Linux Unreal Tournament Status Update

slothdog writes "Brandon Reinhart of Epic Games has updated his .plan with some more info about the open-sourcing of Unreal Tournament for Linux. Specifically, it will be available under the Artistic License and coordinated through SourceForge. A little snoop-work will lead you to the project's page. Yummy. "

Comments

UT *NOT* Open Source!!!!!

[Foxpaw]

All of UT is not being open sourced. The engine is still closed. What is being open sourced is certain portions like the Mesa Renderer, the Glide Renderer, the Audio Libraries, The X Renderer and the X Launcher.

So while it's a step in the right direction, it's not exactly the bliss that everyone thinks it is. Still, being my favorite game right now, I'd really like to see the Mesa Renderer completed so I can play it under Linux.

Why does this sound bad to me?

[Frac]

From what's said so far, it seems to me that they aren't opening up their entire engine.

It almost sounds like Apple opening up parts of OS X so the "open source community" can hack away and improve the sales of their commercial product.

And with a little imagination, you can parallel their intentions with Sun - they want to have the advantages of open source without the disadvantages, which are: control of code, and loss of commercial value.

The Unreal engine has made lots of money in terms of licensing for Epic Games - I wasn't totaly surprised that they didn't release all the source. But do notice that the most prized and valuable code that makes the Unreal engine tick is still locked up away from everyone else.

Why? I think Brandon explains it fairly clearly in his .plan:

1. To improve the quality of the Linux port of UT. I'll admit that I simply don't have the time to spend on this port. Disclosing the source gives everybody a chance to make the code better.

I'm not trying to sound bratty and trying to whine Epic into releasing everything (not that it would work anyways ;), but I don't understand why we should hack for Epic for the same reasons why we shouldn't hack for Sun.

now everybody get to work and make the linux code better, so Epic can sell more engines!

Frac

Re:Why does this sound bad to me?

[emerson]

The comparison with Sun is profoundly unfair.

Sun's SCSL can be simplified to what you describe -- hack on our code so you improve our product for us, and no, you can't use the code for anything outside of our product. That's the reason it's caused such an uproar, and is not considered properly 'free' or 'Open Source(tm)' by most folks.

Epic is releasing this code under the Artistic License, meaning you can take this code away and do just about whatever you like with it, separate from Epic's commercial product. Sure, Epic will benefit from contributions to this source tree, but anyone else can also use this source for just about anything they want, including games that compete with Unreal Tournament. This is the Right Thing(tm) for Epic to have done.

Your objections make it sound as though you wouldn't be happy unless Epic _couldn't_ make money off of others' contributions, and that just doesn't make sense.


--

I know you are trolling, but...

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

RMS doesn't say we should call Linux "GNU/Linux" because of the license (GPL). The reason he says that is that, while the kernel is Linux, most of the rest of the OS is GNU tools (i.e., written by and/or donated to the Free Software Foundation).

Since Unreal presumably doesn't use GNU tools, there would be no request to add to the name.
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Clarification

[Corrinne Yu]

Clarification.

Silly.

id/Carmack has always done that.

Epic is "opening" the game mod interface, not the underlying rendering libraries.

Quake/Quake II/Quake 3 Arena have always done that. Probably in a few days, after Carmack has cleaned up his code, final Q3A game mod headers and interfaces would be posted.

(Then have fun and lock yourselves into a room. :) )

OTOH, Tim Sweeney's ZZT is one of the earliest "open" mod "engines" (OK, so it is a 2D text-character based "engine") engineered with the plans for public/open expansion. This precedes Doom, and the Doom wad community.

P.S. Tim/Brandon/John should post these clarifications themselves here.

Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
3D Realms/Apogee


Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer

A couple notes.

[GreenMarine]

Anything Epic releases to open source becomes free software. We won't "sell" the Linux port just as you are not allowed to "sell" a derivative.

Once I get everything together (tomorrow probably, Tim is here but I'm pretty tired) I'll upload a simple tarball release so people can start playing around. Then I'll work on learning rcs and get that set up.

I can foresee companies developing games entirely opensource, but still selling a game...the code is freely obtainable, but the content (maps, textures, models) must be purchased.

I think there is room for open source in commercial software development. I just think that its going to be a while before you see the games industry take up that particular mode of operation.

Finally, a clarification on what we will be releasing.

XDrv.so - This handles window creation, viewport creation, keyboard and mouse input, and all the X windows related stuff.

Audio.so - This is the simple audio library I wrote to mix the sound effects in Unreal Tournament for Linux.

XMesaGLDrv.so - This is the Mesa render device. It implements the engine's render calls and uses the Mesa graphics lib to draw the 3d world.

GlideDrv.so - Same as the XMesaGLDrv.so, but it uses glide.

XLaunch - This executable loads and inits the engine, then starts the main loop. You can actually do quite a lot with this.

--

The bottom line is this: I like to play kick ass games. The Linux port of UT is not kick ass. I don't have the time to make it better, so instead of having it languish on my harddrive I'll give it out to anyone who wants it. You don't have to do anything with it. You could take it and write cool stuff and if you want you could contribute it to me. Its all voluntary.

Yes, it'd be great to improve the Linux port of UT. It really needs work! At the same time, I've been working my ass off to support the mod community. Check unreal.epicgames.com for a fast growing new document on writing mods for Unreal Tournament. I've been working with mod authors and mod teams to get them understanding the Unreal Tournament scripting language. This is another facet of that support.

There is nothing ever wrong with giving people more stuff to play with. Most of these guys making mods aren't trying to make money! They don't want to sell their mods. They just want to make cool addons for people to play and maybe to get noticed. This gives another way for a programmer to do that.

Tim responded to an email discussion between Corinne Yu and me. He says that he likes open source because of the power it gives the community to do new things with the engine. He does not, however, like the idea of merging other peoples code back into the engine. I don't mind the latter as long as its on a small scale.