They've already shipped Quake4, DOOM 3, RAGE, Wolfenstein New Order, they're all on newer engines and have different sound engines within them.

They're not messing with 3d sound like RAYA or anything similar with those, which is a shame, but then so is that fact that Creative Labs fucked that up for the universe when they took aureal3d's awesome 3d sound engines and then did ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL with them :(

Also, ioquake3 has tons of things like openGL 2, better sound etc.

QL doesn't have this because they can't take open source code and ship it in a commercial product like that, and they don't have the development team (on QL specifically) that could write anything similar for themselves.

they can't take open source code and ship it in a commercial product like that

Yes you can, that's a common misconception that you can't sell software that's open source.

They can't because their company will not let them, and because they have no intention of releasing their source code any time soon (maybe not ever) so they can't ship using code that comes under a licence such as the GLP.
If its an external library they can use, then they might.

ioQuake3 is GPLv2+

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-...AllowMoney

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl...stedPublic

It's not about the money, but the code release. The license they would need is something like MIT / BTL.

I don't know what you and FlashSoul are getting to..

"They can't take OSS and ship it in a commercial product"
-> Sure you can, proven by my link


Can I make changes and not release the code? Yes, "if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available". Proven by FlashSoul's link.


I always wondered what the deal was with the legality of Quake Live in terms of the source code of the renderer and gamecode. The assets have copyrights, I'm talking purely code.

You may have answered the broad statement

they can't take open source code and ship it in a commercial product like that

but not the specific case of QL including modified GPL code and distributing the binaries. Then they would need to release all of QL (well, the code, not the assets) as GPL... including the parts that aren't compatible with GPL and for which id are not the copyright holders.

I always wondered what the deal was with the legality of Quake Live in terms of the source code of the renderer and gamecode. The assets have copyrights, I'm talking purely code.

QL is based upon the (closed source + copyright id) Team Arena source code.

The GPL Quake 3 codebase was a fork of the same original TA codebase, but distributed under a different licence and with changes to every sourcefile to state this licence (and more - eg, removing PB). The fact that they released this doesn't mean they lose the right to create new releases based upon the original version with their original licence - the QL code retains the original licence of Q3 - ie, copyright id, no GPL restrictions etc.

However, they cannot re-use any GPL code that has been derived from the GPL release (eg ioq3's OpenAL support) into their closed source Quake Live codebase without forcing themselves to re-licence QL as GPL. This is presumably not an option, especially given Zenimax's reluctance to release D3:BFG, and the loss of JC as an advocate for GPL'ing code.

Yes, but source release as it states.
Which is why I said everything that's in #5

But anyway see #12 for more details.

/me [+]s AnthonyJ

better sound would be too easy to spot enemy