What’s Happening With UZDoom?

[Reisal]

I didn't even know drama went down since I don't browse the forums too often, but I am looking forward to seeing what the development of UZDoom will be like.

[Jay0]

this will be fixed for the 4.14.3 release, but isn't yet in devbuilds, i wouldn't recommend switching away from gzdoom 4.14.2 for regular play until that release

I'd figure since I already have a dev build downloaded from GitHub that I might as well use it. I will download a dev build when it becomes available and replace it with that build. I do have a couple of questions when it comes to the menu and one of the feature suggestions. I've noticed from the GitHub build I've downloaded that you can turn the simple menu on and off. From the latest dev build of GZDoom, the menu is more simplified and doesn't have the simple and full menu versions of the options. Is being able to switch between a simplified and full version of the menu going to exist in the first public version of UZDoom, or will we have just the simplified version that I've seen from one of the GZDoom dev builds?

that wouldn't work - the devbuilds are for 5.0-dev, the release would be for 4.14.3, so a follow-up to 4.14.2 - saves/configs/etc from the devbuild would not load in it

[Zenon]

Do you plan on revisiting any [No]'s (for lack of a better/simpler term)?
I can think of one

[Boondorl]

this will be fixed for the 4.14.3 release, but isn't yet in devbuilds, i wouldn't recommend switching away from gzdoom 4.14.2 for regular play until that release

I'd figure since I already have a dev build downloaded from GitHub that I might as well use it. I will download a dev build when it becomes available and replace it with that build. I do have a couple of questions when it comes to the menu and one of the feature suggestions. I've noticed from the GitHub build I've downloaded that you can turn the simple menu on and off. From the latest dev build of GZDoom, the menu is more simplified and doesn't have the simple and full menu versions of the options. Is being able to switch between a simplified and full version of the menu going to exist in the first public version of UZDoom, or will we have just the simplified version that I've seen from one of the GZDoom dev builds?

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Code: Select all

OptionMenu "OptionsMenu" protected
{
	Title "$OPTMNU_TITLE"
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_INPUT",			"InputMenu"
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_GAMEPLAY",			"GameplayMenu"
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_DISPLAY",			"VideoOptions"
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_SOUND",			"SoundOptions"
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_MULTIPLAYER",		"MultiplayerMenu"
	//Submenu "$OPTMNU_ACCESSIBILITY",	"AccessibilityOptions" // not really usable yet.
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_MISCELLANEOUS",	"MiscOptions"
	Submenu "$OPTMNU_SYSTEM",			"SystemMenu"
	StaticText " "
	Submenu "$OS_TITLE", "os_Menu"
}

The last question I have is in regards to Skulltag features. Will we see spreadfire being added to the source port or does that idea come with more complicated issues, as Graf has pointed out in the past?

The full menu will be returned with the simple options menu being opt-in. There's been far too many important features buried underneath the simple options menu and it easily breaks mods. As for the last question, the spreadfire rune is now doable from ZScript so while it won't be added engine-side, it can be done through mods. At some point I'd really like to release a big ZSkulltag pack that scriptifies all of it for use in regular maps, but that'll just be a personal project and not related to UZDoom.

[Jay0]

Do you plan on revisiting any [No]'s (for lack of a better/simpler term)?
I can think of one

if anyone's PRing that, we'll take a look instead of No'ing, but the priorities are currently on finishing 5.0 and on putting out the 4.14.3 patch

[Enjay]

There is a question that I have been trying to formulate since the big fall-out. The reason that it has taken me so long is that I've been trying to figure out a way of asking it in as neutral a way as possible. So, I hope the question comes across as such. There is no hidden or implicit agenda; it's not a loaded question. I'm just trying to fill in blanks as to how things happened the way they did after the initial eruption. It has been clear from discussions that I have seen that there are varying opinions relating to this matter - but they are just opinions, and very few people are basing what they say on facts. So, it would be good if we could clear the air a bit on this and maybe put it to bed.

For context, I have read the GitHub issue that kicked everything off. I can see that it was clearly a flash point and I feel that I understand all of the responses in that thread. I also understand that it wasn't just a single incident but a culmination of things and more of an (admittedly fairly sizeable) "straw that broke the camel's back" moment. So, that's not where my confusion comes from. I have seen and understand the rupture point.

I further understand that there would have been several (probably quite frantic) discussions that are not publicly visible (nor should they be if they were not intended to be) and, clearly, plans were made during those discussions. One of the primary decisions from those discussions was that, yes, as Graf told people to feel free to do, the source was forked and a new port was born - built on a different ethos that suited the team setting it up. Still no confusion there.

The bit that I don't get is how we went from a fork and a new source port to an announcement that UZDoom was now the lead port and that GZDoom had become demoted and was now considered "unofficial". That's the missing piece. How was a decision about what is official and what is not made, what was the lead and what was not, what Graf's (and everyone else's) position in things was going to be moving forward?

Bear in mind, I have no idea who was involved in the discussions, whether it was a unilateral decision, or whether anyone representing ZDoom.org was involved, or even whether Graf was involved and agreed to take a back seat. The announcement on Doomworld said "Graf will no longer be leading ZDoom’s main port." So, he could well have been involved and agreed to that, but he may not have been, and just been told of that decision instead.

To me, I'm not even sure that I understand what "official" means in this context of open source software that anyone can fork and make their own port from, and both UZDoom and GZDoom are hosted here. So, I would be interested to know what people feel constitutes "official" and who has the call on the officialdom.

Ideally, from my perspective at least, there would have been no need to announce which one was "official" - because neither and both would have been. It would have been much nicer if the announcement had been more along the lines of "there has been a division of the developers and now there are two fully-featured source ports hosted on ZDoom.org. So, please welcome UZDoom, which is led by these people and has the following aims and values, and GZDoom has these. Both ports will continue to be supported. Feel free to download one or the other, or both as you see fit."

Perhaps over time, download numbers and numbers of projects aimed at one port or the other would have told a story and one would have emerged as the lead, but the announcement wasn't that both were running in parallel: UZDoom was identified as the lead port, and GZDoom was demoted to "unofficial" status, and I don't know how that bit happened or who gets to say what "official" is. How amicably both ports could have coexisted on here and elsewhere and cross-pollinated ideas is unclear, but perhaps there would be a better chance if both were "official" with (initially at least) equal "official" standing and support?

I know that a large part of what I just described is, in effect, what has happened. UZDoom is here, so is GZDoom. However, it is also layered with talk of which one is "official", which one is the "lead port", and language such as "taking the torch back" (versus "sharing the torch" or even "being given the torch").

So, if it's acceptable to make the information public: after the initial falling out, how did we get to a point where UZDoom was declared the lead port, GZDoom was declared "unofficial" and what actually constitutes "official" in this context?

And please remember, the question is intended to be as even-handed as possible. So, if anything has come across as not being that way, it was not intended.

[Rachael]

I do not presume to speak for anyone - everything in this post is just conclusions from what I have seen over the past few weeks.

As controversial as Graf has been, one thing that clearly affected many people was his deep desire to maintain control - both over the project and the community around it. Having known Graf for at least a couple of decades, I can say that when he made the statement "feel free to fork the project," it wasn't meant as an open invitation. It was a bluff. He expected that his long-standing influence and reputation within the ZDoom scene would discourage anyone from actually doing so - just as it had in the past. Historically, any fork that tried to challenge his authority quickly faded away, which only reinforced his position and the belief that he could continue calling the shots unopposed.

But this time, the bluff was called. Many people - developers and community members alike - had grown tired of being pushed around or constrained by his rigid decisions. After seeing how smoothly things ran during his absence, there was a strong sense that the project and community could thrive without his control. That realization became the turning point: people were ready to move on.

So when UZDoom was announced (even before it had an official name), there was an immediate wave of enthusiasm. It wasn't about hating Graf for the sake of it, and nobody denies that he's a highly skilled programmer whose contributions and legacy will always be significant. Rather, it was about release - years of frustration, feeling trapped by decisions that didn't make sense, and finally seeing an opportunity to build something better and without being held back by arbitrary rules.

That's why something as small as the symbolic commit changing the default trilinear filtering setting drew such widespread celebration. The change itself wasn't the point - it represented freedom. It was a break from what felt like an arbitrary, immovable rule that had long symbolized Graf's unwillingness to compromise. The excitement came from that feeling of finally being able to breathe again, to make decisions collectively without having to fight against one person's insistence on control.

Yes - the website team moved along with this. We have felt this rigidness ourselves and we were also ready for a change. I am not ready to cast GZDoom to the wind and I will continue offering at least a lifeline of support over the time that it continues to be developed - but ultimately, my heart is with UZDoom as well, because I also believe that the time has come to move on. To me, though, it's less GZDoom being 'unofficial' than it is simply no longer being 'flagship'.

[Enjay]

Thank you very much for your reply. It's always valuable to get your perspective on things.

I mentioned that I felt I had a pretty good handle on how and why the rift happened. What you described ties in pretty closely with what I'd worked out, but it's useful to get your input on it as you were closer to the events as they unfolded than I was. Thank you also for your comment about filtering. You possibly saw that the discussion and comments around that (rather than the decision itself) was something that had intrigued me as well.

For the most part, I tried to avoid talking about personalities in my question. Clearly, personalities underpinned the initial falling out, which I understand, and possibly coloured the knock-on decisions too, but I was mostly trying to ask about what happened after the rift. Once the decision to fork and release UZDoom was made, how did that translate to "and, from this point on, UZDoom is official and GZDoom is not." Again, it's a completely neutral question. What has happened has happened and we're all moving forward. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of how we arrived at where we are after the initial split.

The way you described how things will be moving forward and it being "less [about] GZDoom being 'unofficial' than it is simply no longer being 'flagship'." is a gentler assessment than other statements that have been made. UZDoom has certainly been described as "official" and GZDoom as "unofficial". It was once framed as UZDoom "taking over as the official port." What has been said was further described as "an official announcement from the ZDoom org."
So, is GZDoom officially unofficial or merely unofficially unofficial?

---

I have to admit a personal difficulty in this area - nothing to do with ZDoom. I have always found the concept of "official" difficult, particularly in situations where there isn't necessarily a clear authoritative body to make a declaration of what is official and what is not. I don't mean in situations where someone says something like "that's it, I'm officially over him" (which carries as much weight and accuracy as "literally" in the same kind of context). I mean in situations where there is an air of officialdom but it's actually difficult to pin down what "official" means, who the authority figure or body is who can decide what is and what is not "official", and where that authority comes from. Without that, by definition at least, something cannot be official. So, when something is declared "official" I struggle to wrap my head around it until I can see how that declaration can be made. It's a generalised and long-term problem for me, and this situation is certainly tugging at the edges of that problem.

So, that's why I was asking what it means to be "official" in this context, and how a declaration of officialdom relating to the status of UZDoom and GZDoom was arrived at.

[Rachael]

For that I think I would have to refer you to the people who I think are likely to be the current community leaders - Agent_Ash (Jekyll Grim Payne) and Barry Burton (R4L).

While I haven't seen quite as much commentary from Ash, I have seen a lot of action from Barry. I have also been asked to do things by the moderators, and also by the UZDoom developers, that would otherwise solidify UZDoom's position as the official fork for the ZDoom community.

But I think a lot of it has to do with the community as a whole. I don't think the current ZDoom staff would have gone along with this if there was a lot of desire to maintain the status quo. If more people were happy with the way Graf was doing things, there wouldn't have been such an eager embrace for the change.

I don't know how or what qualifies as "official" in any of these contexts, but the combination of all of them combined makes it seem so to me. There aren't a lot of prominent community members holding out for Graf or for GZDoom at this point, either because the community has moved on or because of their own personal grievances - and worryingly, the people who qualify in the latter category probably outnumber the ones in the former.

[Enjay]

So, I guess it would be fair to say that the authority "figure" is more like the cumulative weight of opinion, and that has shaped what is "official"?

It is a shame that it has come down to people "holding out" (or not) for one group or the other. Entrenched positions are rarely helpful IMO, but I understand that feelings run deep. Personally, I'll continue to download and use both UZDoom and GZDoom as long as they are both available. In fact, as they diverge, it will be interesting to see how that manifests (it's already happening). I even still fire up ZDoom 2.8.1 and pre-2.9 git builds every now and again (heck, even ZDoom 1.22 and 1.23 - though I can't really get a video mode that suits my monitor properly).

[De-M-oN]

I personally dont care if the code is from ChatGPT or a human. When it works good, it works good. I think this topic about ChatGPT gets more drama than it should.
But I of course agree on everything else.

What I so much hope in a future is that somehow zandronum and zdoom devs could somehow unite and make ONE big port. Its so frustrating that we're in multiplayer still hold back to zdoom 2. But it has the multiplayer and is the only port where Mods like All Out War 2 currently can be used at.
Is there ANY chance that without Graf the situation can be changed? Or still rather not?

[SanyaWaffles]

I personally dont care if the code is from ChatGPT or a human. When it works good, it works good. I think this topic about ChatGPT gets more drama than it should.

1.) The code he (Graf) used from ChatGPT didn't even work and may have been incompatible with the GPLv3 anyhow.

2.) ChatGPT was only the tip of the iceberg with this. YouTube dramamongers inflated the significance of ChatGPT.

[phantombeta]

What I so much hope in a future is that somehow zandronum and zdoom devs could somehow unite and make ONE big port. Its so frustrating that we're in multiplayer still hold back to zdoom 2. But it has the multiplayer and is the only port where Mods like All Out War 2 currently can be used at.
Is there ANY chance that without Graf the situation can be changed? Or still rather not?

That will never happen. This has nothing to do with Graf, Zandronum has a hacky, adhoc netcode that fundamentally cannot work with ZScript without extremely inflated* bandwidth requirements and requiring modifications to mods.

* And Zandronum's netcode already needs a lot of bandwidth due to being very inefficient with the way it syncs data.

[fakemai]

Speaking of defaults, the recent "themself" change needs to be talked about because it is not a sensible default. To me what would actually make sense is that the player sex starts as "default" and is based on what player class is in use, that is the default Doomguy Corvus Baratus Parias Daedolon Strifeguy are male but another mod or game could change it as appropriate for the character, it was always off playing something like La Tailor Girl and "killing himself". That would also allow for the player to override it to something else at their discretion. EDIT: Or make it an explicit question at start-up like done when enabling the survey code.

[Jay0]

Or make it an explicit question at start-up like done when enabling the survey code.

we do plan on adding an onboarding setup (either on the launcher or in-game), so it'll probably go there as well