3 ms·

While I agree with you in principle, its often not as easy as just releasing the code. Modern games are built upon many different third party libraries handling

While I agree with you in principle, its often not as easy as just releasing the code. Modern games are built upon many different third party libraries handling anything from the user interface through to physics, and I can see it not being worth the legal wrangling to get licenses for those that allow republishing. Doom/Quake are a bit of an exception because iD have always implemented basically everything themselves, dramatically limiting how many third parties they'd have to negotiate licenses with.

zerocrates 5y ago
And that exception doesn't really apply anymore: I'm pretty sure the new Dooms have commercial middleware like anything else, and they're no longer open-sourcing them. They haven't even commercially licensed out the engine to anybody in forever.
- dharmab 5y ago
  To release Doom 3 as OSS, Carmack had to rewrite patent encumbered parts of the code. https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/136614459887202305 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/136614459887202305
dharmab 5y ago
Replace "id" with "Carmack". This is discussed in Masters of Doom; Carmack's programming was so far ahead of their competition and he was willing to live at the office nearly 24/7.