Re: Quake 2 sources GPL'd

[Adam Olsen <rhamph@d2dc.net>]

On Sun, Dec 23, 2001 at 12:01:47PM -0500, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 23, 2001 at 03:44:16AM -0500, Zephaniah E. Hull wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 22, 2001 at 11:50:00PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > If there *are* playable levels available for quake2 (which need
> > > nothing in the way of non-free game data) then of course it belongs
> > > (along with those levels) in main.
> > 
> > Uhm, guys.
> > 
> > You need much more then just free maps, you also need replacement fonts
> > and other graphics. (Stuff used for the console, the menu, the in game
> > HUD, and a few other things.)
> > 
> > Replacements for those are unlikely to exist now, and will take a while
> > to generate.
> 
> As I said. The engine is meant to develop games for. Just because no one
> has developed games for a development system (the engine), doesn't make
> it contrib.
> 
> You people need to think of it as an interpreter of the data files. Do
> not judge the engine based on the data files that are available for it
> (else we'll have to start judging script interpreters and libraries the
> same way).

There is a distinction between data and a program.  If the engine was
just a gamecode interpreter then, yes, you could make the gamecode
depend on the engine.  But it's not, and the vast majority (or all, if
the gamecode is serverside and the quake2 package doesn't include a
server) is binary data.  We have many packages already (such as
amphetamine and it's -data) where the main package depends on the data
(and vice versa), which sets a precedent.  The way to package quake2
would be having quake2-client and quake2-server which depend on
quake2-data, which is provided by quake2-data-nonfree.

Now, if you DID have something that was just the gamecode, and you had
a freestanding interpreter (such as the one in quakeforge), then you
could have the interpreter with no depends[0], and make your gamecode
depend on the interpreter.



[0] technically with quakeforge's interpreter, it'd depend on the
    quakeforge libs, but that doesn't really matter.

-- 
Adam Olsen, aka Rhamphoryncus