DF-21 Forums

[joel96]

Q: Is this project open source? Will the source code be released?
A: DarkXL is not open source at this time and the source code is not available. However the source will be opened up down the road, mainly so that others can maintain and extend the project once I’m “finished” (i.e. my goals are met and I’m not going to work on it much any more). I have reservations about standard open source projects (for reasons I really don’t want to repeat here) and really want to avoid excessive forking and fragmenting of the community (how many Doom source ports are there?). On the other hand I don’t want the project to die when I won’t/can’t continue it, which is why I’ll release the source anyway before then. So in summary the source code will eventually be released but not any time soon. Is it time to rethink releasing the source code to the project yet? Or at least allowing some of the modders who have worked with DF and MotS for years to help out with it?

I'm just looking at the path to beta and where the project is now, and it seems like at its current rate it would take another two years to finish. I'm not trying to force the release of anything, or to complain about the time between alpha releases, because I'm grateful for any updates at all and I still have DF mods to play in the meantime. I also look at all the Doom ports, Half-Life, Unreal, and Source mods and I don't see how those have done anything but enhance the reputation of the game and of the original programmers. I don't think forking is that big of an issue, and I think fragmenting is minimized by a larger sum modder base. I'm not trying to make open source DarkXL out to be all sunshine and bactapops, but I don't think the current closed source DarkXL plan is running on greased rails either.

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Yes, I am that joeybuddy96.

[PIckle]

also work could begin to make it portable across other platforms.
and the todo list, surely other can help with things like AI, weapons, etc.

[joel96]

Yeah, I'm curious as to what the longtime modders and forum-goers like the MAZZter et al have to say about it. There was some discussion earlier this year about Lucius eventually releasing the source code, but it sounded like he isn't planning on doing that at least until it is out of alpha, which could take forever.

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Yes, I am that joeybuddy96.

[JPL]

Hi. I've followed this project almost since its beginning, and the progress so far has been very impressive. Since the subject of open-sourcing it has been raised, here are some thoughts.

Depending on how and where you host the project, you (Lucius, the author) can still exercise a great deal of control over how it runs, who can change what and the direction it goes. Open source is a meritocracy, not an anarchy, and short of a fork nothing happens that the driver of a project doesn't initiate. You lay down clear goals and standards at the beginning, and you are free to reject anything that doesn't meet those.

The benefits would be that parts of the project you're less interested in would progress, the process of making it cross-platform would improve overall code quality, and you'd probably get better bug reports due to the increased visibility.

The downside might be that you spend more time dealing with your contributors and/or community than programming. And you might face some hard decisions over whether a submitted patch is right for the project.

All stuff to consider. I will say this, I've seen a lot of projects like this start off closed source with a single author, and when they go open they get a second wind.

Either way, keep up the good work, and I hope the community will respect your decision.

[lucius]

I've discussed in this thread about when the source code will be released. It will be released but not at this time.

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com