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Quasar

Final Attempt to Get Heretic/Hexen GPL'd

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EDIT: See the open letter to Raven and Activision here:
http://doomworld.com/eternity/letter.html

This thread is for source port authors and community bigwigs to discuss the possibility of creating a committee-written open letter to Raven Software discussing the various problems that the "Raven license" is causing for our diverse efforts.

My vision of the letter would be a formal business letter of moderate length explaining the problems objectively and proposing the desired solution. It should probably have professional-looking letterhead and possibly a logo representing our "organization," which we can determine a name for (my first idea is Doom Port Authors' Coalition for GPL Heretic and Hexen, but that might be a bit long).

The letter would be signed by each of the interested parties and would include the names both in text and as embedded graphics which could be created by writing in a decent paint program and then downscaling, or by scanning an actual signature when possible.

Other information could be included with the article, such as a list of non-coding community members who have registered support for the idea, as well as reference to my previous petition attempt which is still online at this URL and has gained 234 signatures to date:

http://www.petitiononline.com/qhhgpl/petition.html

If necessary, multiple copies of the letter and its attachments, if any, could be dispatched to the various concerned persons.

It would help enormously if John Carmack were to endorse this effort, but his attention is pretty much impossible to get. I won't go very far out of *my* way to make it happen since the last time I tried to contact him about an issue, I didn't receive a response. He did express mild disapproval of the restrictive license in the past, but then failed to act on it due to being busy (probably with Doom 3...)

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Todd whatever, the CEO of Id is usually very responsive to e-mails, so asking him to drop a line to Carmack or forward your e-mail probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

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A very good idea and a place to start with trying to get Carmack on board; thanks BBG ;)

We might also be able to approach certain people in the FOSS community; they would be sure to back any effort to get the GPL slapped onto more code. Any type of publicity or support for the effort on the net at large would be a boon as it makes it less possible for Raven to simply ignore us as a bunch of quacks.

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I'd urge everyone to take this slowly and carefully. I've been in contact with Raven about the source for the last couple of years, on-and-off, and I picked up from where Hurdler (the legacy chap) was working. I know that Raven are keen to release the source as GPL, it's a matter of a) time and b) legality.

Regarding time, we want them to have to spend as little time as possible authorising it. So, someone (consider this me volunteering) should prepare a source release with the GPL preamble in the headers, etc., so they just have to approve it's release.

Regarding legality, the people I've spoken to (Hellchick for one, Hurdler was dealing with Ken) believe Activision have a say in the matter. I don't think online petitions would make a blind bit of difference to them, but perhaps guessing what sort-of legal issues or questions they might have (would it impact revenue? what about their franchies? How are the trademarks to be protected?) and having counter-arguments prepared would be useful.

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Jon said:

I'd urge everyone to take this slowly and carefully. I've been in contact with Raven about the source for the last couple of years, on-and-off, and I picked up from where Hurdler (the legacy chap) was working. I know that Raven are keen to release the source as GPL, it's a matter of a) time and b) legality.

Regarding time, we want them to have to spend as little time as possible authorising it. So, someone (consider this me volunteering) should prepare a source release with the GPL preamble in the headers, etc., so they just have to approve it's release.

Regarding legality, the people I've spoken to (Hellchick for one, Hurdler was dealing with Ken) believe Activision have a say in the matter. I don't think online petitions would make a blind bit of difference to them, but perhaps guessing what sort-of legal issues or questions they might have (would it impact revenue? what about their franchies? How are the trademarks to be protected?) and having counter-arguments prepared would be useful.


I wasn't aware there was still any ongoing effort; everybody had seemed to pretty much accept that we're stuck dealing with that license til doomsday. This changes things quite a bit, so thanks for telling me about it.

I could create a GPL'd distribution of the source code, that's easy. I could also clean it up by removing some of the junk that was in there and didn't do anything.

In my previous attempt to contact them I did mention the trademarks issue, and the fact that it's a non-issue. The GPL will only apply to the code, and not to any trademarked data which it might display. This is the same as for DOOM -- id Software certainly hasn't seen its power to exercise control of the DOOM trademark watered down any, I'd say.

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I opened a thread over at the newdoom forums, and sent a message to Mr. American McGee to see if he would join in and give us his opinion on the matter.

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You have my support on this initiative as a Doomsday developer and I will endeavor to help in any way possible.

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I'm also happy to help. Jon - have any template letters ? I'll happly sign them and send them (by registered snail mail if need be)

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Alright. As of now, I have completed "GPLing" the Heretic source code. It is cleaned up somewhat and has the proper headers along with description comments in all the source code files. I have also included the COPYING file with the complete GNU GPL license and a readme.txt -- here's the current contents of the readme.txt:

==============================================================================
GPL Heretic and Hexen Source Code Distribution
==============================================================================

This code is copyright 2006 by Raven Software and id Software.

Permission is granted to use this code only under the terms of the GNU General
Public License, the details of which can be found in the COPYING file. There
is no warranty whatsoever on this code.

The permissions of the GPL extend only to the source code found within this
archive and not to any data files for the games Heretic or Hexen. Those files
remain the exclusive property of Raven Software and their licensors or
subsidiaries. A licensed copy of the game data will be necessary to make use
of this source code.

Heretic and Hexen are trademarks of Raven Software or their licensors or
subsidiaries, and remain their exclusive properties. Use of those trademarks
to promote products is not covered under the GPL license and must be
negotiated separately.

This package was prepared by James Haley, <haleyjd@hotmail.com>. Do not contact
Raven Software or id Software for help or technical support related to this
package.

The code as provided will not compile without id/Raven's complete original
Watcom C setup including the DMX sound library which is NOT included. I have
left some tips on how to proceed with cleaning up, debugging, and optimizing
the game engine in some of the source files. The SDL library is the best bet
for creating cross-platform versions of DOOM engine games. Information on
that library can be found at http://www.libsdl.org

-- James Haley; September 5, 2006

---------------------------------------

Of course, this can't be uploaded or distributed to anyone until we actually obtain permission to carry this through. I will start on Hexen later tonight after I get off work ;)

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Imho you should remove all references to yourself, other then that it looks good.

EDIT:
i.e. something like this:

==============================================================================
GPL Heretic and Hexen Source Code Distribution
==============================================================================

This code is copyright 2006 by Raven Software and id Software.

Permission is granted to use this code only under the terms of the GNU General Public License, the details of which can be found in the COPYING file. There is no warranty whatsoever on this code.

The permissions of the GPL extend only to the source code found within this archive and not to any data files for the games Heretic or Hexen. Those files remain the exclusive property of Raven Software and their licensors or subsidiaries. A licensed copy of the game data will be necessary to make use of this source code.

Heretic and Hexen are trademarks of Raven Software or their licensors or subsidiaries, and remain their exclusive properties. Use of those trademarks to promote products is not covered under the GPL license and must be negotiated separately.

Do not contact Raven Software or id Software for help or technical support related to this package.

The code as provided will not compile without id/Raven's complete original Watcom C setup including the DMX sound library which is NOT included.

---------------------------------------

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Anders said:

Imho you should remove all references to yourself, other then that it looks good.

Well I don't see the problem in getting a little credit for going out of my way to do this but whatever :P It's not at all final yet, since we don't even know if it'll ever be usable or not.

EDIT: Hexen is now finished, so the sources are done and ready to ship out if permission is ever given. That removes one excuse Raven has :P

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Anders said:

The code as provided will not compile without id/Raven's complete original Watcom C setup including the DMX sound library which is NOT included.

Doesn't that sole fact (code depending on a non-GPL library to work) the reason why it hasn't been GPLed? I mean, you need to REMOVE code linking to DMX so that it can be GPLed. That's probably why Raven never bothered doing it.

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I thought of somebody else you could drop a line to, Quasar. John Romero. Romero is more responsive to e-mail than Todd whatever, and he'll understand your postition, being a former programmer and all. Plus he probably has connections that we don't certainly don't.

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Julian Hope said:

Doesn't that sole fact (code depending on a non-GPL library to work) the reason why it hasn't been GPLed? I mean, you need to REMOVE code linking to DMX so that it can be GPLed. That's probably why Raven never bothered doing it.

I don't think so. The fact that the code does not build as-is should not be a problem. All you need is a nice README that states - you need to make your own sound library before the code will build.

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Naked Snake said:

I thought of somebody else you could drop a line to, Quasar. John Romero. Romero is more responsive to e-mail than Todd whatever, and he'll understand your postition, being a former programmer and all. Plus he probably has connections that we don't certainly don't.

I emailed him yesterday, along with Todd Hollenshead, and American McGee to see if they would be interested in the discussion. Although not entirely related to this debate, they hold some sway, and could possibly make for a better argument.

I also sent emails to the news teams at NewDoom, DoomWorld, and PlanetDoom to get a frontpage story about the digg story and this thread, so that we can get a bit more exposure on this front.

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Yagisan said:
I don't think so. The fact that the code does not build as-is should not be a problem. All you need is a nice README that states - you need to make your own sound library before the code will build.

He's not referring to what you or anyone in the community may think, but what Activision (or Raven Software) may have in mind. And in any case, it's best to stay on the safe side and "reissue" the source as genuinely clean in regard to the GPL, and as free as possible from proprietary software. This was wisely done with DOOM's source when it was released, and by now it should be pretty easy to add SDL sound support, or something like that. The best result would be a clean Windows/Linux (at least) ready portable source.

Quasar said:
I could also clean it up by removing some of the junk that was in there and didn't do anything.

Why? In any case just make a comment about its uselessness. As useless as it may be, its still part of the source, and as long as it can't bring copyright issues, it's not something an individual should arbitrarily delete if it is in the source "as is".

Maybe instead of cleaning it might be smarter to add some preliminary comments for clarity's sake. Except in regard to the proprietary sound code links and stuff, that is, or maybe anything else that might hinder porting in some really bad way.

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First off, I didn't want this to be a public spectacle where noobs start coming in here from PlanetNewestGame and rattling off gangsta crap and then emailing Raven with something that sounds like "Yo GPL or I busta cap in yo head foo".

So I hope that kind of thing doesn't start up or we're pretty much screwed. What I envisioned was a SINGLE committee-written letter to Raven from the people to whom this issue really matters -- the source port authors and community authorities. We'd agree on the text and then all "sign" it through the method I already discussed.

Second, it isn't necessary to remove the DMX library calls. A useless API invocation isn't changing the license. As long as the DMX code itself isn't provided, and it's not, that's of no issue. It just makes the source non-functional. I don't see a clause in the GPL where it says you can't put a broken program under GPL and hope somebody else will fix it. If you want SDL Heretic or Hexen, you do it. I've got two ports to deal with already myself.

All I removed were some files that shouldn't be in the archive. Objective C headers, some stray lumps from the IWAD, crap like that. I even left in dead modules and dead code because that sort of stuff might be resurrected or fixed in future projects (if any get to exist).

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Quasar said:

All I removed were some files that shouldn't be in the archive. Objective C headers, some stray lumps from the IWAD, crap like that. I even left in dead modules and dead code because that sort of stuff might be resurrected or fixed in future projects (if any get to exist).


I'd request you leave them in. They're historical, and might prove interesting/useful/insightful to some software archeologist at some point in the future.

Heck, I've even tried analysing the space between lumps in the ID IWADs to see if anything juicy was forgotten about...

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sLydE said:

I emailed him yesterday, along with Todd Hollenshead, and American McGee to see if they would be interested in the discussion. Although not entirely related to this debate, they hold some sway, and could possibly make for a better argument.

I also sent emails to the news teams at NewDoom, DoomWorld, and PlanetDoom to get a frontpage story about the digg story and this thread, so that we can get a bit more exposure on this front.


Dude, you should have asked first. That wasn't cool. Can you tell us what you said, paste the e-mails you sent so we can see how bad you made it? :-P

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Quasar said:
So I hope that kind of thing doesn't start up or we're pretty much screwed.

I doubt what any fool could do could outgun what any smart potentially interested individuals out there may contribute it they get a heads up, either as "political" support, or in a practical sense (see below).

I've got two ports to deal with already myself.

That's understood. Yet this is being discussed on a forum because it is a community initiative, in lines with what the GPL espouses, and a good deal of skilled coders familiar with the Raven sources, sound subdriver implementation, or both, that are interested in the initiative are looking at the thread right now. What you can or can't do on a personal level should not hinder this initiative. For example, I couldn't do it at all; should I be suggesting that it is not a good idea because of that? And anything that should encourage the holders of the proprietary source to free it should be considered (remeber what Jon said, this is not just about what we think would work). Naturally a broken release is less attractive than a working one. Think about it; we wouldn't be showing Activision and Raven that we have a commitment to make something out of this if we say "yeah, we want it free, but we're not going to make sure it's released in a directly usable and very portable way since we're too busy to give a shit." There's nothing wrong if you can't do such a thing (no one should be, or feel, forced to do anything here or in regard to this), but you're not alone.

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Naked Snake said:

Dude, you should have asked first. That wasn't cool. Can you tell us what you said, paste the e-mails you sent so we can see how bad you made it? :-P


I don't know how it could possibly be uncool for me to spread the word. Anyway, here's what I said:

in an email to Todd Hollenshead:

Subject: Peaceful Final Attempt to Get Heretic/Hexen GPL'd
The community in and around the Doom, Heretic and Hexen engines are pushing to get the code released under the GPL license. The work has already been done, but it needs to be sanctioned by the holders of said rights. View the digg story here:
http://digg.com/software/Final_Attempt_to_Get_Heretic_Hexen_GPL_d
and the original thread here:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38080

We're trying to contact everyone involved, so that we can make things more free and open in this GPL-based community. I invite you to take a look at the arguments, and join in where you see fit to apply your wisdom. Have a nice day.

To which, he replied:

Email from Todd Hollenshead

That's a Raven/Activision question. The original DOOM stuff was released forever ago, so you know our opinions on it, but it's not in our control.

tsh

To which I replied:

Email reply to Todd Hollenshead

I just thought maybe you would like to join in with us and see where this can take us? Let John Carmack know that we're doing this again. Do you have any good contacts over at Raven that we could email? Thanks for your time.

And then I proceeded to forward this email conversation to John Romero to get his opinion, and have yet to hear back from him.

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Neither of them are in any way connected with Raven or Activision. Going solo like that and firing off emails to people is just going to raise people's heckles and reduce the odds of anything happening, in my opinion.

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While I doubt any harm will come of such emails, I agree that before contacting anybody it might be better to more or less openly discuss what to say; others may think of smart things to say or add that may make a big difference, and there's only so many times that you may contact anyone before you annoy them. Also, occasionally, there are some people best not contacted (or who at least may not be worth spending time bothering).

This (to give contacting a community-based "go ahead") may not apply in all cases, but it is certainly something to consider, from what I see.

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Actually that was a fairly professional email, so that's ok I think. However, that's a pretty grim reply. He seems to be tired of hearing about it, and he's probably not going to get Carmack involved, that's for sure (like I said, I have near-zero optimism that's going to happen).

Romero has extremely limited influence here. He *was* friends with the Raven guys back in the day so he might have some weight there, but on the id side of things, no, I just don't think so.

American McGee hasn't been involved with either company for years and probably doesn't give a rat's ass either way. Nor is he one of those guys, like Romero, who's really involved with the fanbase and gets excited about releasing his old stuff so people can play with/desecrate it :P

I don't know, this is starting to feel hopeless to me now.

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Quasar said:
I don't know, this is starting to feel hopeless to me now.

It's not news that you aren't the most optimistic person on the block.

But I don't see how contacting Carmack should be through the id CEO. Carmack has never been anything but direct, and if he's interested, he'll get involved himself, regardless of who lets him know about the initiative. Is his email address totally blocked or something?

Also, that reply is not grim; it's the truth. This isn't id Software's prerogative, especially as a company. They don't go around telling past licensees to switch to the GPL, they've already given the example by doing it themselves and would naturally leave a similar step in the hands of those licensees (which often buy licenses of id Software's currently closed projects as well).

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myk said:

But I don't see how contacting Carmack should be through the id CEO. Carmack has never been anything but direct, and if he's interested, he'll get involved himself, regardless of who lets him know about the initiative. Is his email address totally blocked or something?

I couldn't locate Carmack's email, so I figured I would just go through Hollenshead, as his email was listed as the contact email under the licensing section of their website.

OK, I'm sorry to anyone who thinks I took a false step here, but at least I took a step. I went out and used all the connections I had to post news stories, and get this prerogative out in the open. I feel that I was very cordial, and not pestering anybody. If you think that I'm bugging these people, then I'm sorry to have disappointed you, I'll keep my mouth shut in the future.

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Nah I don't think it was a false step, necessarily. Hollenshead probably would have given the same response to anybody because as the above post points out, it's just the awful, awful truth :P Your email was professional and to the point; I doubt we as a group would have done any better.

Besides, that's one avenue shot down now, so we can focus our efforts elsewhere and increase productivity ^_^

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