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kooltore

Off-topic licensing issues

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Stilgar said:

The sources to Duke3D and such were released under terms more similar to the current Heretic/Hexen ones as I recall, not to mention all those games that never got a source release at all. and there's been nothing to indicate that we should get our hopes up on these two games at this point.


Hmm, no, the Duke3d source code was released 100% under the gpl, without a doubt, and later was the source code of shadow warrior. Kinda late, but they were nonetheless. You can check out their status at liberatedgames.com

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kooltore said:

Hmm, no, the Duke3d source code was released 100% under the gpl, without a doubt, and later was the source code of shadow warrior. Kinda late, but they were nonetheless. You can check out their status at liberatedgames.com

Hrm. Had their sources previously released under some more restrictive license or is my memory faulty again?

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Duke3D is not under the GPL.

JFDuke may call itself "GPL", but the core engine (called "Build") has never been put under a GPL compatible license, hence the result when you combine them is a kind of bastard hybrid (similar to when GPL Doom code is combined with Hexen/Heretic code).

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Ajapted said:

Duke3D is not under the GPL.

JFDuke may call itself "GPL", but the core engine (called "Build") has never been put under a GPL compatible license, hence the result when you combine them is a kind of bastard hybrid (similar to when GPL Doom code is combined with Hexen/Heretic code).


JFDuke is "GPL" in the same way that ZDaemon was "GPL" in that it actually wasn't. You can't actually legally do this. The only reason that doom ports were able to get away with it is because of doom's other license which allows closed sourcing. JFDuke doesn't have any such legal recourse, since BUILD was only released under Ken Silverman's odd license.

And it's a damn shame too. The doom community would probably be a year or two ahead of where it is today if being able to share code was compulsary, instead of optional.

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Stilgar said:

Hrm. Had their sources previously released under some more restrictive license or is my memory faulty again?


In 2000, Ken Silverman released the source code of build engine under a weird license, basically because he's afraid that someone will make money (!!!!!!) with his precious engine. In 2003, 3Drealms, the company that owns duke3d released the FULL duke3d source code under GPL. No questions asked. Two years later, they did the same thing with Shadow Warrior. Come to think of it, a similar case could be said about another game. You guys know Rise of the Triad? That game is based in the wolf3d engine, but only "based", since it's heavily modified. The wolf3d engine source code was put under yet another weird license in 1995. Several years later, 3Drealms released the source code of Rise of the Triad 100% under GPL. So in both cases there's games' engines' that were based on previous code that was not GPL'ed that were GPL'ed completely. I think it's OK in both cases. 3Drealms owns those games, and neither ken silverman nor id havent had any objection to their GPL releases.

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what about this other games? There are 3 games that used the build engine, somewhat obscure games, made by a company called Intracorp, which went bankrupt. One of the former employees of the company found the source code of those games and put it up on their website, for anyone to donwload it. I guess you know that im talking about Witchaven I and II. Sucks that no one will do anything with that code, since it doesnt have a license at all.

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kooltore said:

IIn 2003, 3Drealms, the company that owns duke3d released the FULL duke3d source code under GPL. No questions asked.

I will check it out, if that's true then I'll be quite happy as Duke3d is a game I enjoyed, but the whole Ken-Silverman-license crap really left me sour about the game and I didn't want to touch it with a barge pole after that.

You guys know Rise of the Triad? That game is based in the wolf3d engine, but only "based", since it's heavily modified. The wolf3d engine source code was put under yet another weird license in 1995. Several years later, 3Drealms released the source code of Rise of the Triad 100% under GPL.

Yes the license of Wolf3d is another sore point with me, there would probably be a good solid GL port out there if it had of been GPLed instead of all the half-finished ones. The situation is like with Heretic/Hexen, the Wolf3d code is just so old that the id Software folks can't be bothered to rerelease it as GPL.

Having looked at both Wolf3d and ROTT source, there really isn't much of Wolf3d stuff left, and I doubt you could make ROTT play Wolf3d without importing a lot of the code they threw away.

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Having looked at both Wolf3d and ROTT source, there really isn't much of Wolf3d stuff left, and I doubt you could make ROTT play Wolf3d without importing a lot of the code they threw away.


Hmmm, so then no problem there. I would assume the same applies to duke3d and the other build games. While they were based on the build engine, many modifications were made to it, and they barely have any silverman code on them. So 3drealms can release the source code of their build games under gpl.

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I downloaded the duke3dsource.zip to verify your claim and I'm very sure that the including BUILD source code is NOT UNDER THE GPL!

Quote from the README.TXT:

- This source includes the Build Engine data (.OBJ files) needed for compiling. The Build Engine is a seperate entity from Duke 3D, though Duke 3D is built upon the Build Engine.

That says it all really, the license mentioned in the readme.txt (GPL) does not apply to build because it is a "separate entity".

It's a bit odd that they removed BUILDLIC.TXT from the included BUILD source, but that in itself cannot infer that the old license does not apply, because all the source files still mention BUILDLIC.TXT at the top.

DAMN IT!

(edit: toned it down)

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Damn, really? So that means that all duke projects are bastard hybrids like heretic/hexen are? I dont think you need the build engine by itself to compile duke3d. there are many duke ports, besides jfduke, like xduke for example, which do not need build.

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The BUILD source code was released. However, every Build game actually modified the source a lot, and those sources are not released. So while eg. Blood is a Build game, you cannot use the Build source code to run Blood... you'll need the Blood-specific version.

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kooltore said:

I dont think you need the build engine by itself to compile duke3d. there are many duke ports, besides jfduke, like xduke for example, which do not need build.

They all need Build, some include it with their source and some keep it separate.

To quote the code from the xduke codebase (Engine/src/engine.c):

 * "Build Engine & Tools" Copyright (c) 1993-1997 Ken Silverman
 * Ken Silverman's official web site: "http://www.advsys.net/ken"
 * See the included license file "BUILDLIC.TXT" for license info.
 * This file has been modified from Ken Silverman's original release
So yes, none of the available Duke3d ports are truly under the GPL because they all rely on Build which is under the incompatible license of Ken Silverman.

And unlike the Heretic/Hexen situation, Ken is still around, he helped Jonathan Fowler with the OpenGL renderer (polymost), and so there has been plenty of opportunity for him to rectify this legal issue, yet he has not (AFAIK), so it's clear that keeping the rights to his crusty old engine is more important to him that the community around the games built on it.

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According to TerminX, Ken allowed Build to be GPL as long as it's with Duke or SW source. But even then the 'special permission' for those is GPL violating.

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Then, I guess we keep on idle chats and do nothing...

There are no decent heretic/hexen ports, but I guess that doesnt matter to most... unless we disregard the licence and go like the duke3d ports or zdoom, nobody bothered them isnt it ?

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Ajapted said:

Ken is still around, he helped Jonathan Fowler with the OpenGL renderer (polymost), and so there has been plenty of opportunity for him to rectify this legal issue


Have you actually written to him? He is a pretty reasonable guy, and i'm sure if you explain the situation of what your trying to do there may be a compromise that can be reached. Though i don't understand the paranoid lisensing that build is packed in with, given its record it may be that Ken is looking for developers to "check in" with him for specific build usage to at least keep an eye on where his code was going.

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VinceDSS said:
unless we disregard the licence and go like the duke3d ports or zdoom, nobody bothered them isnt it ?

There's certainly no need to do that to create a "purist" port of these games, as it's the kind of port that has the least problems with the limitations of the license. Such a port could use FMOD for sound and music (like ZDoom does), which is an excellent sound system. If you know anyone with decent coding abilities, they could do it.

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So is 3Drealms breaking the GPL by having released the duke3d and sw source code? I guess it all comes down to Ken Silverman then, and his old crappy engine license. And he is right, after all, someone might use his 1996 dos engine to make himself a millionare. (¿?¿?¿?¿?) Or to make a nuclear weapon maybe. (?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?)

But going back to what Mordeth said, then if each build game modified the source so much, then it wouldn't be silverman's code anymore, right? So then 3dr has complete ownership of what they gpl'ed. Where is the limit for a derivative work, one that started from silverman's code, but it's not anymore, and so therefore is free from the clutches of that crappy license?

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kooltore said:
But going back to what Mordeth said, then if each build game modified the source so much, then it wouldn't be silverman's code anymore, right?

Read this.

Ajapted said:
It's a bit odd that they removed BUILDLIC.TXT from the included BUILD source, but that in itself cannot infer that the old license does not apply, because all the source files still mention BUILDLIC.TXT at the top.

It seems that Ken Silverman didn't give Apogee the sources for the core build engine, but compiled it for them, with the necessary information on how to link it. From the Build source page:

Are there any differences between the source code you just released and the stuff you gave out to the individual game teams?

Yes! Believe it or not, the only "source" code I ever gave out (prior to 06/20/2000) was: GAME.C, BSTUB.C, BUILD.H, and NAMES.H. I provided the rest of the files in the form of object files (ENGINE.OBJ, BUILD.OBJ, MMULTI.OBJ, CACHE1D.OBJ, A.OBJ) along with some documentation (BUILD.TXT and BUILD2.TXT) so they knew how to link their code. As far as versions go, this is the latest version I have on my hard drive. I even left in the source to those secret messages you see if you modify my name in the EXE. Trust me when I say that this is the real thing!

The only question is whether what was released of the Apogee games can be properly linked to Build and retain the GPL license. If not, then the Apogee guys should have read the GPL with more attention before slapping the license on.

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myk said:

The only question is whether what was released of the Apogee games can be properly linked to Build and retain the GPL license. If not, then the Apogee guys should have read the GPL with more attention before slapping the license on.


So who would be able to answer that? Im not that knowleadgable of this, but what are you talking about is whether it's dinamically or statically linked? I once entered a competition for open source games where gpl code had to be either dinamically or statically linked to gpl code, and that make a huge difference, so as to respect the gpl license.

Going back to the build engine duke3d code, so if Im getting the facts straight, Silverman linked the code by making the .obj files, and gave those to the duke3d and sw and other games' teams, and those teams added their own stuff around those .obj files. So if that's true, then I guess the gpl'ed releases include silverman's sacred .obj files, which arent gpl. Right?

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Yeah, that's what it seems to say about the OBJ files.

As for linking it, even if it doesn't cause problems legally in itself it still makes it hard to distribute with free software. You could place your modified Duke Nukem source in a Linux package (to even sell or ship through snail mail), but not the (core) Build based stuff, which you would have to offer for download on an exclusively free of charge basis on a web site, FTP, or somesuch Internet medium, as the Build license requires.

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Well, that's feasible, somewhat annoying, but feasible. But 3dr didnt make that buiild core code distinction when they released duke3d under gpl. Maybe then they broke the gpl? Or maybe a license like the lgpl should have been put instead?

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Do I need to split this topic off into a separate thread about BUILD engine licensing? It really isn't relevant to the topic of this thread at all.

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Well, Quasar, it's relevant in the sense that in both cases there's code involved which wasnt gpl'ed and was included in gpl code. But if you think it's necessary, do so.

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Btw, does anyone of you guys know about this?

http://www.3ddownloads.com/Adventure/Blades%20of%20Exile/Tools/bladesofexilesource.zip

This classic RPG's source code was recently released under the GPL. It was originally released under the commons public license, but later rereleased under the GPL. Work already has started on it. It even has a google code page.

http://code.google.com/p/blades-of-exile/

mac version also available:

ftp://ftp.spiderwebsoftware.com/mac/bladesofexilesource.bin

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