Sign the Heretic/Hexen source GPL petition

[Quasar]

A lot of you are not aware that it is basically illegal to make use of any Heretic or Hexen source in GPL DOOM source ports due to an asinine Activision EULA which Raven carelessly threw into the distribution archive.

Not only that, but when approached about the problem in the past, Raven has proven unwilling to listen or make any compromise, even claiming that the restrictive license is ok because they don't intend to enforce most parts of it.

If you want to see more ports with better Heretic support, you need to go sign this petition today.

http://www.petitiononline.com/qhhgpl/petition.html

[DooMBoy]

Heh, Justin "DooMBoy" James just signed the petition. There definitely need to be more/better Heretic/HeXen source ports out than there are now.

[sparky]

i signed too
but hold on... ther are source ports for hexen and heretic
like jhexen and jheretic
and even zdoom which still doesnt have full hexen support

BUT YOU GET THE IDEA !! :)

[mmnpsrsoskl]

I did sign it. So yeah they'd better do something or I want my $0.05 back.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Me, too. Although ZDoom (vFriday the 13th) supports Heretic without any problems, we still need a working Hexen source port that runs in software mode.

[Woolie Wool]

Most companies won't even consider a petition not signed in ink.

/me signs anyway

[Quasar]

C'mon everybody we need more signatures. There's no reason why anyone here should NOT sign it, aside from pure laziness. It only takes a second. Go do it :P

[Insomniak]

Right now (3:20 pm MST), there's 60 sigs, including mine. I'm suprized the one with the ü hasn't signed.

[Sharessa]

FUCK

I accidently used my not real name. Fuck fuck fuck. I really don't like to do that...I prefer making it look professional instead of retarded. Sorry.

At lest I finaly got around to creating a new e-mail so I could sign it.

[Fletcher`]

i signed

[AirRaid]

I signed... cos I have nothing better to do.

[myk]

On a more important matter: Did anyone else notice how DOOM is GPL but it isn't? There is absolutely no notice at the id Software site that it is GPL while this is quite clear for Quake. All there is is the doom source in the idstuff directory, but it goes by the '97 license. The only GPL version that can be found in the net is at Telefragged.

[DOOM Anomaly]

I have signed it, my work is done here :P

[Fletcher`]

k, now my mind just went completely blank- Please define GPL, i used to remember but i forgot (Damn hate that feeling)

[Wobbo]

Online petitions dont count unfortunateley. like wool said you need ink

and private corporations have no reason to even care about a petition any way

yeha i singed, ilove heretic

[Quasar]

Well for me its not going to matter anyways. I'm taking the high road and rewriting every bit of Heretic code I've ever used to the point where its all either recycled DOOM code or my own code.

There isn't anything illegal about emulating Heretic. As for string and integer constants, they already allowed those to be distributed via HHE patches, so they'd have a weak case against that. In short, if I keep the code original, I have no need to worry about their license. And there IS a certain amount of information I can glean from their source and make fair use of, anyways.

I don't think it'll be legally shakey at all, and once I am done, they'll never be able to prove I even looked at their source code once. I wish I never had, anyways. Its full of hidden bugs waiting to explode, and you COULD pretty much get all the info you need to recreate it by testing the game empirically, like Lee did with the doom betas. Having the source just spares a bit of time in that respect, I guess.

[myk]

The only truly ugly bug I remember from playing Heretic is that if you record you're thrown back to DOS upon hitting the exit switch... there is no intermission pic, the game just ends. This also happens in Hexen. It makes recording useless, at least for anything other than making a short demo to put in a PWAD. That pretty much kills the game for me.

[Enjay]

Quasar said:

Well for me its not going to matter anyways. I'm taking the high road and rewriting every bit of Heretic...

...Having the source just spares a bit of time in that respect, I guess.

Still sounds like a lot of work to me (not that I would really know), but if that is the level of work you are prepared to put in, how about "pretty much getting all the info you need to recreate it by testing the game empirically" with Strife?

A decent, solid Strife port, now that would be nice.

[myk]

It would have to be a labor of love, considering Heretic players are less common than DOOM players (which aren't that many by the way.) But there's a few, I guess. As for Strife, more so.

[Draconio]

Strife doesn't interest me very much anymore for the simple reason that I've never seen any add-on levels for it.

[Enjay]

Draconio said:

Strife doesn't interest me very much anymore for the simple reason that I've never seen any add-on levels for it.

But if there were a decent modern source port then maybe...

I would agree that of the Doom engined games, even with a modern source port, Strife would always be the poor cousin as far as add on levels are concerned.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Draconio said:

Strife doesn't interest me very much anymore for the simple reason that I've never seen any add-on levels for it.

I've never even seen it!

(in any shops, therefore I've never played it)

[Enjay]

Ultimate DooMer said:

I've never even seen it!

(in any shops, therefore I've never played it)

Well, if you've never seen it at all, you can get the little demo mission from the Doomworld shareware page:

http://doomworld.com/files/shareware.shtml

It features a mission based in some of the full game levels, but the mission iteself is slightly different from any that feature in the final game. Unfortunately the demo uses version 1.1 of the game engine which had a silly one-save-per-game system. If anyone has the full ver and has not patched up to the latest version (1.31 I think) you are missing out on multiple save slot goodness.

As far as getting it in the shops, unfortunately copies of Strife have been as rare as rocking horse shit for years now. They sometimes crop up on e-bay or sites dealing with old games though.

[GooberMan]

I got my copy of Strife through EBay. I'd like to see a source port for it but the work involved would be quite a huge amount (I'd attempt to do one myself but I don't have the time to do it at all).

[Naked Snake]

I know the features of Strife inside and out. If I could code, I'm sure I could make a Strife port IF I COULD PROGRAM.

[DooMBoy]

I'd make my own GL port for Heretic/HeXen, maybe Doom, if I could program...but I can't. Which sucks, because I'm interested in learning how to program, even if it's just really easy stuff.

[fraggle]

ravage said:

k, now my mind just went completely blank- Please define GPL, i used to remember but i forgot (Damn hate that feeling)

The Heretic/Hexen source code is available for download, however it is not technically Open Source so Open Source doom ports cannot legally use the code. We want the Heretic/Hexen source released under the GPL which would make it equal to the Doom Source.

[Quasar]

Strife just does not interest me and isn't a mainstream DOOM engine game like Heretic was. Also, very little is known about its internal data formats, such as its dialog scripts. I'm not up to hex hacking, frankly.

I am preparing now to try my hand at my own polyobject system. After some glances (and I do mean glances) at the Hexen code, I have a feeling for how they work. My main objective now is to try to see if I can make my own system better in the end. For instance, Hexen uses a level-wide blockmap to handle mobj/polyobj collisions. I'm not sure that's necessary given that polyobjects are not everywhere on the map and that most of the time you're not touching any.

I'll have to try out a number of different things, however, and see what works. I think in the end that writing your own code is much better than just stealing some that has unnecessary limits and bugs in it. The Hexen polyobject code has a number of limits -- one polyobject per subsector (this may be necessary for practicality, but we'll see), 64 segs per polyobject (totally unnecessary limit), and I believe a maximum number of polyobjects per level (but I'm not certain on that; it would be unnecessary at any rate).

[Enjay]

Quasar said:

Strife just does not interest me...

Oh well, worth a try. Hope the rest of the stuff you want to do proves achievable. Sounds like you have a very good grip on it and a strong sense of direction anyway.

[Quasar]

I suppose that if I finally run out of basic features to implement, I could look at Strife emulation. It would be a very long road to getting the entire thing working, however :->