Episode: 1118
Title: HPR1118: My First Brush With FLOSS: Doom 
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1118/hpr1118.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 19:18:20

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This is Ork on DK and today on HPR I present my first brush with floss, Doom.
My first encounter with free software though I don't think I realised it at the time, was
not with Firefox or Linux, but with something quite different.
In 1994 it's software released the game Doom onto the world, dominating the PC gaming
scene so much that every first-person shooter, as we would call them now, were labeled
Doom clones.
I love the game in its sequel, along with several games which use the same engine
such as Heretic, Hexen and Strife.
I vividly remember playing the shareware version on my first PC, loving it despite the long
load times with it installed on our 100 Meg's Cypress take drive.
In 1997, after id software had produced their next generation engine for the game Quake,
the source code for Doom's engine was released, first under a not-for-profit license, then
later relicense under the GPL.
The code that was released was for the Linux version of the game, so the first project
was to port it back to DOS, and this was called unsurprisingly DOS Doom.
It was the first of many so-called source ports, which would take the code and port it to
other platforms such as the Amiga, BSD, all sorts of handheld machines, even cameras and
iPods.
The term source port stays even when it refers to a version for its traditional hardware,
albeit with support for higher resolutions looking up and down etc.
The Doom engine was already very modern friendly, with a massive fanbase, designing levels
for the game, but the source code release allowed much more to be done and improved.
Similar to the world of Linux distributions, the Doom community developed many different
approaches to adding to the original Doom code.
Boom and PR Boom concentrated on removing limitations from the engine, which were no longer
needed on modern hardware.
Others such as ZDAMON opened up the multiplayer code to work similar to Quake, letting players
jump in and out of a dedicated server.
Doom legacy and the Doom's day engine had all sorts of effects, such as dynamic and
coloured lighting, particle effects and support for 3D models to replace the sprite-based
enemies.
Heritage and Hexen, games which used Doom's engine, had their source code released, it
was merged into many of the Doom projects, not only rejuvenating the experience and playing
these games, but also allowing makers of Doom mods and maps access to the enhanced abilities
of in particular Hexen, which had a powerful scripting system.
While the source code for Doom was released, the art assets were not, which led to projects
by the community to create a free set of levels, graphics and sounds.
The Free Doom project contains complete replacement art assets and levels under a free license.
It is not complete yet, and they always need help with new graphics and sounds.
Not all source ports are under the GPL, due to the initial release of the code under
another license.
The Free Doom site recommends PR Boom, Odamex and Remood, as they are GPL, Multi-platform
and can handle unlimited level design.
Another popular GPL source port is Chocolate Doom, designed to be as close to vanilla Doom
as possible, while running on modern hardware.
Free Doom with PR Boom is available in the Ubuntu repositories, as is Chocolate Doom, but
if you want to play the original game, you'll need to provide the data file yourself, either
the full version or the shareware demo.
All you need is the main.ward file.
Chocolate Doom, Doom 2 and Final Doom are all available on Steam, but it would be great
if stores like the Ubuntu Software Center and Dezura could provide the what files.
It's software continue to release their old engines under the GPL, and even after being
acquired by Tenimax, they did the same with Doom 3.
Most of today's open source shooters like Nexus and Open Arena are based on the Cray
engines.
It is remarkable that games like Doom and Cray can still be enclaed, developed and
enjoyed 15 years on.
I have barely scratched the service here, so I recommend checking out Doomworld.com as
the main community site, and Doomwiki.org for more info.
I've been OrkundiK, please leave feedback on this episode by commenting on the HPR website
or go to OrkundiK.com for links to my social networks.
The music was by Taylor Pickle Hammer Pantella for the Free Doom project.
We'll be seeing you.
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