Source Availability

[stickyfingers]

I've been following the progress of this mod from the announcements on the web site since it began. It appears to be improving, and will likely evolve into a nice toolkit for creating Thief-like missions/games/etc.

 

For myself, I would like to see a linux port of The Dark Mod, so access to the source is necessary. For others, there are undoubtedly many projects (both public and private) which would benefit from your progress (just as there is no doubt that The Dark Mod has benefitted immeasurably from the open source work of others). Is this an open source project? (If I am missing a 'download' link somewhere on the web site, forgive me (and point me to it!)).

[Renzatic]

I've been following the progress of this mod from the announcements on the web site since it began.  It appears to be improving, and will likely evolve into a nice toolkit for creating Thief-like missions/games/etc.

 

For myself, I would like to see a linux port of The Dark Mod, so access to the source is necessary.  For others, there are undoubtedly many projects (both public and private) which would benefit from your progress (just as there is no doubt that The Dark Mod has benefitted immeasurably from the open source work of others).  Is this an open source project? (If I am missing a 'download' link somewhere on the web site, forgive me (and point me to it!)).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup, it's gonna be open source. But until we're about finished we're gonna keep everything close at hand.

[stickyfingers]

Yup, it's gonna be open source. But until we're about finished we're gonna keep everything close at hand.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The benefits of developing using an open source model don't need to be argued again here, I'll assume you are aware of them. What if other developers or projects decided to adopt this attitude? Where would The Dark Mod be then? This is not a rhetorical question.

 

We all stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to the tools, libraries, textures, etc., which are open for all to use, benefit and learn from. Why would The Dark Mod choose to stand aside?

[New Horizon]

Well, it is open source in the sense that anyone can apply for a position and help us out but we won't make the source public right now. This is simply the way we have decided to proceed with the project. Open source and closed source both have their benefits and drawbacks. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other.

 

We won't release the source until we feel that the project has been finished and we have created a pollished, focussed product.

 

Anyone who is interested in working on the project can email me at recruiting@thedarkmod.com and I would be more than happy to bring them into the application process.

[FishFace]

I'll give you an advantage for open-source: You can get the little people to fix all the little bugs, and in general do the grunt work

 

Out of interest, when you've released will you be opening the source in the hope that people will contribute any modifications back to you? That would be doubleplusgood, IMHO. But that's just me being a bit of a hippy.

[Fingernail]

The problem with open source is mainly the design decisions. We want to have a fairly focused design. I feel that with literally ANYONE able to feel that they can contribute an idea or a feature, the game would quickly become pretty bloated and pointless.

 

Out here there is a forum for feature discussions, but any serious suggestions are taken on by the team and discussed in more depth usually. And most often, trust us, someone on the team has thought of it before.

 

The other potential problem is quality control. Seriously; how many mod projects have you seen that are truly open source development?

[Ishtvan]

Yes, we will release the source when we release.

 

No, we've not adopted the open source model for use during development.

[oDDity]

He means people might want to take any code we come up with and use it or modify it for their own doom projects, not help us - in which case there's no reason not to make code availalbe whether it's finished or not, or when the lghtgem is done, or the rope arrows are done, or the mantling is done, release that code a bit at a time instead of making people wait until the entire game is finished.

You'd assume that anyone wanting unfinshed code would be capable of finishing it themselves, for their own ends.

[SneaksieDave]

Out of interest, when you've released will you be opening the source in the hope that people will contribute any modifications back to you? That would be doubleplusgood, IMHO. But that's just me being a bit of a hippy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think that is being a hippie - that's the way it should work.

 

All one has to do is look at the countless, shockingly impressive open source projects that are out there changing the computing world for the better to see what can happen when a project suddenly has a million contributors.

 

My view is that yes it would be better to go open sooner than later, but there is also something to be said for giving a boat a bit of momentum before letting it go sailing on its own. It shouldn't need much, though...

[stickyfingers]

The problem with open source is mainly the design decisions. We want to have a fairly focused design. I feel that with literally ANYONE able to feel that they can contribute an idea or a feature, the game would quickly become pretty bloated and pointless.

 

Out here there is a forum for feature discussions, but any serious suggestions are taken on by the team and discussed in more depth usually. And most often, trust us, someone on the team has thought of it before.

 

The other potential problem is quality control. Seriously; how many mod projects have you seen that are truly open source development?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No one is asking you to integrate the work of any random passer-by who has a good idea. If you chose to run things in that way, you would likely have more problems that you could deal with. Opening the source has nothing to do with the way you run your project. You may have a group of 4 or 5 committers who have final say on what 'gets in'. You may have only one person doing that. That's up to you: it's your project. Implement QC in any way you deem appropriate.

 

Opening the source is advantageous for completely separate, better reasons. If someone wanted to implement their completely bloated and pointless idea, what advantage is it for you to stop them if it has no bearing on your project in the slightest? The worst that can happen is: the idea becomes brilliant and elegant, and eventually makes its way back into The Dark Mod. And who wouldn't want that to happen?

[stickyfingers]

Yes, we will release the source when we release.

 

No, we've not adopted the open source model for use during development.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's great if you release the source/assets when your project is off the ground.

 

It's not so great if you simultaneously scavenge other open source projects and refuse to open your own in the meantime.

 

Of course, if you are developing The Dark Mod in complete isolation without reference or support from outside open source libraries or tools, I have no complaint whatsoever.

[Springheel]

Seeing as how we're spending countless hours of our limited time to produce a free project that will be shared with everyone, any complaints about when we choose to release things sound more than a little presumptuous.

[Ishtvan]

It's not so great if you simultaneously scavenge other open source projects and refuse to open your own in the meantime.

 

If any mod team is interested in something we've coded so far, they are free to contact us and make arrangements with the individual coders, see if they have time to extract some system they've written from the rest of the mod as a standalone mod, etc. It is not at all the case that we don't want to allow people to use what we have written.

 

We do however want to excercise more control on what actually goes in our codebase than we would have with an open-source development model. That's a management decision that's not going to change.

 

If you are on a mod-team interested in obtaining some code we have, feel free to contact us. Otherwise, I don't know what you hope to accomplish with generalized rants against our operating procedures.

[sparhawk]

We all stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to the tools, libraries, textures, etc., which are open for all to use, benefit and learn from.  Why would The Dark Mod choose to stand aside?

 

Didn't you read the statement from Renzatic? We are going open source as soon as we are progressed enough to have something to release. we are not "standing aside" as you put it. In the meantime anybody who can contribute can join and do some stuff, so it's not exactly closed anyway.

 

Actually we are doing everything on our own. Textures, sounds, models, code, you name it. The only thing which is proprietary is the game engine.

[sparhawk]

Of course, if you are developing The Dark Mod in complete isolation without reference or support from outside open source libraries or tools, I have no complaint whatsoever.

 

We are not "scavenging" open source library. But to m,ake you happy, yes, we already use one open source library. And no, we still wont give the sourcecode away as long as we don't feel it is complete enough to release it. And no, this is NOT against the open source licence because the library uses the LGPL and we would even be perfectly allowed to keep everything to our own and STILL use that library without "scavenging" open source projects.

 

We have discussed this in the beginning of the project and we decided to go this route, and anybody who doesn't like it, can happily make his own project.

[DopeFishhh]

The problem with open source is mainly the design decisions. We want to have a fairly focused design. I feel that with literally ANYONE able to feel that they can contribute an idea or a feature, the game would quickly become pretty bloated and pointless.

 

From what i remembered this was both a project to create a toolset and a set of missions, are you refering to both parts, or just one of them?

 

Also if you guys think that progress is impaired by either a lack of programmers or having to sit there and debug a lot of shit, perhaps it's a good idea to come up with a prototype that everyone can download (even if it only does a few minor things) along with code so people can help bugtest and fix. Getting out a prototype early so that people can poke holes through stuff early is a good way of keeping on track, but you don't necessarily have to disclose the full source code or disclose any changes as a result of the prototype until the next prototype. So in effect it has the benefits of open source and of keeping tight control of the code.

[New Horizon]

From what i remembered this was both a project to create a toolset and a set of missions, are you refering to both parts, or just one of them?

 

It would be in reference to both, but more directly the toolset as the toolset must be completed before we can finish any missions.

[sparhawk]

Also if you guys think that progress is impaired by either a lack of programmers or having to sit there and debug a lot of shit, perhaps it's a good idea to come up with a prototype that everyone can download (even if it only does a few minor things) along with code so people can help bugtest and fix.

 

We will certainly do that and thats also the reason why we have already beta mappers (or rather alpha if you prefer), but we are certainly not giving it away now just to collect hundred reports of bugs we already know about or help poeple to get it running on all kind of systems, right now. We will open it to the public as soon as we think that it is stable enough that people can try to use it, and I know that even then we will get a lot of bug reports. But it doesn't make sense right now.