Command & Conquer Source Code Released

[Kinsie]

GitHub

Source code for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1, legally released by EA under GPLv3. I'm not entirely sure what otherworldly pacts had to be made to allow this to happen, but I won't question it if it means more stuff like this in the future.

This release compiles the games to a DLL file intended for use in the soon-to-be-released C&C Remastered Collection as a game mod, but the producer on that project has encouraged projects like CnCNet and OpenRA to take advantage of it, and some folks are already hacking it into a stand-alone state using the original game files within a day of its release, so Doom-style source ports are a very real possibility.

[Redneckerz]

I mean, if it takes a mobile invested take in the CNC universe first to release the source code to this, i am all up for it. The CNC state of things with OpenRA was pretty impressive already. With the source code out, improvements certainly will follow.

[leileilol]

Wonder if there'll be a media project over this in a OpenTTD-like manner. Would really need a good retro pop musician skilled at reproducing classic synths in ZynSubAddFx to tie it all together though...

[Gez]

So not everyone in EA is an evil drone? This is an excellent news! Though apparently it's not the entire source code, just what they could salvage with a little bit of added glue to make it work again.

Blizzard should take notice and open-source Warcraft 1 & 2. I doubt they would, though.

[Xim]

I'm excited to see what will come out of this. I've been a big fan of the old CnC games. I played Red Alert a lot when I was younger, loved editing the rules.ini to customize my game. With CnC announcing the source code, plus the simple example mod they're releasing with the HD version this will open up a bunch of new doors. This is probably the best move they could have done for the franchise, I've always felt like Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert were the Doom 1 & 2 of the RTS genre.

[Gez]

That would make Dune II the Wolfenstein 3D, and Warcraft the Blake Stone I guess.

[leileilol]

Blizzard should take notice and open-source Warcraft 1 & 2. I doubt they would, though.

yeah i'm not forgetting what went down with FreeCraft in 2003 that had to drop media projects (which to be fair, did questionably derive with obvious impersonations and some designs), any "craft" branding and be on the down low with strange implementations (Starcraft converted to a top-down tile RTS...yeah) and questionably original RTSes after. Wyrmsun looks visually close to War2 though

A shame how it went down either way (for both Blizzard's other reasoning about "rules" setting a bad paranoid precedent for game reimplementations/clones, and Freecraft's provocative derivativeness which should be a big cautionary for any media clone project)

[BFeely]

GitHub

Source code for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1, legally released by EA under GPLv3. I'm not entirely sure what otherworldly pacts had to be made to allow this to happen, but I won't question it if it means more stuff like this in the future.

This release compiles the games to a DLL file intended for use in the soon-to-be-released C&C Remastered Collection as a game mod, but the producer on that project has encouraged projects like CnCNet and OpenRA to take advantage of it, and some folks are already hacking it into a stand-alone state using the original game files within a day of its release, so Doom-style source ports are a very real possibility.

(video)

If it's a DLL for a proprietary game, shouldn't they license it as LGPL?

[InsanityBringer]

I've been a tad concerned about that as well, given that the way things sound the exe running all of this isn't intended to be open source. I may be missing something about the GPL here, I won't claim full understanding as I'm nowhere near close there.

There's an issue open (ed: actually it was closed by the opener, just checked...) about it at the github but there's a lot of armchair lawyering going on and a lack of understanding of the GPL in some places, so it's hard to tell what concerns are real or not.

[phantombeta]

If this is about them using the code they provided as GPL in a proprietary, closed source product of theirs, no, there's nothing wrong here. The license for a piece of code doesn't apply to the copyright owner - they own it, so they're allowed to do anything they want with it, they don't need a license for it.

[InsanityBringer]

ah, yeah, that's a good point, but how about people making their own versions? Can they load their GPL dlls with the non-GPL ...launcher? client? whatever it is, the executable they provide to actually run the game.

[Gez]

ah, yeah, that's a good point, but how about people making their own versions? Can they load their GPL dlls with the non-GPL ...launcher? client? whatever it is, the executable they provide to actually run the game.

I think this clause applies to the shell:

The "System Libraries" of an executable work include anything, other
than the work as a whole, that (a) is included in the normal form of
packaging a Major Component, but which is not part of that Major
Component, and (b) serves only to enable use of the work with that
Major Component, or to implement a Standard Interface for which an
implementation is available to the public in source code form. A
"Major Component", in this context, means a major essential component
(kernel, window system, and so on) of the specific operating system
(if any) on which the executable work runs, or a compiler used to
produce the work, or an object code interpreter used to run it.

Granted here we're running DLL code from a proprietary executable. Is it the same thing as running an executable from a VM or something? IANAL, but I'm sure that if you think this isn't sufficient, then you can use the provided DLLs to figure out the required specs to make a functional free software implementation of the C&C remaster shell. This does not necessarily mean something fully-featured with, I dunno, the ability to switch between high-res and classic graphics, access the media gallery and other bonus features of the remaster, just a minimal shell that is 1. compatible with the game .dll and 2. sufficient to play the games in SP and MP. Then you can make your mods for the stripped-down shell and then they also work in the official remaster but that's okay.

[kinker31]

I don't play C&C all that much, but I think this might be a good starting point for me, especially considering that I've always thought for the longest time that EA would never release anything under the GLP license!
I just hope that the source code to the 1st Plants Vs. Zombies released under the GPL license sometime, I mean, PopCap and EA are kinda focusing on PvZ 2 and 3 more than they have 1.

[leileilol]

I don't play C&C all that much, but I think this might be a good starting point for me, especially considering that I've always thought for the longest time that EA would never release anything under the GLP license!

There was that Micropolis thing....

[Kinsie]

I don't play C&C all that much, but I think this might be a good starting point for me, especially considering that I've always thought for the longest time that EA would never release anything under the GLP license!

They have quite a few things on GitHub, but they're usually either development utilities or research experiments. As far as actual game code goes, a few years ago they donated the code of their early-90s Sherlock Holmes adventure games to the ScummVM project, and well before that, as Leilei suggests, there was Micropolis, aka the original SimCity.

I just hope that the source code to the 1st Plants Vs. Zombies released under the GPL license sometime, I mean, PopCap and EA are kinda focusing on PvZ 2 and 3 more than they have 1.

The engine used for that era of PopCap games (PopCap Games Framework) has its source out there, but I'm not lawyerly enough to know if it's truly open-source.