Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 15:32:56 +0100 (MET)
Message-Id: <199603181432.PAA22685@chapelle.eed.ericsson.se>
To: quake-editing@nvg.unit.no
Subject: Legal stuff (was Re: WAD conversion sketch)
From: Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se
On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Bernd Kreimeier <Bernd.Kreimeier@NeRo.Uni-Bonn.DE> wrote:
> I try to separate the legal issues thread from the more
> technical aspects. [...]
I changed the subject, so that it is more obvious...
> > tools should not work with shareware release
>
> In this case we could as well abandon any discussion
> of distribution file formats, and DMADDS/DeuSF-style
> or pack/unpack tools source distribution.
As long as the full-featured editors do not allow you to edit the
shareware game, it should be OK. The current tools are far from being
"full-featured". I don't think that small tools would really harm id
Software, if they work with the shareware game. Besides, it would be
too much trouble for some of these small tools to check if the user
has the registered game.
Here is what I am planning to do for QEU: I will probably split the
code in three parts. There will be the GUI library (SWAPI), the
routines for handling Quake files as well as the files for other games
such as Doom (I will probably call this part "GEL", for "Game Editing
Library") and the programs themselves: the editor and the tools that
are currently in QEU 0.3.
The first two parts (SWAPI and GEL) will work with the shareware
version of the game. The GUI library is independent of the game and I
am planning to use it for other programs, so it is normal that it
doesn't check for a registered version of anything. The Game Editing
Library (or whatever it is called - suggestions are welcome) will also
work with the shareware game(s) because it contains mostly low-level
functions for loading and saving file related to various games. These
routines don't know much about the high-level structures or the
contents of the PACK file and they should be independant of the
version of the game being loaded or saved.
The editor will check for the registered version, because this is the
only part of the code which will know the meaning of the various parts
of the PACK file (or BSP files). Thus it will be able to check if the
PACK file contains some entries that are only available in the
registered game.
By the way, I intend to release the first two parts (SWAPI and GEL)
under a non-restrictive license so that anyone can copy, modify or
distribute this code. The editor and tools will also be free and the
source code will be available, but I will restrict commercial
distribution and encourage people to contribute to the main code
instead of distributing modified versions.
> It has always
> been possible to create a replacement IWAD because id
> decided to distribute the same EXE as shareware,
> registered, and commercial. The qtest1 seems to indicate
> that this will not change, which is a bad thing.
I'm not sure if it is a bad thing. Maintaining two different EXE's
would mean more work for id Software (creating the two versions,
supporting them, etc.). They cannot simply create a shareware EXE
which differs only by a few bytes (i.e. a hard-coded flag), because
some cracker would certainly post a patch to enable all the disabled
features. Also, it is easier to pirate and distribute a single EXE
file than to copy the whole CD-ROM, so a different EXE wouldn't
protect id Software for a long time.
If all editors are fair (towards id Software) and refuse to work with
the shareware version, I think this will be enough. Some of them will
be distributed as source code (such as QEU for Quake or DEU for Doom),
so it would theoretically be possible for someone to patch them so
that they work with the shareware game. However, someone who takes
the time to go through the whole source code and track the various
tests that have been scattered in the code by the author of the
program would probably find it easier to get a pirate copy of the
game, so I don't think this is a real problem. Of course, I assume
that the authors of the editors include more than one test which
checks if the user has a registered version of the game.
-Raphael