Open Source

[BFeely]

Unfortunately, the reason is the digital rights management built into the player and quest editor. All DRM technologies rely on a "secret handshake" and opening the source would make it easier to find.

[Zenphobia]

What digital rights would be compromised, exactly?

[Dart Zaidyer]

Let's put engine-related issues aside for a moment, and talk about the most important cog in the success of Open Source ZC... The fans.

Fact: Nintendo fans are a cowardly, superstitious lot with a penchant for laziness and in many cases, a lust for power over others. ZC is currently in a position where it can avoid most of that garbage, yet still, some have tried to foist it upon the project anyway.
The community isn't ready for it. As it stands, most people are convinced that Nintendo will crush you like a bug for even having a fan project at all. Truth is, though, they don't have to: It's the hosts, hosts' lawyers, and average joes who do it for them. In reality, Nintendo officially doesn't care as long as nobody's getting paid.
What happens when you take away the controlling satellite of a closed engine under one fairly benevolent and hard-to-bully roof at AGN? Nobody's going to know what to make of it, and a few will know they only want it for themselves or to be destroyed.
A prominent example is the Gaming Universe debacle: They were full of fan projects, one of which was Open Zelda. Open Zelda *was* Open Source and on it's way to being a decent engine for other uses, too. But before it could spread out much, some joker you might recognize as Daniel Barras got it killed by pretending to be Nintendo and having GU shut down (along with several other fan projects) just to cover his own ass.

It's not so much about the technical side as it is about the community side. And if you've been paying attention for the last six years, you'd understand too.

[Freedom]

jmho...
DN and Jman have been going great guns with Zelda Classic, I don't know why you would even want it open sourced.
What it needs worse than anything right now is dedicated beta testers.

[Squash]

Hi there, long-time lurker here, but this is important enough to warrent posting. I generally am more active in a community that edits the NES and SNES era originals than I am here, but what I have to say is relevant, as we face the same legal issues and the fears behind opening up a suspicious program for the first time (we've been around since the 90s and no, I've never seen an attempt at a virus).

I think all the concerns expressed in this thread are rather silly, and the advantages of open source have been barely touched upon.

I'll first describe how things would be diferent for the average user if ZC was open source, then cover (and refute) the concerns that've been expressed in this thread so far.

If ZC was open source, there'd be two types of modifications people could expect see. The first would be self-contained, designed to work with a single quest. These would be distributed in zips with quests, much like quest files are now. The only difference would be that you run the provided .exe instead of pointing your existing copy of ZC at the new quest.

The other type of modification would be a general modification, designed to help quest developers. These would work like a combination of what I just described and how resources like the tilesets some kind folk release -- someone would release a useful modified copy of the game, someone else would credit them and include that .exe with their quest.

The only downside of this is that it would be difficult to combine two code modifications without coding experience. This could be alleviated if someone were to make the code more modular (I'm assuming it isn't already, just to be safe), and, additionally, would only hamper the ability to use code modifications, not the ability to use the original ZC.

What type of modifications am I talking about? Well, the obvious starting point is in the small stuff. You could add whatever specialized enemy, boss, item, or tile combo you'd like with just a clear mind and some determination (actual coding experience works too, but you don't really need to know what you're doing -- I certainly didn't when I started). Bigger modifications would also be possible -- someone might edit the editor to be more Windows-friendly, or add a major function to the game. This type of work could even be integrated into the next true version of ZC, if the developers enjoyed it.

And now, concerns and refutations:

--People placing viruses in the source code
The developers can put the source in a license that requires all products made with it to be open source. This means whoever writes a version with a virus will be incapable of hiding said virus, as everyone can see their source code.
Additionally, as it is now, most people get their ZC quests from a few well-regulated central sites. These same sites can be trusted to ferret out versions -- the first person to download a viral quest would alert everyone else. A small chance of hitting a single random person is hardly a good payload for a virus maker -- you'd get better results emailing it to random people.
Concerns of viruses are far overblown -- if you're getting programs from a trustworthy website, there's virtually no risk of viruses from downloads. You're more likely to pick up viruses by just using Internet Explorer for normal browsing.
I'd like to re-iterate that in the community I'm a part of, we download and run eachother's programs all the time, many of them without even the assurance provided by open source, and we have never had a virus problem.

--Incompatable quests
Yes, quests will be incompatable with versions of ZC they're not designed for. Just run the quest with the vanilla ZC available on the main webpage or with the ZC that came with it, and you don't have anything to worry about.

--Theft
Yes, someone might try it. They might even fool a dozen people into thinking "Zelda Kwest" was entirely their creation. Then one of them would stumble on Zelda Quest's page, notice that it existed much longer, and start asking questions, and it'd all be over.
In that community I've mentioned, I've only seen people attempt to steal eachother's work twice, and both times were met almost immediately with the theif being caught, criticized, ostricized, and banned.

--Nintendo will eat you
Nintendo doesn't care about fan projects unless they use so much of Nintendo's content that people will use your fan project instead of Nintendo's product, or they try to make money off it.
Going open source isn't going to magically make you start trying to sell ZC, don't worry. And while going open source will accelerate the pace of development, it won't do so to such a point that people can start cloning the latest Zelda game so well that they're competing with Nintendo.
If you do somehow manage to get ZC so developed that it competes with the current Zelda game (that's Wind Waker or Twilight Princess at the moment, both far cries from ZC's late NES-era graphics), I'll buy you a pony.

--People pretending to be Nintendo will eat you
Yes, people pretending to be Nintendo will try to get you to stop, because people are jerks. Whether they do this or not has nothing to do with the project being open source, though, and it's very easy to protect yourself.
Say the developers get a threatening email from someone pretending to be Nintendo. The correct course of action is to ask for it in paper form (real word from Nintendo should come from snail-mail in the first place), as proof that this is the real Nintendo. This will deter most. If the harasser does go on to send the mail, and it's not from Nintendo of America's address, you can call Nintendo's legal department and tell them they're being impersonated. Nintendo will be quite a bit more concerned about stopping this than they will be about stopping your game. The devs are obviously smart, they probably already planned on doing soemthing this if it ever came up.


Thanks for listening. Now please, help support open source ZC!

[gdorf]

I don't see a reason. From what I hear the code is a little unorganized and certainly difficult to add on to. It wasn't written with open-source in mind. I'd much prefer leave it in the hands of people who have earned the right to add on to it.

Also, the idea of fragmentation is very real with ZC. Different groups of people would love to take control of the source. I can only imagine a ZC-AGN, ZC-PZC. and ZC-ZCN. We have enough versions as it is. I quit using ZC when my quest from 1.90 no longer worked in the new versions.

I do like the idea of seeing the code someday though, even if I wouldn't have an idea of what to do with it.

[Freedom]

I'm just curious.
Why is it that it seems to be people that haven't really done anything with Zelda Classic are the ones that come in and start threads wanting it to go open source.
The two in this thread, one has 1 post and the other has 11.
I just seems funny that people that really haven't shown that they even know what it can do are the ones that want to get their fingers in there and "make it better"

Maybe it's just the way I'm looking at it?

I don't know, I just like to build quests, and I trust DN and Jman will make the right choices regarding ZC and it's future, they've been doing pretty good so far.

[Shoelace]

I say it is up to the devolpers. Now me, I am a quest builder too, so I am not that excited for an open source if the program is already there for me to play. However, there are some programmers out there that would be wonders to make the program fit their games.

I say I want it to be left the way it is, only chosen programers can make ZC, however, you never know in the future. Also welcome to the site guys, and please enjoy posting.

[Zenphobia]

I'm just curious.
Why is it that it seems to be people that haven't really done anything with Zelda Classic are the ones that come in and start threads wanting it to go open source.
The two in this thread, one has 1 post and the other has 11.
I just seems funny that people that really haven't shown that they even know what it can do are the ones that want to get their fingers in there and "make it better"

Just because I haven't posted here a lot doesn't mean I haven't worked with the program and know its strengths, its weaknesses, and at least an idea of its potential. If that makes my opinion less valid, well, I suppose that's fair. But, let me re-emphasize one thing before I go on:

I love Zelda Classic and have a great amount of respect for the developers and testers. They have created a phenominal program, which is a selfless service to the Zelda community. My respect and admiration will not diminish because they choose not to share their work.

However, I think we can all agree that ZC has only begun to tap the vast amount of potential that lies within both the Zelda games and the Zelda community. Open sourcing would just allow extra creative minds to tinker with it.

[Freedom]

Reading back over my response, it sounds a little rude, for that I apologize.
It was really meant to be a question, which you didn't answer.