Homeworld Source Code Released
Our friends at RelicNews have let us know that the source code to HomeWorld has been released. The source code, which was NOT released under GPL, contains everything Relic Entertainment has IP rights to. Missing from the code are the Bink SDK sound tools. Please peruse the license to see if the restrictions that have been placed on this code are acceptable for your project. The code can be downloaded from the Relic Developer’s Network.
September 29th, 2003 at 12:24 am
On a cursory glance, the license seems to allow something more akin to modding than much of anything else. Of course I could be mistaken since it’s a glance at the license and it’s kind of late for me…
I’ll look at it a little closer tomorrow and give a better report.
September 29th, 2003 at 8:21 am
Homeworld was one darn good game. If the license allows porting (and re-releasing the ported game, of course), that would be a good start.
September 29th, 2003 at 10:31 am
Here’s a quick rundown of what the licensing agreement covers:
1. You can only distribute your changes to/derivatives of the Homeworld codebase in “object code form”. The distribution can only be made for “non-commercial purposes”, and can only be made to “licensed end users” of the Homeworld software.
2. If you improve the software, the improvements belong to Relic. What constitutes an improvement is determined by the “sole opinion of Relic”. So, if Relic likes the Linux port you made of Homeworld, they can claim it as their own.
3. The license expires five years after the initial download of the source from Relic. You have no right to the source after that time.
That pretty much sums it up. It’s a very mod-friendly license, but it certainly isn’t compatible enough with open source software licenses to allow the source to be modified via a traditional open source project. If you’re curious about the implementation of the game, go sign up, download it, and not modify it. Better yet, have a non-developer friend download it and let you look at it. If you are interested in this type of game, I’d suggest you take a look at the Freespace 2 project over at http://www.icculus.org/freespace2/. Still, porting Homeworld to Linux (or any other platform) might be good practice for the ambitious.
w00t!
September 29th, 2003 at 12:28 pm
I mean .. the company dont have anything to “gain” in doing so but still some companies do that. And I like that.. but anyway! .. a bit strange
September 29th, 2003 at 1:36 pm
It would be nice if people stopped using the “IP” word. Relic has copyright to the code. I very much doubt they’re giving away free Trademarks or Patents here.
And on a secondary note. I hope noone is stupid enough to port the game under that license.
September 29th, 2003 at 3:05 pm
[i]“I hope noone is stupid enough to port the game under that license.”[/i]
Why the hell not? Not free [b]enough[/b]?
It doesn’t look too hard and the license allows modification & redistribution. Nuff said.
September 29th, 2003 at 8:16 pm
I got it from the bargain bin in K-Mart for $1.99 and played it for a couple hours in Windows, did the tutorial, that was about it. Its ok, but I just never really got into it, and having to reboot into alien Windows and leave behind friendly Linux doesn’t do much to make me want to play it. Its one of that games that its not worth booting into Windows just to play it, and last I tried it wouldn’t work with Wine (forget why).
[br]I suppose if somebody made a binary Linux port then I might play it occasionally, but after reading all of your comments about the license, I doubt that anybody would touch it much. Probably the most sensible thing in this case would be to port it to winelib and compile an EXE that works with Wine and leave it at that.
September 29th, 2003 at 8:20 pm
So how is this different from MOHAA? Why aren’t you people bitching about MOHAA not being GPLed?
The bottom line is this: Instead of only Ryan Gordon being able to port the game, many people will be able to work on porting it. This is a good thing. Homeworld may be an older game, but it was rated game of the year by PC Gamer a few years back, and is an excellent game. I’d love to have a native client.
September 30th, 2003 at 8:52 am
I wouldn’t consider myself stupid, however I’ve started work on a port of the HW source. Cause dammit, I really like Homeworld, and I wouldn’t mind being able to play it under Linux.
I’ve never ported Win32 software in any great amount before, however a lot of the source seems to be fairly abstracted and they already have an OpenGL renderer, so that should be helpful.
Currently I’ve compiled all of the AI code for the ships, and I’m getting about 25% of the code for the game logic to compile. Anyways, I’ll probably send an announcement to Linuxgames when I get a status page cobbled together somewhere.
-Colin
September 30th, 2003 at 10:40 am
just port the damn thing for the SAKE for PLAYING it on linux :P, heck the only thing i really care about that game is the YES song it has …. YES RULEZ!!! hehe
October 9th, 2003 at 11:15 am
So ok then cwalsh (Colin) is porting it right? Is this official coz I want to play this under Linux. Any links?
October 9th, 2003 at 11:19 am
“So ok then cwalsh (Colin) is porting it right? Is this official coz I want to play this under Linux. Any links?” wtf why do my posts go to the bottom of the page? Hopefully this won’t.
October 10th, 2003 at 6:44 am
Well, it looks like Ted Cipicchio at thereisnospork.com is further along in his HW porting effort. I’m still working with my codebase, but it looks like he might have a working port sooner. That’s cool though, it just means that I get to play Homeworld under Linux one way or another :D
-Colin
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