Doomserv- your opinions.

[Jon]

Ok I have heard from a dude on IRC (sorry, thats my best source) that doomserv is shareware, or at least the server is, or something. Could the doomserv guys tell me if this is the case? thankyou.

The reason for my message is I wish to voice my disapproval of this, if it is indeed the case. The doom source was released by carmack under the GPL (eventually) and as a result everything the doom community has now is due to the GPL. I think we should abide by the spirit of the GPL. The doom community is damn small isn't it, and making people pay for a service such as this simply stunts its growth.

What are your opinions?

[Afterglow]

Having to pay for a server would be stupid... what should be done is a new irc prog or a plugin for an existing one which would have menus to setup a doom, quake, etc game.. I think there's a quake-only type program already out. SMMUSERV will rock you down.

[Jon]

yes- I think dedicated servers wouldn't work because there aren't enough people in the doom community anyway, so it is the right way to go, but charging for it isn't.

[Guest hate]

i and many other people like myself are also disgusted by the way the author of doomserv refuses to release his sources and is trying to charge money for the server. doomserv adds little to internet doom as a whole, and "TGO", the author, is merely trying to exploit the hard work that has been done by people such as Randy Heit(the author of zdoom) and the authors of other popular doom ports. Our investigations have revealed that both the doomserv client and server are badly written and there are many security holes.

To this end, unless doomserv is made GPL, we shall be developing our own GPL'ed version of the doomserv server which we will distribute for free.

[bitstate]

Afterglow said:

Having to pay for a server would be stupid... what should be done is a new irc prog or a plugin for an existing one which would have menus to setup a doom, quake, etc game.. I think there's a quake-only type program already out. SMMUSERV will rock you down.

It would be possible to code up a script in mirc to do it. Maybe I should try it as soon as my school work is done :o)

[Guest TGO]

Well looks like some people were mis-informed..

When I first wrote ZM, I had stated that it would remain FREE. This has not changed at all. Even after the name change to DoomServ over a year ago.

DoomServ is a hobby for me and is something I enjoy. Not for a profit on internet play with a good game like Doom.

The only application that I charge for is the LAN version of the server. (which has been put on hold until the new server is written)

If anyone would like to direct any responses to me personally then feel free to do so. Instead of listening to rumors that some people think are funny and want to get someone riled up come ask me directly. I will allways respond with an honest answer.

[Guest hate]

yes, yes, you're not telling us nothing we havent already heard. If it is a hobby then why are you charging for the even server? By refusing to release your sources and charging for the server, you are helping to restrict what doomserv might have the ability to grow to. In any case, the fact that you tried to write a server in visual basic shows that you have little clue with regard to programming. Best leave it to people who know what they're doing and let us develop our server. If we finish it then it should undermine any chance of you making a profit from this thing anyway.

[Jon]

Hmm what games will this alternative support?

[cph]

hate said:

yes, yes, you're not telling us nothing we havent already heard. If it is a hobby then why are you charging for the even server? By refusing to release your sources and charging for the server, you are helping to restrict what doomserv might have the ability to grow to. In any case, the fact that you tried to write a server in visual basic shows that you have little clue with regard to programming. Best leave it to people who know what they're doing and let us develop our server. If we finish it then it should undermine any chance of you making a profit from this thing anyway.

It's morons like you that give open source software a bad name. If you had a clue what it was all about, you would know that it's not the charging but the freedom that's important.Yes, it's a pity that Doomserv is proprietary (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware), and the arbitrary restrictions on its use are pathetic. But "hax0r"ing doomserv is far worse than the status quo. Perhaps you'll reflect on this and take your misguided zealotism someplace else. We want a free replacement, not a war.

[aurikan]

actually, cph i do agree that hacking doomserv only because it is closed source is wrong -- that's license racism.

however, every program should be subject to some sort of review to prove that it is effective, secure, and does what it advertises. especially ones that run executables on command from a remote server as root. people don't often hack open source programs because it's not called hacking when they review it. in order to review this possibly dangerous program, one must 'hack' - if for the good of DoomServ users and the Doom community at large, though they may not want to believe it.

a further point would be what about someone doing this for fun, totally unrelated to open source software and the GPL? who are we to assume their motivations? perhaps they are only hacking DoomServ specifically to thumb their nose at TGO's threats of consequences, or for revenge for an injustice far in the past.

what then?

[cph]

aurikan said:

however, every program should be subject to some sort of review to prove that it is effective, secure, and does what it advertises. especially ones that run executables on command from a remote serve

There seems no doubt that doomserv is badly insecure and unreliable, and I agree that making users aware of this is a Good Thing. But that hardly justifies some of their other actions, such as trying to divert blame onto Fiffy, or their license blackmail in the post further down.

[Guest TGO]

hate said:

yes, yes, you're not telling us nothing we havent already heard. If it is a hobby then why are you charging for the even server? By refusing to release your sources and charging for the server, you are helping to restrict what doomserv might have the ability to grow to. In any case, the fact that you tried to write a server in visual basic shows that you have little clue with regard to programming. Best leave it to people who know what they're doing and let us develop our server. If we finish it then it should undermine any chance of you making a profit from this thing anyway.

Apparently writing DS in VB isnt too bad of an Idea.. Its been around for almost 2 years.. granted there are problems with the current server but Im working on getting those issues resloved.

As far as me selling the server so you can connect to it, Im afraid your missing it.. you can connect to the server all you want. If I choose to sell a seperate server that is specifically for LAN users than so be it. Its my descision. Im keeping with my original statement on the main server that everyone connects to on the net is free and nothing has ever been said otherwise.

If you think that you can write a server and client better than DS then by all means do so.. Id even help you test it or be a user on it.. Im not taking from the Doom comunity or the fact that Doom is now an open source.

But when you get down to it, people hacking DS and making it hard for others to enjoy it or doom (zdoom in this case) are the ones taking from the comunity making it so that others, either first timers or veterans, arent enjoying themselves.

[Guest TGO]

aurikan said:

actually, cph i do agree that hacking doomserv only because it is closed source is wrong -- that's license racism.

however, every program should be subject to some sort of review to prove that it is effective, secure, and does what it advertises. especially ones that run executables on command from a remote server as root. people don't often hack open source programs because it's not called hacking when they review it. in order to review this possibly dangerous program, one must 'hack' - if for the good of DoomServ users and the Doom community at large, though they may not want to believe it.

a further point would be what about someone doing this for fun, totally unrelated to open source software and the GPL? who are we to assume their motivations? perhaps they are only hacking DoomServ specifically to thumb their nose at TGO's threats of consequences, or for revenge for an injustice far in the past.

what then?

We can argue this till we are blue in the knuckels the end result is:


I still dont agree to hacking someone elses work even if it has something to do with or related to another open source program. I believe that if the person wrote something then its thier right to say weather or not someone may hack or tear apart thier program or not.

As far as my threats of consequences, well you can take it how you will. If a user gets on DS by way of a hacked DS to gain moderator privilages or flooding so that others are unable to do anything or deliberatly crashing the server then I will take action. Why allow someone to ruin the fun of others because they are being childish.

Its people like that, that make it hard for others to enjoy themselves..

[cph]

Yes, it's up to the author whether they release code. But it would be nice to contribute it to the community.
To the point about hacked clients, it's poor design if any aspect of the system relies on untampered clients. Kicks/exclusions/moderation should all be controlled by the server. The fact that DS does not permit 3rd party clients, to people like me, suggests you have no faith in its security.

[Toke]

hate said:

yes, yes, you're not telling us nothing we havent already heard. If it is a hobby then why are you charging for the even server? By refusing to release your sources and charging for the server, you are helping to restrict what doomserv might have the ability to grow to. In any case, the fact that you tried to write a server in visual basic shows that you have little clue with regard to programming. Best leave it to people who know what they're doing and let us develop our server. If we finish it then it should undermine any chance of you making a profit from this thing anyway.

Shut up faggot

Why cant all people by as nice as tgo?

[Toke]

TGO said:

BTW i found the hacker

[aurikan]

and who would that be?

[Toke]

Dont worry about it, i still have to do alot of work to prove it. But i know who it is.

[Guest fod vile]

hate said:

yes, yes, you're not telling us nothing we havent already heard. If it is a hobby then why are you charging for the even server? By refusing to release your sources and charging for the server, you are helping to restrict what doomserv might have the ability to grow to. In any case, the fact that you tried to write a server in visual basic shows that you have little clue with regard to programming. Best leave it to people who know what they're doing and let us develop our server. If we finish it then it should undermine any chance of you making a profit from this thing anyway.

can u actually read ? TGO quite clearly stated doomserv was free thats "free" u moron "gratis" "de nada" "ziltch" "nothing" "0 bucks" but i do see your point , you are TRYING to develop a server and are miffed that TGO HAS developed a server.I can see you sat in a corner sucking your thumb saying "ya boo sux"

[Guest fod vile]

hate said:

charge money for the server. doomserv adds little to internet doom as a whole

I have used doomserv for 12 months and had hours of fun playing doom against others, to say it has added little to internet doom is talkin rubbish. It's sad people in doomroom who sit there all night talkin about how good a player they are (hah u all suck and i can say that as a real deathmatch doomer who ran the uk's largest doom bbs for 4 years) those who can DO , those who can't TEACH (or at least think they are teaching by airing their worthless opinions on how to play in doomroom

[stphrz]

cph said:

There seems no doubt that doomserv is badly insecure and unreliable, and I agree that making users aware of this is a Good Thing. But that hardly justifies some of their other actions, such as trying to divert blame onto Fiffy, or their license blackmail in the post further down.

<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=1>quote:<HR>There seems no doubt that doomserv is badly insecure and unreliable, and I agree that making users aware of this is a Good Thing. But that hardly justifies some of their other actions, such as trying to divert blame onto Fiffy, or their license blackmail in the post further down. <HR>[/quote]

cph: I totally agree with you there. Trying to blame Fiffy for this was just really low.

[aurikan]

fod vile said:

I have used doomserv for 12 months and had hours of fun playing doom against others, to say it has added little to internet doom is talkin rubbish. It's sad people in doomroom who sit there all night talkin about how good a player they are (hah u all suck and i can say that as a real deathmatch doomer who ran the uk's largest doom bbs for 4 years) those who can DO , those who can't TEACH (or at least think they are teaching by airing their worthless opinions on how to play in doomroom

If you're the same Fod I played ages and ages ago (under the ZDoom name of Run_Its_Fod or something) I'd just like to set the record straight that I won that match

[Guest fod vile]

Aurikan't your STILL lyin ya ass off? c'mon guy get a grip

[locust]

I really hear you on this one. I'm all for the free software approach.

Almost all of the software floating around in this community falls under one of two categories:

(a) It may or may not be open source; regardless, the author has left the community and the software is effectively abandonware.

(b) The software is free (free as in speech, not as in beer)

The only examples I can think of otherwise are DeePSea and Doomserv. Now my question on those two is; why close the source?

DeePSea has an obvious motive - profit. But Doomserv is 'non-profit' and hence I can't see any reason for TGO to keep the source closed - or, for that matter, to prohibit third party clients (which for a start practically excludes everyone who isn't running Win32). The Doom community doesn't even show a tendency towards source forks; aside from the initial rush on the source, the only source forks I recall are cheap and rushed hacks to bring DEU up to speed with DooM II, add ZDoom support to TCount/DETH/whatever else, etc...

Making source open, and protocols open, allows others to either support original efforts or build on them themselves. Both are arguably good for the community.

And what happens when somebody leaves the community? If TGO was hit by a bus tomorrow, odds are Doomserv would die - it's not possible for anyone else to run a server, or to improve the client. Taking DCK as an example: wouldn't it be nice to fix that texture bug? Heck, if we had the source, porting it to DJGPP would be simple, compiling with a newer version of the Borland 32bit runtime even easier - not being able to run it in a DOS box would be nothing but an unpleasant and very, very distant memory.

To anybody working on software for the Doom community and keeping the source closed: I urge you to consider.

[aurikan]

Interestingly enough, under the DMCA it is legal to reverse engineer the security measures in order to create an interoperable client on an otherwise unsupported operating system.

That means, forbidden or not, if I were to claim I was writing a linux port of the DoomServ client, it would be entirely legal.

Search for DMCA on slashdot for more info.