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LexiMax

The source is (finally) with us...

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Brad "Carnevil" Carney, former lead developer of the Skulltag source port, has finally released the source of Skulltag 97c2. In a blog post, the big C-man explains it all:

After years of standing in the way of this, I have finally decided to allow for the release of the Skulltag source code. After all, let’s be honest: No longer running Skulltag has given me a different perspective on this issue.

The release of the source code is something that Torr has wanted to do for awhile now. For security reasons, we’re releasing the source to the older 97c2 first. I have given him permission to release any subsequent versions that he desires. After all, who am I now to stand in his way?

The full text and source download can be obtained here. Many thanks to Carnevil and the Skulltag team for this generous contribution to the Doom community.

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I agree this is a great step in the right direction, but so far I have been told that they will only continue to release versions that are incompatible with and older than the current release.

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Mancubus II said:

I agree this is a great step in the right direction, but so far I have been told that they will only continue to release versions that are incompatible with and older than the current release.

Yeah, that's the plan.

I think everybody knows why they closed the source in the first place; so it makes sense for this reason that the current codebase would stay closed. No need to retread the old debate on the many flaws in security through obscurity; they have their reasons. Skulltag didn't get that many new features since this old version that aren't found as well in GZDoom anyway; there's what, a SECTINFO parser and a the Domination game mode, and that's it I think. The rest are a few tweaks and bugfixes.

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Obviously a good move, and this makes a lot of sense while still being in line with their policy of not releasing the source of the current release for security purposes. The question that this raises though: This was a release from Carn. Will the ST team proper man up and start giving releases as well when new versions are put out there?

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Shaikoten said:

The question that this raises though: This was a release from Carn. Will the ST team proper man up and start giving releases as well when new versions are put out there?


Of course they will. Torr Samaho is the one that went to Carnevil and discussed the release. The ST team had full intentions of releasing an older source along-side 98b but had to get legal issues worked out first. Instead of letting Torr and Blzut3 do it, he just did it on his own.

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Awesome to hear that. I thought they were pushing in that direction but I haven't really been all too aware of Skulltag in years.

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uh, isn't skulltag a Doom source mod? and wasn't Doom released unger the GPL? if so, then not releasing the source code is a blatant violation of the GPL. more than that, it's a big middle finger to the writers of the original code (in this case, id)

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Zeroth said:

uh, isn't skulltag a Doom source mod? and wasn't Doom released unger the GPL? if so, then not releasing the source code is a blatant violation of the GPL. more than that, it's a big middle finger to the writers of the original code (in this case, id)

Skulltag, like ZDoom, was using the original license that Doom's source was released under, rather than the GPL re-release. That makes it legal, though still somewhat questionable in other respects.

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Shaikoten said:

Will the ST team proper man up and start giving releases as well when new versions are put out there?

We do intend to do further source releases. However there will probably not be a 1:1 ratio of releases of Skulltag to releases of the source code. Keeping in mind that 97d was a significant change from 97c2, I would imagine the sources to 97dX will be released during the 0.99X series of Skulltag, but no promises (and it's certainly possible Torr might decide to release them earlier).

For anyone wondering, this hasn't been formally announced on skulltag.net since the entire team seems to want to wait for Torr to formally announce it.

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Sweet, now I can finally fork and create a rift in the community like I wanted to do years ago.

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I would not call the reason for doing closed-source being a "security reason". Of course it depends on one's definition of "security". And so it is perhaps the "cheat security" rather than the "bug security" we're talking about here. Speaking of which, would not it make more sense to have a conglomerate in the long run, i.e. only the trade secrets in a binary form, and the rest be tweakable at will, like proprietary Linux gfx drivers do today.

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Hirogen2 said:

"cheat security"

That.

Your concept of "bug security" is the first time I've ever seen it. Bug issue is usually called "stability" instead.

Anti-cheat systems are certainly possible to develop in an open source game; but they're not trivial, and given that none of the ST developer want to work on such things, remaining closed source is the best solution they have.

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I wonder if anyone has even succesfully compiled the codes?
i guess it uses the same tools that ZDoom and GZDoom uses, but seems to turn out by spamming full of errors in OpenGL and FMOD.
It's nowhere to be found yet, how to compile the ST97c2 codes with specific tools...

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It may be old enough to still use FMOD 3.75 rather than FMOD Ex, so you'd have to change the priority of the folders for compiling that.

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Any ideas where to download the correct version of FMOD?
I am also wondering wye it gives me OpenGL errors... :/
Probably because of this error: 9>.\src\OpenGL\gl_main.cpp(38) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'il/il.h': No such file or directory

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If it's FMOD rather than FMOD Ex that's needed (I haven't actually checked), get this:
http://www.fmod.org/index.php/download#FMOD3ProgrammersAPI
Install it in a different folder from FMOD Ex, and add the folders to VC++ as explained here. Shift the FMOD folders higher than the FMOD Ex folders for compiling Skulltag, and back lower for compiling recent versions of ZDoom or GZDoom.

As for the missing "il/il.h", this is apparently the devil. ;)

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Got it compiled with the useful tips from Gez. ^-^
But than again, i still got some Warning messages, which bugged the Stats bar. :/
Doesn't show the Health %, Armor %, Doom guy face etc.
This is my Buildlog, dunno if someone could get the issue out of it?
Buildlog(direct opening from Speedyshare)

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Hi!
Someone tried to compile the source under linux alredy? im stuck at

g++ -fno-rtti -pipe -Wall -Wno-unused -fno-strict-aliasing -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -MMD -DHAVE_FILELENGTH -D__forceinline=inline -Izlib -IFLAC -I/usr/include/SDL -D_GNU_SOURCE=1 -D_REENTRANT -Dstricmp=strcasecmp -Dstrnicmp=strncasecmp -DNEED_STRUPR -Isrc/ -Isrc/g_doom/ -Isrc/g_heretic/ -Isrc/g_hexen/ -Isrc/g_raven/ -Isrc/g_shared/ -Isrc/g_strife/ -Isrc/oplsynth/ -Isrc/sound/ -Isrc/sdl/ -DUSEASM=1 -DNDEBUG -o releaseobj/am_map.o -c src/am_map.cpp
================================================================================src/am_map.cpp:61:21: error: gl_main.h: No such file or directory
In file included from src/am_map.cpp:59:
src/network.h:424: warning: ‘typedef’ was ignored in this declaration
src/am_map.cpp: In function ‘void AM_drawFline(fline_t*, int)’:
src/am_map.cpp:1270: error: ‘OPENGL_GetCurrentRenderer’ was not declared in this scope
src/am_map.cpp:1270: error: ‘RENDERER_OPENGL’ was not declared in this scope
src/am_map.cpp:1272: error: ‘GL_DrawLine’ was not declared in this scope
src/am_map.cpp: In function ‘void AM_Drawer()’:
src/am_map.cpp:2269: error: ‘OPENGL_GetCurrentRenderer’ was not declared in this scope
src/am_map.cpp:2269: error: ‘RENDERER_OPENGL’ was not declared in this scope
src/am_map.cpp:2270: error: ‘GL_DrawDukeAutomap’ was not declared in this scope
make: *** [releaseobj/am_map.o] error 1


At ubuntu 9.10, I tried to install all opengl libaries wich was under synapsis

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Ubuntuslav said:

Hi!
Someone tried to compile the source under linux alredy?

Unfortunately...

You could try to do it, but you'd have to remove the OpenGL code, or replace it with GZDoom's code (I think this uses the ZDoomGL renderer). A lot of work in either cases.

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Even the current version of Skulltag cannot run on Macs. :)

ZDoom can be compiled for Macs; but this is a very recent addition. The ZDoom codebase on which ST98B is based cannot. Furthermore, GZDoom cannot either. Somebody would need to write the OpenGL initialization code for OS X. Then once this is done, it can be ported to Skulltag as well.

However, nobody volunteered to do that work: most people do not have Macs at all, or do not know about OpenGL on Mac OS, or are simply not interested.

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