What abandoned GPL source port do you recommend?

This may seem dumb of me to ask, but I would like to tinker with a Doom source port code to try making my own version. What I'm interested in is an older source, for Windows, preferably not cross-platform (so I wouldn't have to make the same modifications on more computers), and of course to be GNU GPL, which I think is the license that allows free source editing and releasing. I don't want it to still be under (much) development, let alone a port with promising plans (like Eternity), and GZDoom is not GPL (yet).

Did I see rumours that Legacy or EDGE are nearly abandoned? :P Not that I'm going to spearhead them in any way; now I actually have to get used to the Doom source itself before thinking about more... I hope they're GPL.

printz said:

Did I see rumours that Legacy or EDGE are nearly abandoned? :P Not that I'm going to spearhead them in any way; now I actually have to get used to the Doom source itself before thinking about more... I hope they're GPL.

The C fork of Legacy is technically abandoned, since it's being remade in C++ and the Devs have made it clear they won't be updating the old C code anymore. GPL status should be okay now that Heretic and Hexen have been GPL-ified.

By old, I guess you don't want all those enhancements, right? Then, Chocolate Doom is obviously closest to Vanilla Doom and it is ported to Windows. I don't think that it is abandoned, though.

If you really want an abandoned port, that have to be really old, I think, but problem is, Doom source wans't GPL'ed then.

It's a pity that there is no RORDoom source. The idea was good, but it was abandoned early and is too buggy to be really useful. And only for DOS. That one had potential, I think.

Maybe the oldest Windows port of Boom would be an interesting choice for you. That would be PRBoom 2.02, iIrc.

I'd say Legacy but then I'd also say you could help out the cause of ReMooD!

printz said:

and of course to be GNU GPL, which I think is the license that allows free source editing and releasing

Both of the licenses Doom's source code has been released under allow these two things. Without going into all the details, the differences is that the original Doom source license allows closed-source development and disallows commercial use, while the GPL forbids closed-source development and permits commercial use.

If you're not going to hide the code or try to sell it, then either license work as well. The choice of the license then merely restrict which code you can borrow from other ports, since they're not compatible. I.e., make it GPL and you can't borrow from (say) ZDoom, make it DSL and you can't borrow from (say) Eternity.

LogicDeLuxe said:

By old, I guess you don't want all those enhancements, right?

Not quite; by old I mean that they're no longer under development, and have become outdated due to this :). An example that's new and current and I wouldn't waste my time on is Eternity, for the reason that major things are being added right now -- Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Aeon, UDMF and others.

PrBoom looks like the best choice, even though it's cross-platform (I'll have to deal with it eventually), provided the source code is available, and the planned additions by its developpers aren't major gameplay enhancements. Not abandoned I know. The advantage of something being abandoned was that I would have the chance to continue them (after getting to understand them).

I'm not sure why you think cross-platform is an issue; you don't typically need to make the same modifications multiple times, you just do it once, and preferably test on multiple platforms, assuming you even keep that aspect of the source.

There's always SMMU!

fraggle said:

There's always SMMU!

Heh. Best named port ever.

EDGE was in a kinda abandoned state, but recently I picked it up again and am doing some big tasks (e.g. using console vars for lots of stuff), and big refactorings to make the code not so "bleh". We've always had a complicated codebase, so it wouldn't have been a good choice as a source port primer.

IMO SMMU and MBF are clearly the best choices for what you want to do.

Best try the WinMBF version Quasar once made or - as some suggested - PrBoom if you don't mind working with code that's still in development.

I can't recommend Legacy though. It uses a few libraries that really don't work too well anymore under Windows and the 1.4 versions have been causing me nothing but problems.

It shouldn't matter if it's abandoned. You're not obligated to use any stuff changed or added to later versions of the base engine, after all. While picking up an abandoned branch or engine might be nice so that it doesn't go to waste, you'll probably benefit more if you start with a base that is guaranteed to work well on current systems.

Gez said:
Both of the licenses Doom's source code has been released under allow these two things.

To argue values rather than facts, and as you go over later from an incidental perspective, the two things don't mean the same thing. In technically free software, the code itself is free, as it can't by license normally be secluded from the public once applications built from it are released. There's a social freedom of information there that goes beyond what someone may do during an instance.

myk said:

In technically free software, the code itself is free, as it can't by license normally be secluded from the public once applications built from it are released.

You're speaking of copyleft actually; it's not a feature shared by all free software licenses. X.Org and FreeBSD, for example, are largely covered by non-copyleft licenses that allow non-free forks to be made (generally, those projects feel that non-free forks are always inferior and will die out by market demand anyway...).

What actually made the original Doom Source License too restrictive to be considered free software was the prohibition of commercial exploitation (it might seem like a relatively minor issue for Doom engines, but this also means that if, for example, PrBoom were covered under the DSL, it would not be allowed to be put on the various GNU/Linux distribution CDs/DVDs that it is often contained on).

MikeRS said:
What actually made the original Doom Source License too restrictive to be considered free software was the prohibition of commercial exploitation

Not really. Like you say, that just made it incompatible with Linux (and other) distros, and was a later consideration. It was particularly less important before Freedoom came to be, because the game was still clearly non-free. Freedoom came up as an extension of GPLed ports. The initiative was started mainly by coders and port fans.

The main issue with the original source, which prompted Carmack to dual-license, was that source ports died because their sources were not released. GLDoom, in particular. If the Doom source was to be given to the community, and not just fragmented individuals which might not guarantee properly giving back to that base that permitted their creations, it needed a license that made sure the creations stayed in the community's hands.

RORDoom, what else?

/hide

fraggle said:

There's always SMMU!

I wish there was a modern port of SMMU at the same stage PrBoom is at - multi-arch, established and stable.

Demo compat + slime hack = win

DOOM3D

Kaiser said:

DOOM3D

None of the links to the source packages still work.

Isn't that the engine that's programmed for DirectX 4 or something antediluvian like that?

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11103

heh

Gez said:

Isn't that the engine that's programmed for DirectX 4 or something antediluvian like that?

It's the engine that Doom64EX is based on. ;)

Super Jamie said:

I wish there was a modern port of SMMU at the same stage PrBoom is at - multi-arch, established and stable.

Demo compat + slime hack = win

You mean like Eternity Engine?

kristus said:

You mean like Eternity Engine?

I've never been able to compile it for Linux, it dies on d_dialog.c

Edit by Quasar: This is fixed in SVN ;)

Ever struck you that you could take that up with the developers of the port?

If you're on a 64-bit computer, it won't work.

MikeRS said:

If you're on a 64-bit computer, it won't work.

Yet. :) It's being worked on, don't worry.

How do you figure that? I see no evidence that it's being worked on, judging from the svn log.

MikeRS said:

I see no evidence that it's being worked on, judging from the svn log.

You can't judge anything from svn logs.

WinMBF would make an excellent base for any new port IMO. Especially after I get around to releasing Build 3, which will probably be the final release of it barring future platform issues like needing a newer version of SDL or something.

You could do WinDoom if you could get the original author to permit you to make it GPL (his code anyway since Doom could be switched like that).

Graf Zahl said:

I can't recommend Legacy though. It uses a few libraries that really don't work too well anymore under Windows and the 1.4 versions have been causing me nothing but problems.

I switched ReMooD away from FMOD because it sucks and fixed any remaining glitches.

Don't you mean Allegro? Legacy never used FMOD (it couldn't even if it wanted due to the GPL.)