PlanetPenguin Racer 0.2.2
December 28th, 2004 by CrusaderPlanetPenguin Racer version 0.2.2, a fork of TuxRacer 0.6.1, is now available (screenshots).Changes in this release:
- Initial support for translations and a simple german one
- Revised theme system and support for terrain wheights
- Progress Bar
- Bugfixes
PlanetPenguin Racer 0.2.2 Download: [ planetpenguin.de ]
December 28th, 2004 at 6:37 pm
Could anyone shed some light on why this was forked? I know I heard about it before, but I can’t find any information about it now.
December 28th, 2004 at 8:35 pm
I would guess because it went closed source. There used to be a company called sunspirestudios that dev, and sold the game (RIP). Up to that point it was open source.
December 28th, 2004 at 9:29 pm
This might not be 100% correct…so feel free to offer corrections if you know additional facts.
Tuxracer was initially developed as open source up to version .61~ in 2001.
During it’s rise to the .61~ version Tuxracer became popular. Very very popular. So popular, that it was #1 on the SourceForge most downloaded list for quite a while. It’s still in the top 50, having been downloaded well over 1 million times for the .61~ 2001 release alone.
At that point, and with very few contributions to the code from anyone but the main developer, the main developer had an obvious idea; since it’s my code, everybody wants it but very few are helping me, why not sell it?
So, he created Sunspire Studios and forked the code. The parts that he didn’t create were replaced with new code, and — being the copyright holder — he relicenced he new fork under a propriatory closed source licence. Additional people were hired to handle the art work, sound, and coding to complete the commercial release of the game — bringing it up the the 1.0 and 1.1 levels.
Many people complained about the relcencing saying that the GPL forbids it. In that, they are mistken. The GPL allows distribution, though the copyright remains with the creators.
Since Sunspire…
* Did not retroactively relicence the .61~ and earlier GPLed releases (they could not retract the GPL releaes legally anyway).
* Were the creators of the remaining code. (All works under copyright are automatically owned by the creators of the works (unless contracted otherwise). As with anything you own, you can do with it what you please unless the act performed with the property violates the law.)
* Did relicence what they owned the copyright for.
…they were able to make a closed fork of Tuxracer that they (Sunspire alone) could control. They chose not to licence that fork under the GPL…so none of the closed commercial fork is under the GPL.
At some point, Sunspire licenced the closed fork for use in an arcade game version of Tuxracer.
PPL was developed from the .61~ GPLed release of TuxRacer. Since the GPL allows any and all modifications as long as the fork remains under the GPL, PPL is also legal.
If you haven’t tried the commercial release, go get the demo. It’s quite polished and professional. I bought 2 copies of it way back when…one for myself and another as a gift.
January 2nd, 2005 at 1:42 am
http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/tuxracer/tuxracer-demo-1.1-linux-i386.sh.html