4 ms·

Its nice that they made it public domain. There are 1000 more games from that era whose code will simply dissapear despite being simply bits and bytes that may

Its nice that they made it public domain. There are 1000 more games from that era whose code will simply dissapear despite being simply bits and bytes that may be perfectly preserved for ever.

ekianjo 12y ago
Only the engine is open, though, not the data files. EDIT: And it's not "public domain" either. Look at the license.doc in the github repository, there are tons of restrictions as to what you can do with the code. https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d
- orionblastar 12y ago
  It is like when Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS 2.0 and MS-Word 1.1C not open sourced but some kind of commercial license that limits use and derivatives. It kind of reminds me of that old Borland Museum that had the old Turbo languages for free download. http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum Sadly they stopped releasing old versions in 2005. I had hoped there to be a Delphi 1.0 release. I actually got Delphi 1.0 on a magazine CD-ROM from some UK magazine I bought, and then forgot where I placed it. I used to program in Delphi 1.0 and 2.0 I still got my 2.0 book and how to make code Y2K compatible in it. I got old Visual BASIC versions as well. It seems this is the Wolf3D source code without the data files so you have to use the shareware version of Wolf3D or Spear or buy the commercial versions. It is written for 16 bit code for DOS, so converting it to 32 bits won't work. They had to use a lot of tricks for 386 and under machines just to get it to work in 3D mode. 486+ machines run it better but at a certain level it does not scale very well. Basically it was a f*-it by ID, just release the code for the LULZ, throw on a commercial license to limit use, and then see what happens to it.
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    I was under the impression that all the 3d id engines (except Rage) have been released in some form under GPL compatible licenses.
  - jordigh 12y ago
    This is so different from the gpl of before. Did id only do the gpl before because of John Carmack?
    - burnte 12y ago
      This was their first source release, before the GPL was widely known, so that's why they used this specific license.
chrissnell 12y ago
Is that Borland C++ compiler also in the public domain? It was cool that he provides it but it made me wonder if it was ever released like that.
- justin66 12y ago
  No. The closest any of the old Borland stuff got to public domain was their "museum," which includes free downloads of some of the old packages. http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum
superfunc 12y ago
It would be neat if someone took the effort to curate all of these old projects in some way.

Its nice that they made it public domain. There are 1000 more games from that era whose code will simply dissapear despite being simply bits and bytes that may be perfectly preserved for ever.

ekianjo 12y ago

Only the engine is open, though, not the data files. EDIT: And it's not "public domain" either. Look at the license.doc in the github repository, there are tons of restrictions as to what you can do with the code. https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d https://github.com/id-Software/wolf3d

orionblastar 12y ago
It is like when Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS 2.0 and MS-Word 1.1C not open sourced but some kind of commercial license that limits use and derivatives. It kind of reminds me of that old Borland Museum that had the old Turbo languages for free download. http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum Sadly they stopped releasing old versions in 2005. I had hoped there to be a Delphi 1.0 release. I actually got Delphi 1.0 on a magazine CD-ROM from some UK magazine I bought, and then forgot where I placed it. I used to program in Delphi 1.0 and 2.0 I still got my 2.0 book and how to make code Y2K compatible in it. I got old Visual BASIC versions as well. It seems this is the Wolf3D source code without the data files so you have to use the shareware version of Wolf3D or Spear or buy the commercial versions. It is written for 16 bit code for DOS, so converting it to 32 bits won't work. They had to use a lot of tricks for 386 and under machines just to get it to work in 3D mode. 486+ machines run it better but at a certain level it does not scale very well. Basically it was a f*-it by ID, just release the code for the LULZ, throw on a commercial license to limit use, and then see what happens to it.
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  I was under the impression that all the 3d id engines (except Rage) have been released in some form under GPL compatible licenses.
- jordigh 12y ago
  This is so different from the gpl of before. Did id only do the gpl before because of John Carmack?
  - burnte 12y ago
    This was their first source release, before the GPL was widely known, so that's why they used this specific license.

chrissnell 12y ago

Is that Borland C++ compiler also in the public domain? It was cool that he provides it but it made me wonder if it was ever released like that.

justin66 12y ago
No. The closest any of the old Borland stuff got to public domain was their "museum," which includes free downloads of some of the old packages. http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum http://edn.embarcadero.com/museum

superfunc 12y ago

It would be neat if someone took the effort to curate all of these old projects in some way.