Transfusion: a new beginning.

General discussion relating to the Transfusion project.

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zZaRDoZz
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Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by zZaRDoZz »

Greetings friends and fellow blood fans.


Roughly 10 years ago Transfusion was started in order to solve a dilemma; the computer hardware of the time was increasingly less able to run the DOS based game Blood and it was hoped that porting this Monolith title to a true, open source, 3D engine would resolve this issue.
The project was eventually given a quit-claim license by Infogrames in order to accomplish this lofty goal. Several years of work and hope went into making the Darkplaces TC a reality but time, real life and frustration eventually took their toll on several team members. Work on Tfn eventually halted. I believe it’s time to consider a new direction for Transfusion to accomplish its original goal. At the time of this posting there are nearly a dozen projects attempting to recreate blood game play. A few of these show great promise, and achieving Transfusion’s original mandate is at hand through the dedicated work of others. Most of these TCs, xenobloods as Chris termed them, will be in violation of Blood’s end user agreement.

So on one hand we have the legal means to continue Blood’s existence in the world of gaming, while on the other hand(s) we have the actual software that can allow that to happen. This is a stupid position for the Blood community to be in folks.

That being the case, I’d like to reevaluate, perhaps flesh out a proposal I made nearly a year ago. Would it not serve us all as gamers to have “transfusion” re-purposed for the good of Blood? Why not make Transfusion an umbrella group, something anyone could join. Here’s one possible scenario:
A thread within this forum would be created with the purpose of allowing modders to join the Transfusion group. They would have their personal and project names added to the developers list. They would be able to use any engine they wished to create a blood adaption of what ever quality they could manage. Within the directory of a hypothetical project’s TC would be a copy of the quit-claim along with a link to the developers list here at the transfusion web site. At least that’s one way of implementing an open group transfusion project. Perhaps someone else might come up with a easier way to make the quit-claim license open.

Well, what do you think? Would the quit-claim have to be reworded by Infragrames? Is there an easier way then the xenobloods to make Blood an easier game to play/ mod?

zZaRDoZz awaits your thoughts and criticisms.
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zZaRDoZz
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by zZaRDoZz »

=\ hmmmmm....

I understand that lump-in-the-throat feeling some of you might be experiencing because of my first post. Some of you or the close friends of some of you spent 100's, possibly 1000's of hours into Transfusion, struggling with all the skill and devotion you could muster into making Tfn a worthy successor to Blood. I can only ask you to try to remember why you made those sacrifices. Transfusion, unlike the retail versions of Blood1 and Blood2, was to be fully modifiable.
Ask yourselves this question: Does the blood community still deserve a fully modifiable game?

The rest of Blood fandom has been forced to move on to other prospects. Some of them didn't want to, they saw no other reasonable alternative. Transfusion can still be a wonderful gift to gamers everywhere. Tfn can bestow the gift of legality. Now if I'm wrong and a Quit-claim license cannot be opened up in such a way, so be it. Still we are obligated to those who are about to release their first attempts at blood recreation to at least discuss the issue.

-Z
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by zZaRDoZz »

I understand I may have hit a nerve with this. I hope at least this thread made some of you think about the future. Blood fans deserve a legally modifiable game.





-Z
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by zZaRDoZz »

Why Transfusion matters.

Here's the link to the DW thread.
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/source-port ... doom-port/


I'm copy/pasting an entire OP from Doomworld to insure everyone knows just how critical Tfn's quit-claim license is.

Fraggle at Doomworld said:
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Registered: 07-00

A few months ago a Javascript source port appeared that allowed you to run Doom in your browser. There's a blog post about it here with a video:

http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/06/doom-on-the-web/

However, the port was later taken down as a result of a DMCA request by the Zenimax General Counsel:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Legal/Infr...ces/3_June_2011

Quote "The link below offers an unauthorized derivation or version of Id Software’s DOOM game".

I thought perhaps the source port had the full registered IWAD up for download (which would be a good reason to issue a takedown), but from the title screen in the video it looks like it was definitely the shareware IWAD.

This is obviously a rather disturbing matter for source port authors. There have never been any restrictions in the past on distribution of the shareware IWAD (as far as I know), nor any restrictions on source ports (which would be a more serious matter).
Now to be perfectly clear, it was the shareware version of doom that the porter used for this work. It's entirely possible that Zenimax lawyers don't even know what a shareware license is. Still, if this holds, it could be the beginning of a wave of these desist orders going out. Bloodites need to stand together for once, just once in this bloody games existence.

Some of the xenoBloods will be using hasher programs I know. My whole point with this thread is to say they shouldn't have to.

EDIT: added link to DW thread.
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by Tchernobog »

Okay, now that is a disturbing link zZaRDoZz. Though as far as I am aware what Zenimax did has no real legal basis and was probably done even without the knowledge of id, and was probably the result of an over active legal department. I think whoever involved should have actually contacted someone at id (they are not difficult to reach) and got some clarification on the situation. I am sure they would be upset, based on their company history and the fact they were one of the pioneers of shareware. Still, this why projects such as Freedoom, OpenArena, and OpenQuartz exist; to make sure distribution in this way is fully legal, even though shareware is fully redistributable.

As to your original post zZaRDoZz, I have read both of them and have thought about them a bit, but I decided not to comment on them until someone who has actually been involved in the project has made a comment. As an outsider and a still relatively new face in the community, I did not feel that I should make comments on how the project should move forward, at least not until some of the people who have been involved have.
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by zZaRDoZz »

Tchernobog said:
Okay, now that is a disturbing link zZaRDoZz. Though as far as I am aware what Zenimax did has no real legal basis and was probably done even without the knowledge of id, and was probably the result of an over active legal department. I think whoever involved should have actually contacted someone at id (they are not difficult to reach) and got some clarification on the situation. I am sure they would be upset, based on their company history and the fact they were one of the pioneers of shareware. Still, this why projects such as Freedoom, OpenArena, and OpenQuartz exist; to make sure distribution in this way is fully legal, even though shareware is fully redistributable.
Zenimax has yet to formalize their decision. Most folks at Doomworld consider this an over reaction by some noob lawyer that can't distinguish between freeware, shareware, and closed licenses. Still, considering the nature of DMCA, it's better to be safe than sorry. Right now the Doom community is firing off emails left and right. Apparently some Doom ports actually incorporate shareware Doom.WAD within their directories, hence all the fretting in said community. I can see where those worried are coming from though- should we expect some kind of move by game production companies to tighten the reins on various licenses? It would be in line with a lot of what we're seeing in several cases of copyright craze sweeping the world.

Tchenrobog:
As to your original post zZaRDoZz, I have read both of them and have thought about them a bit, but I decided not to comment on them until someone who has actually been involved in the project has made a comment. As an outsider and a still relatively new face in the community, I did not feel that I should make comments on how the project should move forward, at least not until some of the people who have been involved have.
That's okay Tcherny. I need to relinquish my soap box as i think I've made my point. I'm not here to hurt feelings, i just hope those involved can see that Tfn actually needs to expand on the definition of what it is. Shrinking, fading away is not an option. We have no released source, so if the community has a legal recourse it can use it needs to do so. Times are changing and the salad days of "no-one-cares-about-that-old-license" are at an end. In a world where every little agreement is seen as a possible revenue source, bloodites (and other gamers) need to close ranks.
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by Elric »

zZaRDoZz wrote:I understand I may have hit a nerve with this.
I don't think so.
Not any of my nerves anyway. :)
zZaRDoZz wrote:Now if I'm wrong and a Quit-claim license cannot be opened up in such a way, so be it.
I do think so.
I would be surprised if the agreement we have cover anything more than our little own project formerly called qBlood (now Transfusion 1.x). And I doubt anyone would want to pay the legal fees to find out in case the owner of the Blood trademark (whoever this is now) comes knocking on our door.
zZaRDoZz wrote:Shrinking, fading away is not an option.
True.
It's a reality. :P
zZaRDoZz wrote:We have no released source, so if the community has a legal recourse it can use it needs to do so.
False.
But what we released isn't used by and/or useful to anyone out there apparently. And again, I doubt our legal agreement would cover a derivative game.
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by I Live...AGAIN »

I appreciate the thought you put into this zZaRDoZz. However, I think it would be a dangerous path to allow an open umbrella-type group where anyone could have access to TF's resources.

I understand the hope of trying to get the project to do something but I'm not sure that is the way to go. I'm no lawyer (because most of them are a-holes) but if just anyone were to pop in here and use something in an illegal way because we gave them some type of permission to use it, I wouldn't want to be responsible for that.
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Re: Transfusion: a new beginning.

Post by zZaRDoZz »

Erlic said:
I do think so.
I would be surprised if the agreement we have cover anything more than our little own project formerly called qBlood (now Transfusion 1.x). And I doubt anyone would want to pay the legal fees to find out in case the owner of the Blood trademark (whoever this is now) comes knocking on our door.

ILA said:
I understand the hope of trying to get the project to do something but I'm not sure that is the way to go. I'm no lawyer (because most of them are a-holes) but if just anyone were to pop in here and use something in an illegal way because we gave them some type of permission to use it, I wouldn't want to be responsible for that.
I still don't know what the limitations are on a quit-claim or if there are limits stated within the wording of Tfn' particular license. Until I find out it's a little like arguing how square the world is. I kinda pictured a clause somewhere in the agreement a person or people would have to sign stating the signer retroactively loses the license protections the instant they release a product that the quit claim doesn't cover. Lets say, hypothetically, they decompiled blood's exe. or something in order to get certain values. There's no way for even an open license that clearly states: this group has our permission to reuse textures/sounds,
to be interpreted as granting permission to do that. Tfn members wouldn't have to police anything if the person joining transfusion had to sign something first. Again, I'll keep researching it. Until then, I'm pulling things out of my... hat. :lol:
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