doom.exe

Is doom.exe free? If it is, where can I get it?

my guess is that it's not, but actually i'm rather confused.

I suppose if the souce code is free, the baseline doom.exe is free, too. However, the doom.exe that comes with the retail/shareware game contains sound code that's not open-source, so that exe is not free.

So they never did release the sound code?

No, they liscensed the soundcode from another company. That company still owns the rights and hasn't allowed id to include it in the free source. When id released the source, they stripped all the sound code out of it to honor the other company's copyright.

So doom.exe is free, if you can compile it yourself and don't mind playing deaf. :)

Most video game and movie sounds are actually syndicated.

BTW, what was the sound system called?

The original Doom exes are not free. They contain copyrighted code from hardware manufacturers (ie soundcards) that was removed from the source code before it was released. Distribution is still illegal.

/me drops dead

Either this is someone hacking into Lament's account and asking for warez, or Lament himself has suffered a sudden brain injury.

Combine open source game with FMOD and be done with it. =)

IIRC you could take the shareware Doom exes, put it in the same folder as a registered IWAD, and run it that way... of course, the only way to legally get the registered IWADs was to get it WITH the original doom.exe... :P