Parts of the Unreal Engine to be Opened

Mr.Pantz writes "Epic's GreenMarine updated his .plans with some news on Linux support (and such) and UT. Here's the goods: I have permission from Tim to open source certain parts of the engine for the purposes of improving Linux support. What I would like to do is make available the code I have written for Glide, Mesa, input, and audio. I would appreciate Linux programmers taking the time to submit improvements to me at brandon@epicgames.com. I will look into putting up a webpage for this and perhaps a discussion forum. Please email me your input or ideas. I'm leaving to go home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, so I may not be able to start on this until I get back on Friday. Right now I'm working on the Mesa renderer, because I would like to release that soon, if possible. The code that I open source will not allow you to really dig very deep into the engine, but it will let you do a lot of stuff to the renderer and X windows interface. Since my time is split between non-Linux related projects, the Linux port could no doubt be improved if it gets some attention from experienced Linux programmers. "

Comments

Barking up the wrong tree?

[Dast]

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they have decided to do this--but my question is this: are serious gamers also great coders?

Because from my experience, gaming doesn't mix well with coding. One of the two won't get done. ;)

Could be that I'm totaly off base, however. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

That's nice but

[schporto]

Yeah its great that its gonna be open. Except it looks kinda like they're just looking for help. The comment about the open code won't allow you to dig deep into the engine, we just want a better interface kinda sounds wrong. I mean really having games run better on linux is great. Having an GPL/BSD/xPL game engine would be even better. But these are just my thoughts.
-cpd

Re:That's nice but

[Haven]

What they could have done is opensource the entire engine under some restrictive license, and keep the .wad (I'm an old school doomer) or whatever they are called now under strict protection.

It's a good start

[jd]

It's easy to be cynical, and say "hey, they just want a better interface for Linux", but think of it this way. If the Open Source code produced is of exceptional quality, and doesn't hurt the commercial value of Unreal, then they might be tempted to take another step, and release part (or all) of the engine.

If a baby is taking it's first steps, you don't scream at them for not winning marathons, but you might offer encouragement for what they can do. The same is true here.

Re:It's a good start

[kijiki]

They plan to license the engine to other game compnaies. They simply will not open source it, because then their potential liscensees would simply download the source, develop their own game, and then release their own open sourced game with copyrighted graphics/story/etc. And Epic loses out on that revenue.

Looks like a good model for doing things...

[Midnight Ryder]

One person already commented that this was just a way for them to ask for help. So? This looks like the perfect way to do it! This isn't turning Unreal Tournament into an Open Source style project, but instead, allows the people who enjoy the game the most to make sure it runs perfectly smooth on thier hardware. Granted - there's only a small part of the system that's GPL'd. For those people who will eventually whine that the whole thing should be GPL'd - it's more open than you think alread if you haven't checked out the game closely. Most objects within the game are scripted, and allow very easy access to most objects. It's not designed to be replaced, of course, but allows for people to extend the game further using Unreal script. But over all - this looks like a great way for game companies to do things! Why? Well, the get the benefit of everyone who wants to see the game become more than it was at release time doing some tweaking on it. Just enough of it isn't open to prying eyes so that you can't just copy what they have, slap a new lable on it, and call it thiers. They can still make money, which means they can afford to bring us another great game later. Internally, all the scripting is open to editing that people who want to can add new stuff. To me, it sounds like a very winwin relationship, and profitable at that! For those who wonder if gamers can code - yep. Not saying all of them are great, but, there's already been some seriously kick butt 'Mutators' (small script extensions to the game) written for UT even before it hit the shelves thanks to the gamers who were fans of Unreal!) For those who haven't checked it out, go hit http://www.PlanetUnreal.com/Mutation and check out the 'Giants!' and 'FatBoy' mutators that were written by fans of the game!

Eh?

[Squeamish Ossifrage]

This seems to fall in the gray area around the borders of free software.

It is distictly a good thing: They are giving the users (us) the ability to modify the source code and help the product serve our needs/wants better.

But it's not a great thing. A basic principle of fairness involving free software is that of symetry. (See HTN by ESR) That is to say, all developers are equal partners. Under the GPL, the y can use my code to improve their product, but I can also use their code to improve mine.

As far as I can tell, Epic isn't going to directly impose an unfair license, but is getting much the same effect circuitously: By only open-sourcing certain parts of their software, they don't allow other developers the benefit of their most usefull code, or give working code for a complete program.
Now, they're still giving out good code, and they're still allowing us to customize it, so Epic's move is definitely a Good Thing, and a step in the right direction. But it's also something of a tease, and we ought to encourage them to seek a fuller and more equal partnership with the open-source community.