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[Burning_Iceman]

I don't think that will be ever.

The massive complexity and bugs are one of the biggest reasons why open sourcing the game
would do it a huge favor by bringing in tons of bughunters who will fix them for free.

The fact is something like open-sourcing has already been tried, and the first thing that happened (as I understand it) was the code got stolen/used/ripped off? into another project trying to cash in on DF.

Even ignoring that, you'd have a bunch of different custom versions that likely wouldn't work together (or at all), creating tons of confusion for community and succession games. Impractical.

And even if that wasn't the case, assuming everyone did in fact have noble intentions and immediately fixes everything that's wrong, no two people will will likely have the same solution, and someone will have to fold the "best" ones into the primary build. Toady then stops being the creator and becomes a project manager, which isn't what he wants to do.

Look at successful freeware releases vs open-source community projects (speaking strictly of games now):

Doomsday engine: 10 years and still going, made by less than 5 people, depending on who you count as developers.
Kingdom of Loathing: 5 years-ish, developed by 2-4 people at different times, mostly done by Jick/Skullhead.
The Ur-Quan Masters: 7-10 people, with various minor contributors who code the installers and such.
And now projects that are functionally complete with more than 15 active developers:

...??

I honestly can't find any, feel free to correct me if you have examples.
Keep in mind Ur-Quan masters had a readily defined goal of making a functional copy of StarCon2, so there was a set design template to be followed closely.

Based on what you've said sofar concerning open source games and seeing lack of open sourch games in your "list" I get the strong impression you're not really in touch with open source games or even open source software in general.
Most of the problems you list would not be a result of open sourcing but rather of weak leadership and/or lack of vision. Though it's quite possible that Toady isn't be up to that task.
I'm also not sure how source code can be "stolen" from an open source project. It being inherently open and all that. If anything you could "steal" developers by successfully forking the project (which is quite rare and usually a sign of completely failed leadership in the original project).

Oh and concerning good open source games just to name a few off the top of my head: Battle for Wesnoth, Freeciv, Hedgewars, Warzone 2100. These are just the ones I've gotten around to playing myself extensively but there are tons more if you bother looking.

[Sowelu]

Freeciv is terrible.  Hedgewars doesn't take community code submissions, I don't think they like people very much.  It is however a good game that is dominated by a small dedicated dev team.

[Lord Darkstar]

Endgame: Singularity is open source. Very fun game. You are an AI trying to evolve into "Singularity" (effectively godhood).

http://www.emhsoft.com/singularity/ for the original dev's project.

That page has links to the source and binaries for Windows, Linux, and Mac (IIRC).

[schussel]

could we come back to Df again? *thread derail detected .. Urist McBoardbasher closing in *

[Sowelu]

Endgame: Singularity is open source. Very fun game. You are an AI trying to evolve into "Singularity" (effectively godhood).

http://www.emhsoft.com/singularity/ for the original dev's project.

That page has links to the source and binaries for Windows, Linux, and Mac (IIRC).

And yet again my statement rings true.

Uh, I mean, *tries to push thread back onto rails*

[petebull]

I honestly can't find any, feel free to correct me if you have examples.

Battle for Wesnoth:
http://www.wesnoth.org/

Secret Maryo Chronicles
http://www.secretmaryo.org/

Fish Fillets
http://fillets.sourceforge.net/

[eggrock]

I have read scurrilous rumours that the developer of Minecraft has over half a million dollars in his bank account. Of course I'm sure that this is just rubbish, but if it's true then there is no justice.

I wouldn't doubt it. If you enjoy building things, but haven't played it, you're doing yourself a disservice. It's simplistic, but the game is surprisingly enjoyable.

The major difference? Minecraft is feature poor, but mostly bug free - people are willing to bet that additional features are coming, because past development has demonstrated that they are coming, and that they'll work well when they arrive.

It's not all kittens and plump helmets in the land of Minecraft; I've seen it get some bad FPS lag, MP is missing features and the website has been DDoSed over the past few days. From 4chan (so take it FWIW):

Minecraft is currently experiencing a stimulation provided by us.

It’s purpose is to send Notch a clear message of how the future of minecraft will turn out unless he gets to work, namely by influencing the amount of sales taking place, due to the attacks.

Start providing your customers with the updates that you promise them.

We have roughly 83,000 bots available, and preserved for this seizure, we could if we wanted to keep this going for weeks, however we have decided to give it a week, and see whether or not your attitude, and commitment will change, we believe it will when money stops rolling in for the time being…

Paid alpha versus free alpha? People are going to bitch, some with justification and some without. Bugs are no fun, especially considering I have a bunch of glass spikes and serrated disks in my glassmakers' queues. Heh. But... I think I'll make them both paid alphas--I've played DF more hours than all but a few games and it's worth rewarding.

[Rowanas]

I play DF an awful lot, because it's actually FUN. Sure, there are bugs and hidden errors that waste my poor little dwarves, but Minecraft may as well be a script that displays a blue screen and a poorly scrawled development ransom note:

Give us money or the development gets i t.

[petersohn]

As for good open source games, let's not forget the great old classic: Nethack and it's forks.

As for DF, it would be completely different if it were open source, so maybe we wouldn't like it anyway. A bit more bug fixing would be good though. The problem with that many new features is that in addition to not fixing old bugs, they introduce new ones.

[Leonidas]

Yeah, wouldn't it be great if Toady let us make our own weapons, our own monsters, and our own civs?  If he opened the game up that much, then we could all work together to make DF so much better.  I'm sure that we would all come together to make one unified improved version of the game, rather than splintering into a dozen tiny pet projects.

But wait.  I forgot.  Toady already did that.  We already can modify DF in all sorts of directions.  And we have a massive mod forum, with people doing all sorts of projects.

Some of those projects are really good.  Some may yet flourish.  Many will fail.  I think that the overall mod system has worked pretty well for DF.

But the overall mod system has definitely not unified.  It has most definitely splintered as each modder pursues his own vision of what would make the game better.  Some want bigger, tough monsters.  Most want more types of monsters.  Some want more metals, more reactions, and more plants.  Some want thematic total conversions.  Each is special and wonderful in the eyes of its creator.

We don't have to speculate about what might happen if DF went open source.  We can already see it.  Dozens of different programmer teams would go deeper into the code to pursue dozens of different fantasy visions.  If DF went open source, then within weeks you would have dozens of different DF versions, all incompatible with each other, each shot through with its own special bugs.

If the community hasn't unified around a partial mod, why would we expect it to unify around a total mod?  Open sourcing DF would kill it.

EDIT: And speaking of bugs, does .16 still have the bug where military dwarves with mining or woodcutting labors enabled tend to claim food and then leave it around the fortress to rot?

[Darkmere]

Yes, this is all what I was trying to say when I posted yesterday, and it wasn't intended as a thread derailment. The listed "counterexamples" (the useful ones that weren't vacuous thinly-veiled flaming) are still developed by a smaller core group. Check out the dev pages, every listed dev team is under 10 people, with a few more that come and go over time that still have their names stamped on the page as an honorary.

The long lists of contributors are all relatively minor, such as localizations or installer graphics, idea consultation, and what have you. There's no grand unified project that has dozens of people all working as a team to fix things, like proponents of open-sourcing DF think will happen. Those kinds of projects are run by software companies that have coders on payroll, because it's much easier to accomplish something when you can fire someone for not agreeing with you about how it should work.

Really, releasing the source for DF would lead to exactly the situation stated above, dozens or hundreds of different solutions, flavors, releases, tweaks, whatever... with none of them working together and diluting Today's established formula. We're left where we started, with Toady being the one that has to fix his bugs (or not, it's his creation).

[assimilateur]

Maybe because "he just doesn't want to" doesn't sound like a valid argument.

To be frank, I think that's a despicable thing to say and I won't argue with you further.

Way I'm looking at it, that guy just used poor wording. He is right that "he just doesn't want to" is no explanation, or more precisely, a tautology, since what someone wants is always the ultimate cause or reason for their actions, unless they're held at gunpoint.

As long as players are not given a proximate reasoning ("he doesn't want to because") for keeping this game closed-source, or if they are, they remain unconvinced by it, we will always have people asking why DF is closed-source and/or outright "lobbying" to get it made open-source*. Telling the askers to fuck off - though admittedly not in so many words - is largely inconsistent with the otherwise helpful and patient disposition of this community.


*Another solution would be to add a rule saying something along the lines of "asking for DF's source gets you banned".

Disable sound

1. How does one infinitely looped mp3 slow this game down? Or did I miss the addition of a sound engine to this game in the last couple of versions I haven't played?
2. Does anyone even play with DF's music on? I mean, Toady's guitar music is nice, but there is no song so great people can listen to it repeatedly for hours on end.

[Brian]

Toady, I assume you will never read this but just in case I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am a currently employed full time software engineer but that is not my life's goal. I am too working on a (completely dissimilar) game and your determination has been my greatest inspiration.  I am behind you and your method one hundred percent.

I hope that one day I'll bring as much fun to as many people as you have.

(I sincerely apologize for the yet more derailment, but sending this message is putting my motivation back into the game!)

[Nivim]

 Blhech. There's blood everywhere, and I think I swallowed some spray. Could people please quit stabbing each other with points? I came here looking for a list and an enlightened disscussion of the bugs and dodges, instead I found this.

 I was also fairly sure Toady had said more on the subject than a sentence or two. I doubt any of those who expect it have looked.

[Rowanas]

2. Does anyone even play with DF's music on? I mean, Toady's guitar music is nice, but there is no song so great people can listen to it repeatedly for hours on end.

Yes, because it reminds me of the guitar music of my father. He's not dead or anything, I just don't get to listen to it often.