Why isn't the Wolf3D source GPL?

Why isn't the Wolf3D source GPL? All the other Id stuff is (as far as I know).

I think this just came up in a thread in Source Ports. The guessed reason there was: nobody asked.

What a shame! Does anyone know who to contact?

John Carmack.

Yeah, I guess I really meant how, not who.

johnc@idsoftware.com most likely.

I find this boggling my mind because there are several ports that suddenly change the license to GPL, like wtf. no!

Well, I sent an e-mail.

EDIT: I guess i could mention that this began when I noticed there was no open-content package for the Wolf3d source. I spent about two hours turning FreeDoom flats into Wolfenstein walls and then learned about this EULA stuff.

jute gyte said:

Well, I sent an e-mail.

You rock (I was not brave enough).

I just assumed it was GPL. I guess they just never got around to it due to lack of interest.

I hope that email gets throught to him.

This topic reminded me that I wanted to see if there was any possibility to get RTCW source released...

A lot more ambitious than getting Wolf3D relicensed (he'll probably say yes to that), but hey, I can't I didn't ask now :)

The Wolf3D source is such a gigantic mess to begin with I cannot imagine that making it GPL will somehow make it any more useful.

Actually, I think Todd Hollenshead might be a better person to ask than John C.

I guess if I don't get a reply from Carmack within a week or so I'll try Hollenshead. Where do you guys find these e-mail addresses? I couldn't spot Carmack's on id's site.

I think the naming scheme is pretty consistent with employee email addresses like theirs.

If it were GPL and if we did make a data project, what would it feature instead of Nazi Germany? Software patent offices?

leileilol said:

If it were GPL and if we did make a data project, what would it feature instead of Nazi Germany? Software patent offices?

How about the RIAA?

leileilol said:

If it were GPL and if we did make a data project, what would it feature instead of Nazi Germany? Software patent offices?

How about leaving it just requiring the original game data? Or at the very least do something original than just "OpenWolf3D"

jute gyte said:
Where do you guys find these e-mail addresses?

C:\>finger @idsoftware.com

[idsoftware.com]
Welcome to id Software's Finger Service V1.5!

The following people have information available:

User         Name                 Description                    Project
------------ -------------------- ------------------------------ --------------
johnc        John Carmack         Programmer
adrianc      Adrian Carmack       Artist
kevinc       Kevin Cloud          Artist
twillits     Tim Willits          Designer
xian         Christian Antkow     Designer
donnaj       Donna Jackson        id Mom
kenneth      Kenneth Scott        Artist
toddh        Todd Hollenshead     CEO
raduffy      Robert Duffy         Programmer
ttimo        Timothee Besset      Programmer
patrick      Patrick Thomas       Artist
chang        Andy Chang           Artist
james        James Houska         Artist
seneca       Seneca Menard        Artist
jimd         Jim Dose             Programmer
pat          Pat Duffy            Media Artist
nelno        Johnathan Wright     Programmer
mal          Mal Blackwell        Designer
jerry        Jerry Keehan         Designer
rescoe       Steve Rescoe         Designer
matt         Matt Hooper          Designer
jasonk       Jason Kim            Project Manager
matry        Marty Stratton       Biz

C:\>

if we did make a data project

How about leaving it just requiring the original game data?

Read the previous post a bit closer, we're talking about a media replacement project with some fresh concept instead of Nazis.

Here's a radical idea: an imprisoned British pilot trying to escape from a Russian prison full of KGB agents.

There are other settings that could be explored if the Wolf3D community haven't already done so - wartime Japan, "communist" China, North Korea, Iran or filling Osama with hot lead in Afghanistan's Tora Bora caves.

You're a captured Iraqi soldier and just escaped from Guantanamo Bay's torture facility. With the help of some Cubans you've reached the American coast by boat and must proceed with caution, fighting the police, the military, mutant droids and zombies in a nation ruined by the lasting financial crisis. The final objective is to blow up Wall Street, from where the villains plot against the world.

It's always somewhat boggled my mind that Wolf3D mods have gone off in really silly directions, like having "motorbike" levels that are completely unplayable due to the terrible steering (you can only attack by running enemies over with your bike, when you bump into something at a slow speed, you just get stuck and they kill you), instead of trying to really advance the engine's level design capabilities.

Didn't the original System Shock use tile-based levels, but with the ability for the mapper to rotate individual tiles on the grid to create slopes and angled walls? It'd be really cool to see something like that put into Wolf3D somehow. Even if that'd be virtually impossible to do without rewriting it from scratch (and thus defeating the point, heh), some enhancements like what was done for Rise of the Triad would be a big help. Of course doing something like that would almost certainly require the map format to be expanded, unless it was hacked in with separate data files that are edited manually in addition to the base map...anyone for UWMF? :P

As it is now, Wolf maps seem to be pretty much the same as they were in 1992, only with floor/ceiling textures, parallax skies, and impossible-to-control motorcycles...

It's too bad something similar to the Boom standard never caught on with the Wolf modding community; a lot of mods require their own custom exes to run, because I guess none of the sourceports can do what they want.

esselfortium said:

As it is now, Wolf maps seem to be pretty much the same as they were in 1992, only with floor/ceiling textures, parallax skies, and impossible-to-control motorcycles....

Heh.

I think due to the limited memory that Wolf mods run under (DOS 640K), it hasn't been possible to create a Wolf port with user friendly modding capabilities like DDF or DECORATE or QuakeC scripting.

Wouldn't it be possible for a source port to increase that limit, and/or completely replace the memory system?

System Shock's engine is lightyears ahead of the Wolf3d engine.

esselfortium said:

Wouldn't it be possible for a source port to increase that limit, and/or completely replace the memory system?

I think there's been various ports to modern OSes, even some OpenGL ports, but none of them really (from what I can tell) gaining much traction in the Wolf community, perhaps because they were not complete, or perhaps because there is a lot of information and tutorials which apply to the DOS codebase and these ports change the code too much.

The lastest port "Wolf4SDL" seems to be an active one gaining a fair bit of attention though.

Interesting. And Wolf3D in GL seems like it'd somewhat defeat the point of Wolf hacking...no need to see what the limited renderer can be made capable of, let's just render polygons :\

If the Wolf3D source gets a GPL re-release; I promise the community an eventual jWolfenstein3D running under the Doomsday Engine (of course).

After a week or so I didn't get a reply from Carmack, so I've just e-mailed Hollenshead. Fingers are crossed!