If Classic DOOM ever became freeware...

[Mystery Man in 3D]

...what would be the first thing you'd do after finding out?

If and when Classic DOOM became freeware, I swear, I'd make 500 CDs, each packaged with all the Classic DOOM games, and casually hand them out to ANYONE who didn't already own the game...

[scifista42]

I'd stop being afraid of ripping IWAD contents. I don't think it would change my life anyhow else, since I already own all Doom games, and none of my friends seem to have interest in Doom even if it was for free.

A bit of a sad truth...

[Gez]

I'd put the official link on Doom and ZDoom wikis' IWAD pages.

[BaronOfStuff]

I'd probably do nothing, to be honest. Maybe download every IWAD version for the sake of having a complete set, regardless of where from because it wouldn't matter.

[UltimaDweedleXVers]

I'd be pissed off because I paid good money for the games lol

[Joshua Schäferhund]

I'd be happy but at the same time sad as well, because combined with what's going on with Doom 4 and id right now would likely mean the end for them.

[Memfis]

I'd make a troll post in the Freedoom subforum.

[Megalyth]

I'd leap for joy. Then I would press the button on my Life Alert.

[Netherstorm]

I'd share it with everyone.

[Joshua Schäferhund]

Oh I forgot to mention Freedoom would have no longer have a reason to exist.

[hex11]

Patch93 said:

Oh I forgot to mention Freedoom would have no longer have a reason to exist.

It's BSD licensed.
It's a TC.

[LkMax]

distribute my WIP mod as a full stand-alone doom game (it uses IWAD stuff).

[GreyGhost]

Mystery Man in 3D said:

...what would be the first thing you'd do after finding out?

I really don't know, maybe choose a different game to give away for my next birthday.

[schwerpunk]

Heh.

Broadly speaking, I think in the best case scenario we'd get an influx of new blood (similar to what happened when Brutal Doom hit its peak), a fraction of which might take up mapping. Personally speaking, the only real difference would be that I would stop feeling iffy about keeping an archival copy of the IWAD on a thumb drive.

[UltimaDweedleXVers]

I dont think Freedoom would become obsolete if this were to happen. I have been playing alot of Freedoom and I have to say that it's quality is fantastic. Very tempted to record a let's play of it but I'll wait til its out of Beta.

[SavageCorona]

I'd get all the workers at ID's head on a pike and stick it in their mangled bodies like the John Romero boss in Doom 2, with John Romero with the tallest pike then sell them for £1 million each (£10 million for Romero) to members of the Doom community.

Any buyers?

[printz]

Just because of Freedoom's existence, Doom might never become freeware. If it went, it would make a nice complement to the GPL source code. But this is no longer needed, let the poor guys enjoy their Freedoom, it's already there!

Note that Wolf3D is already moving through a horrible grey zone. It's still licensed commercially, but lots of mods which use its resources and are standalone (no need for original game!) are tolerated, as long as they don't claim ownership of resources. It's also available online at 3d.wolfenstein.com (website legit, referred from wolfenstein.com). And its resources are also available at id's own Github page: https://github.com/id-Software/Wolf3D-iOS/tree/master/wolf3d/base

[Da Werecat]

UltimaDweedleXVers said:

I dont think Freedoom would become obsolete if this were to happen. I have been playing alot of Freedoom and I have to say that it's quality is fantastic.

Sounds like a lot has been changed. I need to download the latest version.

[hex11]

printz said:

Just because of Freedoom's existence, Doom might never become freeware. If it went, it would make a nice complement to the GPL source code. But this is no longer needed, let the poor guys enjoy their Freedoom, it's already there!

Freeware doesn't mean "no strings attached" or imply the same thing as BSD or GPL. There is freeware that the copyright owner allows people to download and play without paying, but that's as far as the rights go. They don't allow people to modify their game and distribute or sell modified versions of it. But you can do exactly that with BSD or GPL stuff. In fact, sometimes the freeware can only be legally downloaded from the website of copyright owner or a handful of places they declare to be "legit" (and if those sites ever go down or disappear, you're SOL). In those cases, the copyright owner can even decide one day to pull the plug by removing those download links. At that point, a lot of people may have already downloaded the stuff, but others won't have any legal way to get it as freeware (or perhaps even at all, except via ebay & Co.)

[Relic]

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Edited October 14, 2021 by Relic

[qoncept]

I would beg for someone that knew what they were doing to add Doom II monsters to Episode 4 and rebalance.

[Clonehunter]

I'd release tons of commercial SLIGE Megawads on the Itunes App Store

[fraggle]

Patch93 said:

Oh I forgot to mention Freedoom would have no longer have a reason to exist.

It would still have a reason to exist, because "free as in beer" is not the same as "free as in speech". For example, the shareware Doom WAD can already be distributed "for free" but it is not Free Software.

If Doom was released under a Free Software license (which would be great!) then it would possibly be valid to claim that Freedoom would have no reason to exist. However, it's still nice to have an entire WAD file built by the community as a compliment.

[Hellbent]

fraggle said:

[snip] it's still nice to have an entire WAD file built by the community as a compliment.

As a complement or compliment (or both?)