Spring RTS Engine

Hello!

I want to use TA SPRING to develop a other RTS game. Who from Spring´s team i need to contact?

Cheers,

Daniel Vivas

I thought the whole GPL thing meant you could do whatever as long as the parts you take remain open source?

That doesn't mean parts you add or content you create must be open source, however.

Yeah, GPL just means that any source revisions you do must be made availbalbe to the public. THe content can essentially be under any licence it wants to be

depends on licence, if he makes derivative code from our codebase he needs to provide that code back to the project as open source if I remember the specifics. you can make your own game with your own graphics etc. and even sell it, but any changes you make to the engine need to be GPLed to.

All statement above are true.

The main developper are actually JCnossen and Tobi.

If you redistribute any GPLed program as a binary you must provide a link to the sourcecode that was used to build it. For most opensource projects that's just the project's repository but if you made your own changes you need to make those available as well.

The GPL does not affect any content so you could make a commercial game using Spring (although I don't think that's a good idea) and distribute the mod contents for money only. You'd still need to share the sourcecode to the binaries, though.

And if you're not intending to make a commercial game you just release it as a mod .

If he just wants to make a new game with the spring engine for his own enjoyment without releasing it to the world, he doesn't need to release his sourcecode changes. As was said earlier, if you distribute binaries you have to distribute sourcecode (or links to it), so if you just keep the binaries to yourself, you don't have to distribute the sourcecode. I think that makes sense.

-Gurkha

Gurkha wrote:If he just wants to make a new game with the spring engine for his own enjoyment without releasing it to the world, he doesn't need to release his sourcecode changes. As was said earlier, if you distribute binaries you have to distribute sourcecode (or links to it), so if you just keep the binaries to yourself, you don't have to distribute the sourcecode. I think that makes sense.

-Gurkha

Legally if he ever makes a public release with modified sourcecode his source must be released.

Why not just help with Spring itself? You can easily build your own game as a mod for spring.

Sheesh, just make a custom (as in completely yours) mod...

Then that "mod" is technically a game

Snipawolf wrote:Sheesh, just make a custom (as in completely yours) mod...

Then that "mod" is technically a game

Yes, but it's also still a mod if it's in mod format.

Just don't forget, using the spring code to make a game and then selling it may make you remarkably unpopular on the spring forums. I think somoene else tried this, And ended up getting yelled at by pretty much everyone.

If done right, it wouldn't matter though, now would it? If it's a good game, people buy it and they might just outnumber you guys

I think it's a good think if some people begin to make mod proffesionally :

They can make enhancement to the code.
If their mod is really looking awesome ( wich is needed if they want to sell it ), it will only make Spring more popular.
It can add a bit of fresh air.
If they sell it, they will have to support it -> bugfix.

Remember that if they want sell it, they _must_ have better content than the actual mod ... and if they can do this, I will not sue them for wanting being paid.
Still, as you see the Expand and Exterminate mod wich is really good, and noone play it ... it'll be hard to convice people to play a commercial mod.
You will need to make advertising on magasin, web site ... as I said, it would only increase spring popularity.

So ihmo, if you have the guts , make your mod !

And it has to all be wirtten from scratch. Otherwise Atari WILL sue Spring.

Because we have so much money and have WMDs.

Just don't forget, using the spring code to make a game and then selling it may make you remarkably unpopular on the spring forums. I think somoene else tried this, And ended up getting yelled at by pretty much everyone.

Don't know of anyone who tried that.. IIRC Xect vs Mynn was supposed to be a commercial TA mod, but so far there is nothing commercial that used spring.
It would be quite cool if someone can make a commercial product with spring, but it's very hard I think, this engine is really not suited yet for development of a non-TA rts game, and it is less stable than you would expect from a commercial engine.

But as GPL implies the bugfixes and improvements would have to be released opensource under GPL as well, which could improve spring itself a lot.

danielvivas: you can pm me if you need to know more about spring...

Actually, just Mynn was a commercial TA "expansion." The guy made the entire race, made new cutscenes, missions too I think, even had a band record a new soundtrack, and charged $17 a pop for the mod. Obviously it caused quite an uproar since it, by very design, required TA *and* its assets to run, just like the official TA expansions.

A few years later he finally released the race itself for free. Then he made another race, called it Xect, and made it a TC.

There's your history of selling TA mods in a nutshell.

In THAT state? He tried to sell something that bears even the tiniest resemblance to the one in the svn?

Haha, it looked a lot better under OTA, he even had custom gui graphics and I think missions and music, maybe even fmv sequences.