The Chaos in the Nexuiz Community

[mh]

This was said in a private channel, but in front of others so I am assuming LordHavoc won't mind me posting it:

<LordHavoc> my agreement is not a work for hire, anything I write goes in DP for general use
<LordHavoc> (unless an NDA blocks it - such as the PS3 support itself - or I just choose not to - such as crude hacks)

I am not going to comment on the nature of the name, or the qc, or the maps, but I will comment on that quote above - this means that LordHavoc is getting compensated by a financed third party to improve DarkPlaces which will find its way back to all users of DarkPlaces per LordHavoc's approval. Obviously he isn't going to commit the console code for legal reasons, as he said, nor is he going to commit hacky code (as anything specific to a project has a chance of being a hack). What this does mean is that for everything that Illfonic wants to add to their console port of Nexuiz in terms of functionality, graphical fidelity, and many other sorts of nice things, so long as the implementation meets up to LordHavoc's personal standard for the released code, and it does not violate a term of service with a platform, everyone who uses DP will benefit from it.

Let me iterate it once more; DarkPlaces is now being paid to advance, and the advances are not proprietary or closed. This strikes me as a win-win situation.

Yes, this.

Pretty much the same has been confirmed in news and forum posts around the Nexuiz site.

[goldenboy]

Good to know.

[Spirit]

http://www.alientrap.org/forum/viewtopi ... f=7#p76717

That is Elric. I don't get how there can be a closed source DP if not all contributors (and possible external GPL sources) are ok with that.

[Baker]

This was said in a private channel, but in front of others so I am assuming LordHavoc won't mind me posting it:

<LordHavoc> my agreement is not a work for hire, anything I write goes in DP for general use
<LordHavoc> (unless an NDA blocks it - such as the PS3 support itself - or I just choose not to - such as crude hacks)

This is good ... I am glad to see that LordHavoc has protected himself ... very wise.

The last few days every once in a while I've been thinking about oddball worst case scenario issues and I was a little concerned that maybe LordHavoc could accidentally be stripped of ownership of DarkPlaces.

That kind of thing has happened before, Gary Gygax [died not so long ago] got stripped of ownership of Dungeon and Dragons. Not really an equivalent example, but someone getting stripped of their work can be very painful.

[r00k]

Either you know what this is about or not.

Don't ask what it is about if you don't know, but feel free to read up so you know:

http://alientrap.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6043

I really think what is going on is evil and a betrayal to the whole idea of FOSS.

Except that I believe that LordHavoc, who is has given so much to multiple communities in both code and education, deserves the best regardless of the circumstances.

I have to say I hope Console Non-GPL Nexuiz is a failure, but that the project benefits LordHavoc.

I think what is happening to Nexuiz is an abomination, at the same time I want LordHavoc to have all the success, achievement and happiness he can get as he has given so much.

/Ironically, this gives justification to private fears of certain mod authors that their work could be misused. I know R00k fears that the Clan Arena X source code could be warped by evil commercial interests. I also wonder about the community solution to avoid a Nexuiz-like problem with other FOSS projects.

Sorry, I'm a little late on my post (i havent even read through this thread yet, I just wanted to reply to this 1st post.

The thought of converting a Quake mod to a console platform isnt new. PSP projects abound. I myself (er well my wife), we have a Wii, and making a Quake mod for that has been in the back of my head. I would be quite pissed if someone took an open sourced mod that I spent over 3000 hours working on, only to slap it into a gamecube quake engine change the name and sell it online via paypal I would be equally pissed (at myself) for not doing it myself, with my own stuff. But the point is, can you legally take progs.dat 1.06 (pre-2000 GPL) strip it down to the minimalist client-server model that Quake provides, then add custom gameplay to it and then sell it? Wouldnt that still contain id software copyright material? And then are you required to provide the source within your distribution?

I guess the only analogy I can offer about this situation would be this:
A group of teens find an abandoned house, and in their off time they clean it up, and turn it into a community safe place for troubled teens to hang out and stay out of trouble. Then some big ass company rolls into town, and buys the property and kicks everyone out, then tack a for-sale by owner sign on it

(where's my coffee)

BTW (Illfonic sounds like a bad sound, ill phonic).

[mh]

The guys have licensed Quake off ID (although I didn't think you could do that anymore, so they must have made a damn good pitch) so their use of all baseline Q1 stuff in a non-GPL game is perfectly legal.

Edit: it occurs to me that they may have acquired a Q1 license a good time back.

[r00k]

All legal concerns aside, isn't this a dream come true for an independent game developer? Sure the community feels a little jilted, as many like to contribute. Yet, if anything this showcases all the efforts that have been made through the years. Who cares who buys what and how it will pan out. Atleast DarkPlaces LIVES!

[scar3crow]

BTW (Illfonic sounds like a bad sound, ill phonic).

I believe it is the slang "ill" in reference to particularly good and quality, like "badass" or such.

[MeTcHsteekle]

[ig]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a50/cafdfw/ODDBALLSAYSsilkscreen.jpg[/img]

is that The Hermit?

[Baker]

I really made some statements I regret because I got rather upset when reading certain comments in that one forum.

I almost always avoid ad hominems and I am very disappointed that I managed to do that in that in even more than one post. I think ad hominems are not nice.

I think I'm gonna take a break from forums for a bit and come back in 3-4 weeks with a bag of interesting odds and ends.

More working on projects and less talk.

Lordhavoc absolutely, positively deserves all the best and I'm certain that this is going to work out great for all the parties involved even though things could have been handled better. Maybe this can be a breakthrough event for LordHavoc to get his name solid established on the console map and making a brand name of himself like here is regarding in this community.

/Forum vacation to work on projects; hope to come back in April sometime with a few very interesting things.

Sorry for the bad vibes ... the reason I care about open source is that I believe that younger wanna-be amateurs and experimenters are increasingly hitting the threshold where either completing a true amateur game involves resorting to piracy or being an indentured servant to a faceless corporation's rules ... a world which I don't want and that I think there can be a better world.

[mh]

I really made some statements I regret because I got rather upset when reading certain comments in that one forum.

I almost always avoid ad hominems and I am very disappointed that I managed to do that in that in even more than one post. I think ad hominems are not nice.

I think I'm gonna take a break from forums for a bit and come back in 3-4 weeks with a bag of interesting odds and ends.

More working on projects and less talk.

Lordhavoc absolutely, positively deserves all the best and I'm certain that this is going to work out great for all the parties involved even though things could have been handled better. Maybe this can be a breakthrough event for LordHavoc to get his name solid established on the console map and making a brand name of himself like here is regarding in this community.

/Forum vacation to work on projects; hope to come back in April sometime with a few very interesting things.

Sorry for the bad vibes ... the reason I care about open source is that I believe that younger wanna-be amateurs and experimenters are increasingly hitting the threshold where either completing a true amateur game involves resorting to piracy or being an indentured servant to a faceless corporation's rules ... a world which I don't want and that I think there can be a better world.

Nah mate, it's actually quite understandable. I know how you feel about OSS, and a lot of the info we have on this so far is really quite vague. I think you just made a normal and natural human response in the circumstances.

I think the best thing for anyone to do now is just leave this situation be, see what develops, and if it starts going to unpleasant places then's the time to yell about it.

Meanwhile there's awesome stuff going on elsewhere (like with Madfox's models) that you need to be doing what you do best with.

[Downsider]

http://www.qj.net/qjnet/news/game-devs- ... joint.html

Game devs cuffed after cops bust wrong joint.

Guess who the game devs are? I saw this article and couldn't believe it. IllFonic.

[frag.machine]

http://www.qj.net/qjnet/news/game-devs-cuffed-after-cops-bust-wrong-joint.html

Game devs cuffed after cops bust wrong joint.

Guess who the game devs are? I saw this article and couldn't believe it. IllFonic.

Just.Wow.

[r00k]

Publicity stunt??