digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

Carmack commits to Open Source as Quakeworld

linuxgames.com — At Quakeworld, John Carmack (the genius behind Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein) commits to open sourcing idsoftware's future games: "I mean I won't commit to a date, but the Doom 3 stuff will be open source." Carmack goes on to say that future idsoftware games will also follow this trend.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • m3mn0n, on 10/10/2007, -1/+48Carmack is the man.
    • bias, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8Carmack: "Microsoft has done a great job with all this stuff. I mean, I honestly think that DX9 with how it’s implemented on the 360 is a clearer and more open API than OpenGL is. It doesn’t hide the state."

      Hell yea.
  • tuzziel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14the more clones and ports that people do and license back to iD the better (for iD), smart move for him
    • Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Well, once they release the source, they don't have to pay Id for a license as long as they release the source. Although there's certainly the possibility that a project will start out with a free license and go closed-source.
  • lesty420, on 10/10/2007, -18/+4Hey should commit to making good story lines in his games
    • Kikkoman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15Who needs a story line when u are fighting mobs of cacodaemons.
    • uberchaoslord, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4carmack doesn't do the storyline, he writes the amazing graphics code you see in ID games.
    • Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3He's a developer. He makes the engine. Why should he be involved with the storyline?

      He should keep doing what he does best; making kickass engines and leaving things like art and story to the artists and writers.
    • LordofShadows, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Doenst need a story line, just a disturbing amount of gore.
  • Piedramente, on 10/10/2007, -8/+3This is as old as moldy bread
  • smurf22, on 10/10/2007, -3/+40People who dont put their games on linux are just lazy... im looking at you Valve
    • YuriSakazaki, on 10/10/2007, -12/+10The time:return ratio on putting games on Linux just isn't worth it... how many people running Linux would actually pay for a game? Nowhere near the amount of people on Windows who already DO pay for games.
      • init100, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14How can you be so sure? I reboot to Windows to play, but I'd rather buy a Linux version instead if it existed. I'd hardly think that I'm alone in this.
        • Directrix1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13You are not anywhere near alone.
        • jer2eydevil88, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I think it hasn't been done yet so no one has any idea! I own a lot of Valves Steam games and I wouldn't hesitate to buy another license for $40 - $50 to run it on OS X or Linux.
      • soulslave, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Im sure you are not alone... but then again as long as you are willing to reboot into Windows they don't need to come out with a Linux version do they?
      • Chandon, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5> The time:return ratio on putting games on Linux just isn't worth it
        That's what we call "talking out of your ass". The world would be a better place if people did less of it.

        The fact that Valve doesn't port to Linux would tend to imply that the costs outweigh the benefits. The fact that the only other two companies who make major 3D engines to license (id and Epic) *do* port to Linux would imply the opposite. That adds up to a grand total of... we don't know.
        • robojerk, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1id and Epic are in the business of creating graphic engines for games. Some consoles (like the wii) run on linux, it makes sense for them to offer a port to attract buyers.
          • Chandon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Close. The Wii and the PS3 don't run their games on Linux, but they do use OpenGL as their graphics engine. That means that a Linux port is pretty easy if you're already doing a Wii / PS3 port (and vice-versa).
        • 9a3eedi, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6The Wii doesnt run on linux. In fact, there's a homebrew project called WiiLi trying to bring Linux to Wii. Besides, if it ran on linux, it wouldn't be so non-multitasking lol
        • robojerk, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4bah, you're right.. I remember reading it used linux, I guess it was just some asshat posting hoaxes.
        • rarson, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Or maybe just some asshat posting out his ass... asshat.
      • MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I'm paying for the windows versions so I can run them on WINE.
        So yes, I would buy a native linux version. The problem is, I would also buy a windows version if the demo runs fine with wine. I don't go the cedega way though.
      • Xilon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Let's put it this way... I have bought only the Half Life box set... nothing else. I have played other games, but I haven't bought them. On Linux I would buy every game I played.

        Definitely would people buy games on Linux, especially since there's an increasing number of people switching, but most have to dual boot for gaming.

        Of course your point is still valid, Linux doesn't have a high enough market share on the desktop for it to be worth while for a business to do that. On the other hand if they started with OpenGL, etc, instead of with DX then they would have a much easier time porting it to Linux and Mac and pretty much any other OS in existance that runs those OSS graphics/audio libraries.
    • etnu, on 10/10/2007, -9/+2The problem is that OpenGL on windows sucks, and writing graphics layers abstracted enough away from the API while still retaining all the device's features is difficult -- hence making games that utilize OGL on Mac / Linux and D3D on Windows very difficult.

      Of course, this is becoming less and less of an issue as consoles growth increases. It's pretty rare for a game to be Windows-exclusive these days. The Windows + 360 only games are usually because they're relying on D3D, but games with a larger audience are typically built with abstract graphics interfaces to allow for alternative renderers.

      Of course, games that already use OGL should be readily portable to any *nix environment. If it runs on OSX, there's very little reason why it can't run on Linux. If need be, make the disclaimer that the Linux version has limited support (especially due to the myriad hardware problems that might exist).
      • SirNuke, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Why does OpenGL suck on Windows? I haven't had any problems with SDL+OpenGL on Windows (well, one big quirk is opengl needs to be reinitialized when you change screen resolution or window size on Windows).
        • Greywhind, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Well, although I have no specific link to evidence, I have previously read (and, given what we know of Microsoft, it makes sense) that they're simply not trying very hard, because they'd much rather have games built using DirectX, since it helps them retain their monopoly, whereas cross-platform OpenGL does not.
        • LordofShadows, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1opengl doesnt suck on windows and I dont know what quirk you speak of. The difference between a fullscreen game and a normal window is the positioning and lack of the window's borders, nothing more nothing less.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14Valve CEO Gabe Newell is an ex-Microsoft employee and hates Linux.
      • jonnyeh, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7They leaked the HL2 source because of their MS dependancey (it was a hole in Outlook that let in the hacker)
      • sirhomer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Value is also headquartered very close to Microsoft's campus. No doubt Value and Microsoft talk a lot.
  • 4Ajax, on 10/10/2007, -0/+25Just proving himself as the GOD of Video Games .... always has been, always will be! Thanks for the gifts John.
  • Hercules, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16Further proof that Carmack rocks every developer in the world.

    Giving people the foundation of a GREAT gaming engine (D3 engine) for free to enable the content to be created and not working on an underlying engine.... that's freaking amazing.
  • SlackerCS, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2Thanks for the article. Anything else interesting happen as Quakeworld?
  • wofldibofl, on 10/10/2007, -8/+0aweasome, zomg zomg zomg !
  • digismack, on 10/10/2007, -0/+17It's QuakeCon, not Quakeworld.
  • XtremeBain, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Umm.. don't you mean QuakeCon?
  • ownage, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2Inaccurate for using an S instead of T in the word At.
    • wigginz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1good thing you caught that, would hate for people to be completely misled as to the content of the story by an "as"
    • SlackerCS, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Actually, the title is accurate. John Carmack was dressed up as his alter ego, a superhero crimefighting ninja lizard named "Quakeworld." Why he gave the speech as Quakeworld is not known at this time.
  • Detrimentalsys, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Quakecon not Quakeworld.

    Also, he did not commit to anything. If you listened to what he said in the nice little 3 hours speech he made, there was alot of "if it were up to me..."," I would like to see...", "I cant promise anything but.." and "...will probably be open source".He made it clear to the audience that the future open sourcing of ID games is never and will never be set in stone, But john said that when they make a new tech engine that they are very careful with what they incorporate, so that when the time comes the games will be easy for them to open. Carmack is the primary driving force @ ID to Open there games and hopefully when he leaves it will remain the same way.
  • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -8/+1But I'll still need to own a copy of the game to do anything with it, all the data is not open sourced. In the past projects to redo all the data under a free/open license have not faired well. Either they are incomplete or the quality is extremely low.

    Is there value in having wolf3d/doom/quake1/quake2/quake3/doom3 source code? I haven't come up with anything useful to use it for any of my own projects.
  • 9a3eedi, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1modified monster models, anyone?
    • OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You don't need the source code for that.
  • OneAndOnlySnob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5So what? I mean, great, but ID open sourcing all their engines for many years. Once they have a new engine to outdate the old, they release the source... I love them for this, but it's not really news. They've been committed to open source for a long time.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Hey uh...

    http://digg.com/tech_news/OpenGL_3_0_Next_Month
  • josegutz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2I was there... He is a genious. Yep he did say all this.
    He also ripped PS3 a new one....
  • illt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4you know you're a genius when your hobby is rocket science.
  • binaryspiral, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3What's this? No Direct X 10.1 lock in? Damn, I was hoping to have another reason to hate Vista shoved down my throat one more time.

    Yes, chalk me up as a lost sale for anything that "requires Vista" to play the damn game. I had cash in hand to buy Shadowrun, but I guess I wasn't that important. I'll save my money for Carmack's games.
  • MackPrime, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1so doom 3 engine gpl'd soon ?
    • GhostFreeman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Not soon, but eventually. Carmack GPLing it right now would ruin whatever value it has.
      • Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1True. Although they did release the Quake 3 engine when games based on it were still selling.

        Call of Duty 2 actually still uses the Quake 3 engine, albeit with a new renderer.

        So, it won't be soon, but Id will release the engine while it's still relevant. Quake 3's sourcecode was released in 2005, and is still relevant and useful today. It doesn't take much work to significantly improve the visual quality of the engine by taking some of the easy cheats. For example, I can't honestly recall exactly what resolution of textures Quake 3 supported, but 512x512 was the common format in the game, so say that was it. Adding support for 1024x1024 textures alone can significantly improve visual quality when provided with appropriate media. Hacking in support for normal mapping can also have a significant boost in perceived quality.

        Heck, many Quake 2 mods (and even some Quake 1 mods) have support for these two things already.
  • harrisbradley, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Whatever, Cliffy B pwnz.
  • Xilon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1*****
  • KeenaErvin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0The order of the world is always right -- such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin.
  • GaleaXander, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.