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id Resolves DOSBox/GPL Issue

Posted by Zonk on from the and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after dept.

The British Gaming Blog is reporting that id Software has successfully resolved the minor issue it had with DOSBox, regarding older PC games being sold on Valve's Steam network. "The problem is all fixed up now with the proper licensing text in the game's readme. Developers working hand in hand with smaller application authors is not all that uncommon; SCUMM has worked closely with point and click masters Revolution and LucasArts to improve compatibility with their games, and hopefully this trend will continue so we can experience more old classics in the future."

5 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Source by montyzooooma · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Probably the launcher requires Steam or the application itself but Dosbox is untouched.

  2. Re:It helps to read the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The post that I was responding to was asking about the possibly unresolved issue regarding the call to "steam.dll" that was embedded in the "dosbox.exe" program. This issue was not even mentioned in the article. The article also doesn't mention that Valve are now distributing the dosbox source code with every copy of the game.

  3. Re:Source by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So it still works when you replace VALVe's DOSbox with the latest DOSbox release?

  4. DosBOX configurations file fix by DimGeo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Slightly off-topic. Here's a fix I wrote that patches the conf files of DoxBox inside Steam. Sorry for the code, wrote at 1-2 am last night and was a bit under influence. Ignore the silly and/or slow parts. SteamIDDosBoxFix.zip . Fixed are: aspect ratio under 1280x1024 TFT displays, sound stuttering, mouse sensitivity. You can edit dosbox.conf yourself, the fix simply replaces your entries into all .conf files (while keeping their format) it can find under Steam's install dir (which is taken from the registry).

  5. Re:id still committed to open source by friedmud · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Unfortunately their licensing stream is drying up. The only AAA licensee of the Doom3 engine was what, Prey?"

    Well... that and Doom3 of course... and Quake4 wasn't that much of a modification... and a slight modification of that creates Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

    Doom3 sold millions of copies, and it was an internal project so that generates HUGE bucks for id. ETQW will also sell millions. How many million+ copy games do you need to sustain a fairly small company? Not many.

    And if you go to Quakecon you can see the other stuff they work on as well... like the (relatively) new line of cell-phone games and even a Nintendo DS game that's coming out this year as well as movie deals (they announced a Wolfenstein movie at Quakecon). In general, I'd say that id isn't hurting for cash. Sure, some engines like the HL2 engine from Valve have started doing better recently... but I don't think it's making a huge impact on id.

    Friedmud