Microsoft Releases MechCommander 2 Source Code 115
SpectreHiro writes "In a shocking move, Microsoft has open sourced... err, 'shared the source' of MechCommander 2. From the site, 'This is the Shared Source release for MechCommander 2. This release contains all of the source code an source assets required to build MechCommander 2. This release can be used with the Microsoft XNA Build March 2006 CTP.'
Not really shocking (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not really shocking (Score:1)
Re:Not really shocking (Score:1)
Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is kind of paranoid. It's like saying that after looking at, say, the Linux source for some drivers, you can never write a closed-source driver, or that you can never, ever write a game after having your hands at the TuxRacer source (or even after downloading the source, it's the thought that counts).
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
It's only paranoia if you think they've organized. (Score:2)
You're only paranoid if you know they've organized against you.
I have no problem believing that Microsoft would pursue legal actions against anyone releasing any code that they could trace back to any of their "Shared Source" releases.
With closed source it is more difficult for the Open Source coder/organization to show that you infringed because
But there have been instances where the FSF has threatened legal action
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Half the question isn't whether or not you can, but whether someone will make a quasi-legitimate lawsuit (i.e. not so completely without merit that it'll be rejected, see SCO vs IBM). This rarely happens w
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Correct, however, note that most people couldn't afford to be IBM in SCO vs IBM.
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Actually doing poach jobs on paranoid armchair lawyers all day would give me so much job satisfaction, I wouldn't even need to charge. Just the cost of the Joules delivered and a little extra to keep the office in coffee and broadband.
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
>shared-source license affect me as a professional game developer, though?
>I'm afraid of looking through a lot of other games' source code for fear of
>taint.
I guess as a professional book writer I would have to stop reading other books, otherwsie my own books could be "tainted" or "contaminated" by what I read. What a shock!!!
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course this trial hasn't ended yet, and the decision may go against the so-called infringed, but it seems to be taking a while for judgement.
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
>shared-source license affect me as a professional game developer, though?
>I'm afraid of looking through a lot of other games' source code for fear of
>taint.
I guess as a professional book writer I would have to stop reading other books, otherwsie my own books could be "tainted" or "contaminated" by what I read. What a shock!!!
I think there are a lot of authors who avoid reading other books, at least ones with very strong styl
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
(Sorry, someone had to say it)
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Funny)
> taint.
I'm sure their code isn't *that* bad. Just be sure that if you see any confusingly named variables or goto-like unstructure jumps to quickly shut the window and read some Knuth for a few minutes...that ought to do the trick...
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
license? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:license? (Score:2)
The only major difference is once a Shared Source is shared, it can be modified, opened, shared or even closed in future release.
Re:license? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:license? (Score:2)
Re:license? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:license? (Score:2)
Except that the statement in question happens to be both accurate and NPOV -- the latter because it says "The OSI does not consider 'shared source' to be Open Source" and not "'shared source' is not Open Source". Have I just fed a troll?
Re:license? (Score:1)
The statement you quote is not the statement I was quibling with. Which was: "[Shared Source] is not open source according to the Open Source Definition, because none of the license programs allows for commercial use of modified code". To be authoritative and NPOV, that sentence needs an "according to...".
Every Wikipedia contributor honors NPOV, but few seem to understand when they're violating it. I used to make a recreation of bringing up random Wikipedia pages and doing some basic ed
My favs (Score:2)
(From the article on the V2 Rocket): "It was the progenitor of the rocket race that developed during the Cold War, and ultimately put men on the moon and probes that have left our solar system."
Leaving aside whether the V2 was the progenitor of the space race or merely other rockets, parse that sentence and you wind up wondering how the V2 helped put men on the probes that have left our solar sys
Re:license? (Score:2)
You mean like the part above? Like exactly what you quoted?
I don't think it needs a second "according to" in the same sentence if that is what you are implying. The "because" is not something that the writ
Re:license? (Score:2)
Re:license? (Score:2)
Even if you happen to agree with it, you can't take an unsubstan
Re:license? (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it unlikely it's more free than, say, a BSD license or the Apache licenses.
And, depending on which of the shared source licenses [microsoft.com] this is released under, what you say may not be true.
Re:license? (Score:2)
As I understand shared source has huge implications if you plan to write your own system. Even if you don't put any of the code into your program having just looked at the program makes it that MS is allowed take your idea.
I wouldn't touch the code if you can't read the whole license tbh.
Re:license? (Score:2)
Microsoft says shared source but sometimes they don't say what they mean, for that you have to read the fine print.
Re:license? (Score:2)
Case in point.
Re:license? (Score:2, Informative)
As for this specific release, who knows. I doubt it's going to be GPL'ed but I don't think it wil be too restrictive, unless they've gone totally berzerk and want to prevent you from "developing a comepting product" with the source or some such nonesense... though I wouldn't put it past them at all.
A lot of these releases by Microsoft (with a few exceptions like WiX or WTL) are really just meant to be useful talk
Re:license? (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) like BSD
Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL) kind of like LGPL or MPL : you must relicence files that contain Ms-CL code as Ms-CL, but can use them in any way you want.
Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) - you may only look at it
And I hve no clue which of these apply for this game. I even downloaded the ReadMe.rtf (rtf? from Microsoft?), but it only says that you need directx from feb 2006 to compile the "MC2 Viewer". (And I
Re:license? (Score:2)
Well, they did develop it [wikipedia.org]...
Re:license? (Score:1)
HaHa, I love that format, in some way I believe all the Readme files should end in RTF, it always reminds me of the RTFM acronym
Re:license? (Score:1)
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?Pos tID=310374&SiteID=1 [microsoft.com]
What license? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, what about WINE? Is this something they should grab, or treat like free chocolate coated leprosy tablets?
-Charles
Shared source (Score:1, Informative)
The code is being distributed for the purpose of serving as sample code for XBox 360 developers. For that purpose, it is great, and a smart move on Microsoft's part. For any other purpose, the source code may as well not exist.
Re:What license? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What license? (Score:2)
Re:What license? (Score:2)
I doubt it.
Can they use it?
Probably not. They could legally copy small bits of code and reimplement interfaces, but it's a good bet that anything large enough to be useful would be too large to be used legally.
Hell, can they even look at it and still be able to contribute to SAMBA?
Of course they can. I can see why people are paranoid about being "contaminate
Re:What license? (Score:2)
All of those examples have led to lawsuits where a subsequent work looked too much like a "parent" work to some minds, and they sued. Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code) is currently being sued in Britain because of this very thing. I believe the word is "derivative", and what I was alluding to.
I'm leaning more and more towards Shakespeare's idea...
Re:What license? (Score:2)
Re:What license? (Score:2)
Re:What license? (Score:2)
>source "contaminates" you.
I guess that is why no sane musicioan ever listens, and more important, never looks at the scores (or is it notes?), of other music at all!
Re:What license? (Score:1)
W00T! (Score:5, Funny)
Quick! Combine them! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:W00T! (Score:1)
Killing Innovation!!! (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder how much more innovation Microsoft plans to kill this way in the future? I hope they kill Windows 2000 innovation to benefit WINE or ReactOS.
To the uninitiated: Microsoft has repeatedly called opensourcing killing innovation.
Is the source code readable... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is the source code readable... (Score:2)
Re:Is the source code readable... (Score:2)
The source of a commercial software product is vastly different than the programs we write at home or in school. Assuming you know some C, find main() first, and go from there. The easiest way to navigate it is to import the code tree into an IDE. Grep is also very useful. You're going to run into constructs and paradigms you haven't seen before, and these can be hard to figure out, but eventually things start falling into place.
Re:Is the source code readable... (Score:2)
Re:Is the source code readable... (Score:2)
you've got to start from the main method and try and find your way from there to the mainloop, from there stuff should start falling into place.
Forget MechWarrier, what about the kernel... (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I can tell, it is a release of a large part of the windows kernel sources (some parts are released as source, some parts like the kernel debugger, plug & play manager and power manager are released as library files) for use by academics to teach operating systems classes.
Whats notable is that the licence for this allows creation of derived works. The only things it seems to have is a clause requiring copyright to be not misattributed (i.e. you have to keep the microsoft copyright on it), a "no commercial use" clause and a "if you make changes you have to send them to MS" clause. It aint GPL but hey, it IS a BIG change from what microsoft normally does with their code.
I dont know more details than this and a google for it finds very little information (from MS or otherwise)
Re:Forget MechWarrier, what about the kernel... (Score:2)
No thanks; I'll pass.
Re:Forget MechWarrier, what about the kernel... (Score:1)
Note, I also refuse to stoop so low as to re-mention C0__@q on this thread.
Re:Forget MechWarrier, what about the kernel... (Score:2)
Microsoft file download policy (Score:2, Interesting)
During my dealings with Microsoft over the years I've seen this very often, their self extractor might work everywhere, but its not a nice feature.
I prefer just the data.
Re:Microsoft file download policy (Score:1)
Your comment is most likely closest to the truth.
An exe file extractor allows a EULA to be inserted and accepted before obtaining the documents or files.
If they just placed it on the webpage, then anyone could download the resultant data possibly without accepting the eula or restrictions.
Re:Microsoft file download policy (Score:1)
Why do they insist on putting none executable data and documentation inside .exe files?
Probably they want to save on bandwidth. Of course using BitTorrent would likely help more than compressing the files.
Re:Microsoft file download policy (Score:1)
They usually use a self-extracting zip executable, so the question is, why make it a self-extracting zip executable when Windows has had built in zip support for awhile now?
It doesn't work everywhere... (Score:2)
Re:It doesn't work everywhere... (Score:2)
I'm sure there was a completely valid reason to wrap this document in a Windows executable.
Sequal Time? (Score:3)
Re:Yeah but does it have the content too? (Score:2)
Re:Yeah but does it have the content too? (Score:1)
but what is it? (Score:2)
But is it any good?
Re:but what is it? (Score:4, Informative)
Even the forementioned artillery and air strikes took thinking to use. Artillery was fairly inaccurate and air strikes could be shot down if you tried simply trying to air strike an enemy target objective to death. You could get vehicles but they weren't customizable so that made things even harder to plan. You got aircraft but those were pitifully armored compared to the Mechs.
And to top it all off, the Mechs themselves had weight, heat and power limitations. You COULD give a Light Mech one of the biggest weapons in the game, but then it'd be so heavy it could be equiped with anything else. You COULD strip a Mech of its heatsinks in exchange for more weapons, but then it'd overheat in a matters of seconds in combat. You COULD arm a Mech with tons of lasers but then it'd only have enough energy for one volley before overheating and shutting down.
Oh and don't confuse this with MechWarrior (a game where YOU were the pilot.) YOU don't have direct control of the units, the AI pilot statistics played a major role. And I bolded pilots because they COULD be killed, which of course would spelled disaster if you suddenly found yourself on the last mission with no one but rookies to pilot your Mechs.
Re:but what is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:but what is it? (Score:1)
Obli. Star Wars quote: (Score:3, Funny)
Obli. Army of Darkness quote: (Score:1)
EULA text (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EULA text (Score:1)
Re:EULA text (Score:2)
But then, I'm not a lawyer.
Great... (Score:1)
Curses and woe upon me for being a Battletech fan who jumped to Linux. And, of course, they released just the 'mech game I don't have. How about MechWarrior 3 instead? Or the original MechCommander? (MW4 is too much to ask, obviously?) And less silly license, please?
I guess I have to go back to regularly scheduled MegaMek...
Re:Great... (Score:1)
not shocking, agreed, because they have a purpose (Score:1)
XNA is still in "preview" aka beta.
So, it seems to me, by release source code that requires the use of XNA they are furthering their agenda of promoting their XNA technology.
Re:not shocking, agreed, because they have a purpo (Score:2)
It won't install unless you have the XNA thing on your computer. In fact even if you select to install the source on a non-C drive it will install 2GB of data on C anyways. I had to move a lot of data around in order to get it to even begin to install.
Then I get a cryptic error that it fails to create a DLL file. (MechCommander2Viewer.dll or something like that.) Turns out that if you don't have all the tools you're not welcome to install the program.
More info on h
Question (Score:1)
if I download this 1 gig file, what will it contain? Does it contain the game, or the engine that the game used?
Re:Question (Score:2)