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Jon

risen3d licencing discussion

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Quasar said:
Heit hasn't technically avoided anything. He took the Raven code and put it under BSD license under the assumption that BSD doesn't violate the Raven EULA. However, where did the authority to change the license on the code to BSD come from?

Unless you can argue that any Doom code is under the DOOM license and any new code is under the BSD. This means that anone taking any portion that includes DOOM specific stuff he's bound by the heavier DOOM license restrictions, but if he takes code from ZDoom that is fully original (or or otherwise not under the more restrictive licenses), it can be used quite freely as specified by the lighter restrictions of the BSD license.

The concept being that id Software holds full copyrights over the code it is sharing through the license, but Randy Heit holds copyrights over new code he incorporates originally. According to the DOOM license, id grants you the right to use portions of its stuff in your work for noncommercial educational purposes, so I don't really see how it is a problem. It never states that the DOOM license "relicenses" the product (or whole work) like, let's say, the GPL does.

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You have a point as far as the DOOM source license goes. As for the Activision EULA, I'm not so sure. But if deep wants to accuse somebody of mingling their code to the point where you can't really tell what part's under what license, zdoom certainly has done that. I needed to adapt zdoom's 3D object clipping code to replace our own which was broken, and Graf warned me that parts of it may still be Raven-derived. I still implemented it however, because I saw very little resemblence in his code, and when I was done with it, there wasn't really any to speak of at all.

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What law in the US says you can't look at someone else's code to derive a new and obviously different implementation? I know this has been a big issue for decades and Compaq is somewhat famous for using two teams to clone IBM's BIOS and get around it, but I don't get why. Why is someone barred from looking at Raven's code to know what it does? With sufficiently different code it would be impossible to prove the author ever saw any code other than his own anyway.

It seems if the functionality of a program was protected to the point where you can't look at the (already available) code, then simply making a new program that does the same thing (plays Hexen) would be illegal anyway and the whole argument would be moot.

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The only problem is when it comes to stuff that simply can only be done the way it's already done. I'll pick out a good example straight from Heretic:

void A_ImpMeAttack(mobj_t *actor)
{
	if(!actor->target)
	{
		return;
	}
	S_StartSound(actor, actor->info->attacksound);
	if(P_CheckMeleeRange(actor))
	{
		P_DamageMobj(actor->target, actor, actor, 5+(P_Random()&7));
	}
}
You can take out a few unnecessary braces, rename the parameter, and change the order of some operations, but there is simply no other code to execute exactly this action and only this action in the context of the DOOM engine, aside from some highly obfuscated Killough-style code like this:
void A_ImpMeleeAtk(mobj_t *mo)
{
   mo->target ?
      S_StartSound(mo, mo->info->attacksound),
      P_CheckMeleeRange(mo) ?
         P_DamageMobj(mo->target, mo, mo, P_Random() % 8 + 5) : 
         (void) 0 :
      (void) 0;
}
Yeah, I don't really want that kinda crap in my source port :P Besides that, it's trying so hard to be different that it's blatantly obvious. It screams "I LOOKED AT RAVEN'S CODE AND IT IS BURNED INTO MY MIND. HELP MEEEEE!"

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Aliotroph? said:
Is it even legal for id to declare it illegal to sell wads? The courts didn't seem to mind the Game Genie after all (Wikipedia)

That seems more like someone selling WadAuthor or DeHackEd. As for wads, to argue the right to be able to sell them without issue you have to make sure they contain only original work. Freedoom, for example, is aimed to be totally independent in that way.

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Yeah, your analogy sounds a lot more correct so I think I'll just withdraw that argument and stand corrected. I wonder where id would stand on true TCs like Chex Quest. FreeDoom would be an interesting case, except that it's free of course.

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Quasar said:

The only problem is when it comes to stuff that simply can only be done the way it's already done. I'll pick out a good example straight from Heretic:


And that is something covered by law.
You cant copyright code snippets that are so small a fragment that it could be anything.
This could even stand like this in Diablo or in Wizadry 8 or even in TES:Oblivion.

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Quasar said:

The only problem is when it comes to stuff that simply can only be done the way it's already done. I'll pick out a good example straight from Heretic

Then the implementation should be obvious and you shouldn't need to look at / copy the original code.

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Ajapted said:

Then the implementation should be obvious and you shouldn't need to look at / copy the original code.


well sometimes it helps for some hints. ;)

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myk said:

I'd don't see how this can work unless you are talking about an unreleased version aimed to be compatible with new nonRaven code for the games or GPLed Raven code.

It's new unreleased code, that we wrote as GPL + jheretic/jhexen exception. legally it allows us to link it specifically with Raven licensed code in jheretic or jHexen, but it imposes some very specific conditions. GPL Heretic/Hexen code from Raven code would be really really nice, but we started this a long time before the current GPL efforts started.

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I was reading newdoom and I heard somthing about sitters hiring a lawyer because of this shit. Surely he's joking.

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Ajapted said:

Then the implementation should be obvious and you shouldn't need to look at / copy the original code.

You've missed my point. Assuming I determined the damage constants exactly by running statistical analysis of the damage done by imp scratches, I would have produced the identical code, save perhaps for variable names, on my own. Then, if someone checked up on me to see if I was using Raven code or not, they might get a false positive -- many of them, perhaps, when it comes to functions like this.

This makes the EULA a burden even to people who aren't looking at Raven's code, IMO.

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Szymanski said:

Internet. Serious business.

Mr. Yagi said:

Running tally of Deep, digging deeper
* He's stolen code,
* He's ignored license conditions
* He's tried to blame it on the victum (a common defence tactic of rapists)
* He's threatend to try and shut down our hosting.
* He's threatend to try and shut down other ports including GZDOOM


Ah, the old fashioned "If I go down, I"m taking you with me" deal. Deep wouldn't DARE do that.

And why the hell is Brad and sitters mirroring the binaries for Risen3d? That's ILLEGAL you idiots!

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Csonicgo said:

I was reading newdoom and I heard somthing about sitters hiring a lawyer because of this shit. Surely he's joking.


I'll probably sound like an asshole for saying this, but I'm guessing the only reason why sitters is probably pissed is because his maps are only playable on Risen3D and he doesn't want to see his hard work go to waste.

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well, guys... i don't feel like reading all this legalese, where can i download the latest version of risen3d? their page is down.

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Well if you'd bothered to read (I know it take so much effort) you'd see that the project is dead and you can't download it anymore.

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Lizardcommando said:

I'll probably sound like an asshole for saying this, but I'm guessing the only reason why sitters is probably pissed is because his maps are only playable on Risen3D and he doesn't want to see his hard work go to waste.


Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off too if I was in his situation. :(

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Use3D said:

Well if you'd bothered to read (I know it take so much effort) you'd see that the project is dead and you can't download it anymore.



thanks. sad to see another project die like this.

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esselfortium said:

Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off too if I was in his situation. :(


Eh it's like Fraggle said, when a project is closed source you run the risk of something bad happening and your work dies with it. If he really wanted to he could port his maps to something not crappy.

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Scuba Steve said:

GZDoom and JDoom both support models and high res textures correct?


They cant handle my maps, the rendering speed is to low.
The FPS is dropping death, with much dynamic lights and models.

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Torr Samaho said:

well, guys... i don't feel like reading all this legalese, where can i download the latest version of risen3d? their page is down.


HERE

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hawkwind said:

Obviously this is far too important a piece of history to be lost to the mists of time so I would like to suggest that as many people as possible archive the entire site for future generations. In fact, download several copies in case one of them gets corrupted! You can use wget (Windows port) to do this. For example, at a shell prompt:

while true ; do wget -m removed ; done
Thank you for preserving Doom and internet history, lest we never forget!

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hawkwind said:

I don't see the source code for r3dglbsp on that page. Is it included in one of the packages? Otherwise, who should I send it to to get it put there, as per Graham Jackson's wishes (presumably the doomwadstation owner is not the best person to contact).

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