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• Loki CVS, FAQ hosted at icculus.org (posted 2002-01-25 07:55:43 by icculus):
  

  Before I get to the important stuff, I want to talk for a moment about Loki's demise.

  As some of you know, I used to work for Loki. I had my hands in a lot of projects, but was most well-known for my work on Descent3. I've not left the Linux gaming industry; I'm currently working on a few quieter game-porting projects, and the Linux port of Croteam's Serious Sam.

  I left Loki last year for reasons I won't get into here. Feel free to speculate. People love dirty, soap-opera style scandals, which is why people watch Reality TV and fall over themselves to submit news to fuckedcompany.com.

  It is sad for the Linux community that Loki is going under, for whatever reason. Again, feel free to speculate as to why this is happening. Most of the speculation I saw on Slashdot's posting was just downright incorrect. Some of it was naive. Much of it just expressed devastation. The rest seemed to ask, "What can we do to help?"

  Well, I'm glad you asked.

  1. Don't pirate software. Yes, there is truth to James Sellman's statement. Lots of Linux users want everything for free, and lots of Linux users are filthy pirates when they can't just get software for free. GNU and Linux were never excuses to leech everything. That was never Stallman's point. I should also say, "Don't pirate ANY software, Linux or Windows, or whatever." Realize that every dime you take from Microsoft through piracy is NOTHING in comparison to the hurt that you put on Loki when you burned an ISO.
  2. Support the rest of Linux gaming. There are still commercial companies and indie game shops supporting Linux that need your support. A brief, incomplete list is BlackHoleSun, IllWinter, Linux Game Publishing, iD, Epic, BioWare, Philos Laboratories, Mountain King Studios, Introversion, and PomPom. Do not let these guys down.
  3. Don't buy Windows games. I hear how people can't justify paying full price for an "old game" that Loki ported while they can't stop themselves from running out and buying Quake3 the second it is released at full price for Windows. Dear lord, people. I know that I'm part of this insane industry, but they ARE just games. You can wait for them, and more importantly, you can do without if you really really have to. You need to tell the companies writing the software that you want that you don't want it unless it runs on Linux. The ultimate way to voice your opinion is to vote with your wallet. The sad truth is that this means sacrifice. You aren't going to get Warcraft 3 on Linux, which means that you should never BUY Warcraft 3, even though it will no doubt be a great game.
  4. Pay it forward. If you work at a game company, and like Linux, do the port. It's easier to get forgiveness than permission, and if there's a completely ported game, then there's a possibility that there could be at least unsupported binaries released. If you OWN a game company, I've got a huge pile of extremely qualified developers that will work, under NDA and for mere pennies if not free, to get these games running natively under Linux. I am doing that very thing with Serious Sam (we can learn a lot from Croteam's example, here). If you are an aspiring game coder or artist, work under and release for Linux. If you are looking for a project to help out on, jump onto one of the many open source games, some of which are even hosted here. Help develop the tools and libraries that make these games go. Do not be afraid to strike out and try something, even if it's off the wall. If you are a casual gamer, get in there and report bugs, make suggestions, help improve the quality of everyone's gaming experience.
  5. Stop whining. Loki is going away, and contrary to the image I've painted, it's really not entirely you're fault as a Linux user. There's no denying that Loki made some bad mistakes, and ultimately, Loki might be responsible for her own death. The important thing is this: there were some truly wonderful things that came out of those offices on El Camino Real. Loki's end is not, however, Linux's death knell. The games won't be available from them anymore, but this was never Loki's biggest contribution. As Scott said in his final interview, the goal with all this game porting was to get the tools in place. And in place they are. Which brings us to why I'm saying all this in the first place.

  I'm pleased to announce that icculus.org has taken on the weight of hosting much of Loki's open source contributions. We have made available the CVS repositories for much of Loki's projects. Among these are OpenAL, SMPEG, SMJPEG, Loki's Installing and Updating tools, Loki's QAgent, and the Loki's FAQ web interface.

  Bear with us as we handle this transition. Some parts are going to click more easily than others. For example, many of these projects now need maintainers. Those interested in taking the helm should contact me, as I will be handling patches and such in the interim.

  The CVS repository can be accessed as such:

  cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@icculus.org:/cvs/cvsroot login
  (the password is "anonymous" without the quotes.)
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@icculus.org:/cvs/cvsroot co module
  

  module is one of the following:

  • openal : OpenAL
  • smpeg : SMPEG
  • smjpeg : SMJPEG
  • loki_setup : Loki Setup (installer program)
  • loki_setupdb : Loki Setup Database (needed with loki_setup)
  • loki_patch : Loki Patch tool (developers can generate patches)
  • loki_update : Loki Update tool (end users can apply those patches)
  • loki_faq : Loki FAQ engine (the PHP that runs faqs.lokigames.com)
  • loki_qagent : Loki QAgent (experimental code for helping QA teams diagnose user problems)

  For those asking, "Where's SDL?": Simple Directmedia Layer has been hosted away from Loki's servers since Sam left his position at Loki. You can find this library at libsdl.org.

  We have opted not to host the code to Fenris, since it was a codefork of Bugzilla, and is long out of date. You should use Bugzilla instead.

  We have also started work on integrating the content of faqs.lokigames.com with our own Linux Gamers FAQ, in hopes of producing one unified document. This is still work in progress, as we are deciding the best approach to this, so check back regularly.

  At this time, we don't have the mailing list and newsgroup archives available, but we're looking at our options for this. If someone else plans on tackling this, please let me know so work isn't duplicated.

  Still, mailing lists are important for ongoing development, so we have set some up. To subscribe to one, send a blank email to:

  • openal-subscribe@icculus.org
  • smpeg-subscribe@icculus.org
  • smjpeg-subscribe@icculus.org
  • lokisetup-subscribe@icculus.org (this covers the patch and update tools, too)
  • lokiqagent-subscribe@icculus.org

  While I'm advertising, please feel free to visit other projects and parts of icculus.org, maybe request an account here, or make a donation to help cover my bandwidth costs.

  You can even just enable the icculus.org Slashbox on your Slashdot account (yes, we've got one).

  Of course, everyone should feel free to contact me with any questions.

  So, Loki may be dead, but her mission continues. We have the tools; let's make it happen.

  
  --icculus.

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