Battlefield 1942 open-source ?

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yanapa
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu May 06, 2010 8:13 pm

Battlefield 1942 open-source ?

Post by yanapa »

Hi,

I'm the developer of BGA, a replacement tool for WinRFA.
I found that the RFA archive format is using the LZO compression/decompression algorithm to compress data into the archive.

After some research, you can find that LZO is an open-source library licenced under the GPL, for more information you can read it there:
http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/lzodoc.php

One point is really important in the GPL, if a binary executable is linked with a GPL library then this binary and its sources must be licenced under the GPL.

Technically, "bf1942.exe", "battlecraft.exe" and "DedicatedServer.exe" are able to decompress any valid RFA.

That's why legally, DICE, the original developper, should distribute the sources of these binaries for free.

NB: If someone from DICE read this, don't be afraid to share your work, BF1942 is a very old game now, a lot of developpers did the same before, for other game engine like the one from Doom or Quake series, even Duke Nukem 3D and Homeworld became open source, and if you take a look on these forked projects now, you will see that they gave us a way to increase compatibility (linux, opengl), gameplay (Mouse aiming in Duke3d or Doom) or rendering (Ambient occlusion in Doosmday project).

NB: Battlefield 1942 game data ressources (*.con, *.wav, *.tga, *.sm, *.rs, etc.) are still copyrighted DICE and are not concerned by the GPL.
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