6 ms·

Orbit: EA's first open source project

86 points by frostmatthew 12y ago

brkn 12y ago
The building in the graphic looks like the International Congress Centrum in Berlin. Here a pic for comparison: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationales_Congress_Centrum_Berlin#/media/File:ICC_%26_Funkturm.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationales_Congress_Centr...
- tormeh 12y ago
  It's a really cool building. Not pretty, mind you, but as a curiosity it's super cool.
na85 12y ago
I just surprised myself with how low my opinion of EA is. My first instinct was that EA would never be so benevolent as to do anything open-source or give anything back to the community and therefore this had to be an April Fool's joke. I see some commits on the github are from 5 days ago, though, so now I'm not so sure.
- JoeHegarty 12y ago
  I can assure you it isn't an April Fools joke :)
- shultays 12y ago
  Same here, hopefully they won't bill me because I look at their github page
  - bhayden 12y ago
    Fork this repo for only 2000 EA-Bux!
    - seanp2k2 12y ago
      You can mess with it on GitHub, but the actual code is DRM'd so that you can only open it in U-Code, and there is no offline single-player; you have to have an Internet connection to run it under the debugger.
- yarper 12y ago
  Agreed. Presumably there's a shortcut pack to become a contributor. For a small fee.
  - DaFranker 12y ago
    SALE!: Buy 650 Pull Request Points for the low cost of $39.99!
- tulsidas 12y ago
  I've been looking at it for a couple minutes now, and I'm still not sure if it's an April Fools joke
nshunter 12y ago
So this isn't exactly true. EA has many open source projects that are not well publicized. http://gpl.ea.com/ http://gpl.ea.com/ Additionally, EA purchased ESN which also has open source contributions that are maintained after the purchase. It might be fair to say that Orbit is the LATEST EA open source project, but not the first.
- JoeHegarty 12y ago
  Yeh. This is BioWare's first open source project but it is not EA's.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dezgeg 12y ago
  Those aren't projects developed by EA. They are just source releases of the LGPL components used in EA games.
  - dxq 12y ago
    These are just the GPL releases, but they contain bits of code from EA if you start digging. IIRC the EAWebKit release contains a big chunk of EASTL. EASTL is EA's implementation of the C++ STL that was for a long time considered so great as to be a competitive advantage.
    - valarauca1 12y ago
      If anyone is interested in the EASTL here's the source code https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL Apparently works out of the box with G++/GCC, some modifications were made to get it working Clang/LLVM
- DonHopkins 12y ago
  We talked EA into releasing the source code of SimCity Classic under GPL v3 several years ago: https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
BSousa 12y ago
The first EA open source project I remember was their own implementation of STL [1] many years ago to deal with STL slow parts. [1] https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL seems to be a clone of it and has commits from 4 years ago
- MAGZine 12y ago
  That's not an official repo, it's what someone pulled out of the GPL code that EA has posted. the EASTL is much larger and some parts have been changed. Perhaps someday the EASTL will see the light of day in a full, supported form :-)
- exDM69 12y ago
  To be strict EASTL is not an "implementation of" the STL, it's a "replacement for". It has similar functionality (containers, algorithms) but the API is not compatible. In particular, EASTL has different memory management that is more suitable for games and especially consoles.
  - mattnewport 12y ago
    I used to maintain EASTL. I think it's more accurate to describe it as an implementation of the STL than a replacement. As far as possible it is API compatible with the STL, the API differences are primarily in the allocator model and it is possible to write EASTL code that compiles against another STL implementation with fairly minimal changes, almost none if you're not using custom allocators. There are a few extensions / extra containers but we went to great lengths to keep as much of the API identical as possible.
doomspork 12y ago
Interested to see how this stands up against alternatives like Akka.
- alexatkeplar 12y ago
  The interesting innovation (at least on the JVM) seems to be the use of _virtual_ actors. At first glance this looks similar to Microsoft's Orleans project: http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/210931/Orleans-MSR-TR-2014-41.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/210931/Orleans-MSR-TR-201...
  - el_tone 12y ago
    I was about to suggest that they seem to have leaned more toward Orleans than Akka. Orleans on Github: https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans
    - muraiki 12y ago
      Orbit Actors is a framework to write distributed systems using virtual actors. It was developed by BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, and is heavily inspired by the Orleans project. http://orbit.bioware.com/orbit-actor-overview.html http://orbit.bioware.com/orbit-actor-overview.html
venomsnake 12y ago
> Orbit is a modern Java framework that makes it easier to build and maintain distributed, secure, and scalable online services. It is inspired by a variety of existing frameworks and brings some exciting new things to the table. Except both bioware and EA have dismal track record of massive online services. Origin barely works, SWTOR was barely loaded, Sim City - you know the story, Battlefield launches are terrible and so on.
- MAGZine 12y ago
  citation needed. Origin works pretty well (i've seen this echo'd in various internet outlets... reddit, gaming communities, etc), Sim City was launched by maxis a studio that has little (apparent) online knowledge, battlefield launches suffer from buggy gameplay, but their servers are generally solid. Also, most of the BF stuff you interact with is Frostbite, not online (apart from battelog and online connectivity) Now, how about FIFA and Madden which have userbases that absolutely dwarf those games? All of the news feeds, user statistics, video/image sharing, etc? It works well and consistently. the people who do online at EA studios proper are very knowledgable. I can't speak for Bioware, but you must realize that studios inside EA have a fair degree of autonomy wrt technical decisions. this is a huge step for EA. I applaud them and am rooting for the active movers inside EA to keep pushing for more OSS.
  - serf 12y ago
    > citation needed Okay. http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-for-19-minutes http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-fo... http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/03/09/ea-simcity-free-game/1974865/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/03/09/ea-simc... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/simcity-launch-dumb-electronic-arts-apology_n_2853690.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/simcity-launch-dumb... http://techland.time.com/2013/03/12/were-ready-for-always-online-simcity-wasnt/ http://techland.time.com/2013/03/12/were-ready-for-always-on... http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4079894/ea-suspends-simcity-marketing-campaigns-asks-affiliates-to-stop http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4079894/ea-suspends-simcity-... http://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-refund-ea-origin/ http://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-refund-ea-origin/ In fact, look up 'Battlefield', 'Origin EA' or 'Sim City' on Google News between 2010 and 2014. Not too many happy people. I only included Sim City stuff because it was mentioned by your comments' parent.
JackuB 12y ago
My initial response was "will it have DLC?", but after reading this part again > This initiative is the result of a lot of effort from people across BioWare and EA I can imagine "lot of effort" it took. I feel excited about this direction and I hope that there are more projects coming.
- lsadam0 12y ago
  My initial response: "Oh right, I forgot it's April Fool's day"
remon 12y ago
This seems to be similar in scope and architecture as Microsoft's Orleans. Interesting. EDIT : After more careful review noticed this : "It was developed by BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, and is heavily inspired by the Orleans project."
yareally 12y ago
Microsoft released something similar they used for halo 4 called Project Orleans[1]. I stumbled on it when I was looking for a C# Akka port, but it ends up being much more than just what Akka provides with actors. [1] https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans

86 points by frostmatthew 12y ago

brkn 12y ago

The building in the graphic looks like the International Congress Centrum in Berlin. Here a pic for comparison: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationales_Congress_Centrum_Berlin#/media/File:ICC_%26_Funkturm.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationales_Congress_Centr...

tormeh 12y ago
It's a really cool building. Not pretty, mind you, but as a curiosity it's super cool.

na85 12y ago

I just surprised myself with how low my opinion of EA is. My first instinct was that EA would never be so benevolent as to do anything open-source or give anything back to the community and therefore this had to be an April Fool's joke. I see some commits on the github are from 5 days ago, though, so now I'm not so sure.

JoeHegarty 12y ago
I can assure you it isn't an April Fools joke :)
shultays 12y ago
Same here, hopefully they won't bill me because I look at their github page
- bhayden 12y ago
  Fork this repo for only 2000 EA-Bux!
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    You can mess with it on GitHub, but the actual code is DRM'd so that you can only open it in U-Code, and there is no offline single-player; you have to have an Internet connection to run it under the debugger.
yarper 12y ago
Agreed. Presumably there's a shortcut pack to become a contributor. For a small fee.
- DaFranker 12y ago
  SALE!: Buy 650 Pull Request Points for the low cost of $39.99!
tulsidas 12y ago
I've been looking at it for a couple minutes now, and I'm still not sure if it's an April Fools joke

nshunter 12y ago

So this isn't exactly true. EA has many open source projects that are not well publicized. http://gpl.ea.com/ http://gpl.ea.com/ Additionally, EA purchased ESN which also has open source contributions that are maintained after the purchase. It might be fair to say that Orbit is the LATEST EA open source project, but not the first.

JoeHegarty 12y ago
Yeh. This is BioWare's first open source project but it is not EA's.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dezgeg 12y ago
Those aren't projects developed by EA. They are just source releases of the LGPL components used in EA games.
- dxq 12y ago
  These are just the GPL releases, but they contain bits of code from EA if you start digging. IIRC the EAWebKit release contains a big chunk of EASTL. EASTL is EA's implementation of the C++ STL that was for a long time considered so great as to be a competitive advantage.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    If anyone is interested in the EASTL here's the source code https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL Apparently works out of the box with G++/GCC, some modifications were made to get it working Clang/LLVM
DonHopkins 12y ago
We talked EA into releasing the source code of SimCity Classic under GPL v3 several years ago: https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

BSousa 12y ago

The first EA open source project I remember was their own implementation of STL [1] many years ago to deal with STL slow parts. [1] https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL seems to be a clone of it and has commits from 4 years ago

MAGZine 12y ago
That's not an official repo, it's what someone pulled out of the GPL code that EA has posted. the EASTL is much larger and some parts have been changed. Perhaps someday the EASTL will see the light of day in a full, supported form :-)
exDM69 12y ago
To be strict EASTL is not an "implementation of" the STL, it's a "replacement for". It has similar functionality (containers, algorithms) but the API is not compatible. In particular, EASTL has different memory management that is more suitable for games and especially consoles.
- mattnewport 12y ago
  I used to maintain EASTL. I think it's more accurate to describe it as an implementation of the STL than a replacement. As far as possible it is API compatible with the STL, the API differences are primarily in the allocator model and it is possible to write EASTL code that compiles against another STL implementation with fairly minimal changes, almost none if you're not using custom allocators. There are a few extensions / extra containers but we went to great lengths to keep as much of the API identical as possible.

doomspork 12y ago

Interested to see how this stands up against alternatives like Akka.

alexatkeplar 12y ago
The interesting innovation (at least on the JVM) seems to be the use of _virtual_ actors. At first glance this looks similar to Microsoft's Orleans project: http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/210931/Orleans-MSR-TR-2014-41.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/210931/Orleans-MSR-TR-201...
- el_tone 12y ago
  I was about to suggest that they seem to have leaned more toward Orleans than Akka. Orleans on Github: https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans
  - muraiki 12y ago
    Orbit Actors is a framework to write distributed systems using virtual actors. It was developed by BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, and is heavily inspired by the Orleans project. http://orbit.bioware.com/orbit-actor-overview.html http://orbit.bioware.com/orbit-actor-overview.html

venomsnake 12y ago

> Orbit is a modern Java framework that makes it easier to build and maintain distributed, secure, and scalable online services. It is inspired by a variety of existing frameworks and brings some exciting new things to the table. Except both bioware and EA have dismal track record of massive online services. Origin barely works, SWTOR was barely loaded, Sim City - you know the story, Battlefield launches are terrible and so on.

MAGZine 12y ago
citation needed. Origin works pretty well (i've seen this echo'd in various internet outlets... reddit, gaming communities, etc), Sim City was launched by maxis a studio that has little (apparent) online knowledge, battlefield launches suffer from buggy gameplay, but their servers are generally solid. Also, most of the BF stuff you interact with is Frostbite, not online (apart from battelog and online connectivity) Now, how about FIFA and Madden which have userbases that absolutely dwarf those games? All of the news feeds, user statistics, video/image sharing, etc? It works well and consistently. the people who do online at EA studios proper are very knowledgable. I can't speak for Bioware, but you must realize that studios inside EA have a fair degree of autonomy wrt technical decisions. this is a huge step for EA. I applaud them and am rooting for the active movers inside EA to keep pushing for more OSS.
- serf 12y ago
  > citation needed Okay. http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-for-19-minutes http://kotaku.com/5990165/my-simcity-city-thrived-offline-fo... http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/03/09/ea-simcity-free-game/1974865/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/03/09/ea-simc... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/simcity-launch-dumb-electronic-arts-apology_n_2853690.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/simcity-launch-dumb... http://techland.time.com/2013/03/12/were-ready-for-always-online-simcity-wasnt/ http://techland.time.com/2013/03/12/were-ready-for-always-on... http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4079894/ea-suspends-simcity-marketing-campaigns-asks-affiliates-to-stop http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4079894/ea-suspends-simcity-... http://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-refund-ea-origin/ http://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-refund-ea-origin/ In fact, look up 'Battlefield', 'Origin EA' or 'Sim City' on Google News between 2010 and 2014. Not too many happy people. I only included Sim City stuff because it was mentioned by your comments' parent.

JackuB 12y ago

My initial response was "will it have DLC?", but after reading this part again > This initiative is the result of a lot of effort from people across BioWare and EA I can imagine "lot of effort" it took. I feel excited about this direction and I hope that there are more projects coming.

lsadam0 12y ago
My initial response: "Oh right, I forgot it's April Fool's day"

remon 12y ago

This seems to be similar in scope and architecture as Microsoft's Orleans. Interesting. EDIT : After more careful review noticed this : "It was developed by BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, and is heavily inspired by the Orleans project."

yareally 12y ago

Microsoft released something similar they used for halo 4 called Project Orleans[1]. I stumbled on it when I was looking for a C# Akka port, but it ends up being much more than just what Akka provides with actors. [1] https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans https://github.com/dotnet/Orleans