Bailing out Heretic and Hexen code

An idea occurred in #chocolate-doom between GhostlyDeath and I... if it would be possible to commercially license the Heretic and Hexen engines, and subsequently releasing them under the GPLv2 (if possible). The idea is mostly sprung from the fact that all emails, letters, petitions, etc to Raven Software to put the Herectic+Hexen under a reasonable license seem to be in vain.

Basically, a bunch of people would donate money to put forth to the cost of licensing the engines, which could probably run up a few thousand dollars (I don't know exactly). this is quite a bit of money for most single persons to invest in just to free some source code, but I believe that with a combined effort, it would be feasible. Basically, the following are required:
1. Find out if Heretic and Hexen can still be licensed, and what rights you would inherit to the code upon licensing. This step should probably be done before anything else.
2. Find someone trustworthy (they can't go out and use the money for booze/personal wealth/groceries/etc) to organize the project and set up a single location where everyone can donate to.
3. Make sure some sort of refund system is set up so everyone can get their money back if the project fails or dies for any reason.
4. Make sure said coordinator (or whoever gets the rights to the engine) will keep their end of the bargain and free the source code!

Any other points to consider? I'm sure I haven't covered everything.... and I'm not sure whether anyone would want to contribute to this cause either, so heh.

If rights to relicense the code could be purchased, I wouldn't mind donating, but I doubt this step is even possible.

Do you really expect that this might work? Companies like Activision give a shit about such things. They are more concerned with the legal repercussions that *might* arise and rather say 'no' just to be safe.

That said, this sounds like nonsense to me.

Assuming some clumsy sod hasn't lost/shredded/wiped the source I'm sure Raven would be prepared to place a monetary value on it. However - I can't envision a copyright holder licencing their code in order for the source to be GPL'd. You'd be better off trying to purchase the copyright.

If this had any chance of working, and I knew my money wasn't going to waste, I would easily dish out a couple hundred.

GreyGhost said:

Assuming some clumsy sod hasn't lost/shredded/wiped the source I'm sure Raven would be prepared to place a monetary value on it.

The source code's existence isn't an issue - it has already been released, just under a different (non-GPL) license.

I don't see any harm in asking them the question "How much money would it take, one way or another, to get this GPLed?"

You might want to check out this site: micropledge.com. They let you pledge money toward a particular goal, and the money gets taken only if enough people pledge money.

I think the most basic goal for the time being would be to establish some sort of dialog with Raven. They've never responded to any of the campaigning at all. I guess it's still a possibility that they're just completely oblivious to the issue.

Also, there's a phone number in the license that, as far as I know, nobody has even tried calling yet:

If you have any questions concerning this license, you may contact
Activision at 3100 Ocean Park Boulevard, Santa Monica, California
90405, (310) 255-2000, Attn. Business and Legal Affairs,
legal@activision.com

To do this you would basically need ownership of the entire franchise. While buying the Serpent Riders from Activision/Raven to release the source of the older games under GPL is a noble idea, I think it's also an irresponsible one. The legacy of the Serpent Rider saga belongs to Raven, and nobody else is really qualified to own or continue that series except for them. And to try to buy such rights without the intent of doing something more with them is bad, as it would permanently kill the franchise (AFAIK there's no plan to continue it further right now anyway, but the future could hold anything).

Just acquiring a license to *use* the source would definitely not give you permission to sublicense it, and especially not under such terms as the GPL. It is my opinion that Raven already broke the terms of their original license with id Software by releasing the source at all. Since DOOM was already GPL, it obviously didn't matter though, and Carmack wasn't going to press an issue like that. He could have done us a favor by pressuring them to use the GPL, though, like he said at one point that he would do. From the complete lack of any response to emails about the subject, it's pretty clear he's not going to do that now.

Quasar said:

Just acquiring a license to *use* the source would definitely not give you permission to sublicense it, and especially not under such terms as the GPL. It is my opinion that Raven already broke the terms of their original license with id Software by releasing the source at all. Since DOOM was already GPL, it obviously didn't matter though, and Carmack wasn't going to press an issue like that. He could have done us a favor by pressuring them to use the GPL, though, like he said at one point that he would do. From the complete lack of any response to emails about the subject, it's pretty clear he's not going to do that now.

I dunno about that. Valve has been running around selling their "Source" engine, which is really just an evolved Quake engine, and Ritual Ent. sold their modified Q3A engine to EA for American McGee's Alice.
How that works legally, I have no idea. But id sure haven't done anything about it.

Quasar said:

Just acquiring a license to *use* the source would definitely not give you permission to sublicense it, and especially not under such terms as the GPL.

It depends on the terms of the license. Like I said before, a dialog is the first necessity.

Quasar said:

To do this you would basically need ownership of the entire franchise.

The license to the engine is not the same as the license to the IP.

For example, if Romero bought the Heretic/Hexen license to make this Hecatomb project he had, he wouldn't use the very outdated Heretic or Hexen engines to do it. And, reciprocally, when Raven bought the license from id Software, they didn't make games based in the Doom universe, but in their own creation.

I don't think Romero would need to buy anything from Raven to make Hecatomb. It's not really using anything that is trademarked to Raven.

Gez said:
The license to the engine is not the same as the license to the IP.

I doubt they license the Doom engine modifications used for Heretic and Hexen. They probably can't, being that most of the code used is under id Software's copyright. I'm guessing they can't safely commission or make a port of the games without id being involved, either.

That's usually not the case... otherwise, Valve wouldn't be making a living off of the Source engine (which, as previously stated, goes back to the original Quake engine).

Unlike the two Raven games, Half-life was never an id publication. Valve formally acquired a Quake engine license, while Raven simply did a job for id Software.