself.
They give you 1/2 GB and years of work to do with nearly as you please for free. Should they find something interesting of yours built from this, they get to use that for free. But MS still owns their code and you still own yours, which means both are still free to use their own code in whatever other projects they like completely free of the above agreement.
Basically yes, it's 99.9% of what the GPL does in practice.
But who cares? This isn't meant by anyone, the Allegiance devs at MS or the fan base, as some kind of FSF/GPL/OSS-Zelot "victory". If you love Allegiance and have some ideas to make it better, this greatly helps you do that and for that intention the license is a perfect fit. If you want to profit off the hard work and huge cash outlay MS paid to create this or hijack it as a sword for the OSS movement in general caring little for Allegiance, then quite frankly you can kiss my ass.
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