website/sotc/2000/0416

<H2>QSG standards version 1 in QuakeForge!</H2>
	<P>Everyone needs to upgrade to recent CVS if they're using any
	version of QuakeForge 0.2-d after view height offset support was
	implemented for MegaTF, how it's done has changed incompatibily.
	The good news is that the reason this happened was because of the
	intruduction of conformance to the draft of QSG standards version 1
	(which hasn't yet been published because we might fit some other
	minor stuff in there maybe..)

	<P>I don't have a URL for Coderjoe's win32 binaries but I'm going to
	post news on the main page about the QSG standard as soon as we hash
	out the last few issues this standard version will support (mostly I
	think we have to decide if we're even going to touch skyboxes at all
	and what we're going to do with them.
	
	<P>Since that's not going to be a requirement for engines to support
	in this version, I've gone ahead and done the *qsg_standard key and
	set it to 1.  We are QSG standards compliant!

<H2>QuakeLives (again)</H2>
	<P>People keep asking us to work with other engines (including but
	not limited to) <A HREF="http://www.quakelives.com/">QuakeLives</A>..
	I'll say this one more time, we've tried.  Every major engine project
	excepting QuakeLives has been part of QSG for some time now.  They've
	decided to have BuBBa represent their project in QSG, but if you don't
	mind my opinion in here that seems to be a token gesture on their
	part.  If you've talked to BuBBa you know what I mean.

	<P>Despite their promise to <A HREF="mailto:johnc@idsoftware.com">
	John Carmack</A>, QL 2.54 is available to beta testers without
	source.  Of course it's not on their web page but all you have to do
	is agree to their beta testing terms and they'll send you a copy
	happily.  Of course their terms include that you don't ask them for
	source and pretty much almost always have.

	<P>This blatantly violates the GNU GPL under which Quake's source
	was released but so far they've managed to stall, delay, flat out
	lie their way out of being sued by Id Software for it.  You're
	invited to investigate the situation for yourself if this is at all
	important to you.  A polite message to John with your results may
	be a good idea.  I cannot believe after all of this they're still
	trying to get out of releasing source under the GPL.  It's truly
	a sad thing to see.


	<P>&nbsp;<BR>While on the topic, I got a little (16k) email just an
	hour or so ago from someone who either has a copy of the unauthorized
	QL source or has far too much time on their hands.  It describes in
	very good detail exactly how the QL rocket trail effect works.  As I
	suspected by looking at screenshots, it's a tri strip which works
	very similar to the existing particle engine.  I'd like to thank the
	person properly here for the info but he wishes to remain anonymous
	for very understandable reasons.

	<P>Why this matters is that I can now implement the effect and it'll
	be a genuine clean-room recreation of their rocket trails.  If they
	would've had any legal ground to stand on for a lawsuit if I'd used
	their source (I can't see how since it sounds like a mod to Quake's
	particle engine which is GPL'd) they certainly don't have any ground
	to sue anyone who might use an implementation done by me for QF.

	<P>This is what happens when you try to screw the GPL.  Thanks to
	the guy who sent me the email, you know who you are.

<H2>0.2.0 remaining issues</H2>
	<P>A few target-specific issues and some weirdness with dyerfort's
	catapults remain.  Other than that we're just about ready for a new
	release.  Be on the lookout!