[X3N0-Life-Form]

In other news, it looks like the game's source code has finally been released. Which means that we can start porting the game back up to standard FSO.

[niffiwan]

They added boost (or so it looks like), interesting

[MatthTheGeek]

In other news, it looks like the game's source code has finally been released. Which means that we can start porting the game back up to standard FSO.

Assuming there's anything salvageable in there, which seems a massive stretch. Remember they broke multiplayer and cross-platform compatibility.

[The E]

The flags and sexps should be reasonably easy to port.

And given that that's pretty much all that has changed (that has external consequences), well.....

[karajorma]

I'll take a look at the SEXPs this weekend and see what's usable.

EDIT : I should say that I'm not going to automatically make anything I add compatible with the WCS codebase. I'll only add in their SEXPs if I really believe that is the best way to implement them. If a re-release of Matth's WCS_Open is needed to make their SEXPs work, so be it.

[MatthTheGeek]

If a re-release of Matth's WCS_Open is needed to make their SEXPs work, so be it.

No disagreement here.

[karajorma]

Yeah, I figured you'd understand that the SEXPs should be useful to everyone, not just WCS_Open.

[Dragon]

Can't really go wrong with more SEXPs. Just make sure you're not duplicating existing functionality. There's a post of mine in WCS Open thread that details a bunch of WCS features already implemented in FSO under a different name and marginally different syntax.

[Mastadon]

Some questions:

• Who's leading the effort to port WCS to FSO?
• Have we stuffed the WCS codebase dump we received from the WCS team in a VCS repository? If so, what is the URL to this repository?
• Does anyone know at approximately what revision number (FSO's SVN repository) they decided to fork off from FSO and do their own thing? That sort of information would be very useful in starting a port.
• Can someone give me a short history on the nature of the division between WCS and FSO? Based on a WCS developer's comment, there appears to be some bad blood---perceived or actual---between the WCS community and the FSO community.
• Is anyone in the WCS development team interested in helping port their creation over to FSO?

[headdie]

Some questions:

• Who's leading the effort to port WCS to FSO?
• Have we stuffed the WCS codebase dump we received from the WCS team in a VCS repository? If so, what is the URL to this repository?
• Does anyone know at approximately what revision number (FSO's SVN repository) they decided to fork off from FSO and do their own thing? That sort of information would be very useful in starting a port.
• Can someone give me a short history on the nature of the division between WCS and FSO? Based on a WCS developer's comment, there appears to be some bad blood---perceived or actual---between the WCS community and the FSO community.
• Is anyone in the WCS development team interested in helping port their creation over to FSO?

1) my understanding is that there is no driven effort to bring WCS features to FSO but as time and interest is available then the useful bits will be implemented in SCP's style.

2) I will leave that to SCP

3) WCS are probably the only guys who can give a definitive answer on the when but I do believe it was in and around 3.6.9 for prologue, not sure if they used a newer build as the basis for DD

4) short version WCS needed certain features in the code that SCP were unwilling to commit at the time (I think retail comparability was involved there) as for the antagonism I think it just developed over time

5) possibly not as a "Team", as individuals, perhaps, though it must also be noted that several prominent HLP members were or are standing WCS team members

[Mastadon]

Thanks headdie. That's some useful information.

[niffiwan]

on point 2 - to the best of my knowledge the code hasn't been added to any VCS, it definitely hasn't been added to the official SCP repo.

As for point 4, the split occurred before I was a member here but I think headdie has pretty much nailed the issue that lead to the fork, i.e. the SCP was slow to commit WCS features, or was rejecting WCS coded features (with good reasons or unjustifiably?).  Additionally after the release (which I was around for) there was some negative feedback provided (valid or otherwise?) here about WCS:DD which further soured the already poor relations.  The reasonableness of all this is a point of debate, but it's one I don't want to get into as IMO it's past the point where anything constructive could come of it

If you want to port the WCS code over to FSO, I'd say go for it and don't worry about the history.  From my point of view, it'd be great to have Linux/OSX officially supported, and maybe even multi-player restored.  Those alone would be worth it   (although lightshafts/shadows/etc would also be supercool )

[karajorma]

Agreed. Multiplayer WCS would be kick-arse. Doesn't Matth's WCS_Open already have that ability? Is it simply the missing interface art which prevents it from working?

Does anyone know at approximately what revision number (FSO's SVN repository) they decided to fork off from FSO and do their own thing? That sort of information would be very useful in starting a port.

It was definitely after the prologue release. I remember being mildly annoyed that I kept having to recompile builds for BtRL while they could use the official release.

Can someone give me a short history on the nature of the division between WCS and FSO? Based on a WCS developer's comment, there appears to be some bad blood---perceived or actual---between the WCS community and the FSO community.

Basically WCS wanted features implemented which the SCP was unwilling to implement. Also at least a couple of times features were reimplemented in a way which broke WCS. I'm not going to claim either side was completely in the wrong cause there were quite a few times I completely agreed with the WCS team and was pretty spitting mad about the issues the SCP were causing them. Other times I thought it was WCS who were being unreasonable. In the end the WCS team decided to fork the code in order to have the feature set they wanted added without having to deal with the SCP. I tend to agree with niffiwan that it's rather silly to actually argue over the causes though. It's better to simply move on.

[FekLeyrTarg]

If I'm not mistaken, the fork is based on version 3.6.12. But I don't know the exact revision.

[Black Wolf]

Can someone give me a short history on the nature of the division between WCS and FSO? Based on a WCS developer's comment, there appears to be some bad blood---perceived or actual---between the WCS community and the FSO community.

Wow. I knew that the WCS guys had moved further and further away from HLP, but I didn't realize they were actively pissed at us (Doesn't take much searching to find more evidence either ). That attitude really doesn't seem warranted given that, let's be honest, fork or not, WCS wouldn't be a fraction of the game it is now if not for the work done by this community on FSO.

I guess the thing to do here is to take the best bits out of their codebase, then let MatthTheGeeks port and The_E's remix idea lead to a much better WC game that fixes all the problems with WCS, even without a "2 million budget". Good luck gents.

[MatthTheGeek]

Based on a WCS developer's comment

Hahahahaha

I didn't see this. He's out of arguments, he knows he's lost, but can't admit it, so he resorts to insults. Typical KK.

[karajorma]

Wow. I knew that the WCS guys had moved further and further away from HLP, but I didn't realize they were actively pissed at us (Doesn't take much searching to find more evidence either ). That attitude really doesn't seem warranted given that, let's be honest, fork or not, WCS wouldn't be a fraction of the game it is now if not for the work done by this community on FSO.

I wouldn't take KK's comments as representative of the WCS team. I'd need to hear the same thing coming from someone like Tolywn before I believed it was the team rather than one member of the team.

I didn't see this. He's out of arguments, he knows he's lost, but can't admit it, so he resorts to insults. Typical KK.

Well it's possible he's taken my comments on this thread as an insult to his coding so I'm going to reserve judgement until he responds to my last post on that thread.

Also I should point out that just because there is some animosity from from WCS to HLP doesn't mean we should sink to that level too. Especially when that would further the rift.

[niffiwan]

Have at thee! 

https://github.com/niffiwan/wcsaga

(let me know if anyone wants commit access)

FYI: this seems to indicate the fork was at 3.6.12 RC1

Code: [Select]

gcc -DPACKAGE_NAME=\"fs2_open\" -DPACKAGE_TARNAME=\"fs2_open\" -DPACKAGE_VERSION=\"3.6.12\ RC1\" -DPACKAGE_STRING=\"fs2_open\ 3.6.12\ RC1\" -DPACKAGE_BUGREPORT=\"\" -DPACKAGE_URL=\"\" -DNO_CD_CHECK=1 -DNDEBUG=1 -DSTDC_HEADERS=1 -DHAVE_SYS_TYPES_H=1 -DHAVE_SYS_STAT_H=1 -DHAVE_STDLIB_H=1 -DHAVE_STRING_H=1 -DHAVE_MEMORY_H=1 -DHAVE_STRINGS_H=1 -DHAVE_INTTYPES_H=1 -DHAVE_STDINT_H=1 -DHAVE_UNISTD_H=1 -DSCP_UNIX=1 -DNO_DIRECT3D=1 -DUSE_OPENAL=1 -I.    -m64 -march=athlon64 -ansi -pedantic -DLUA_USE_LINUX -g -Os -Wall -funroll-loops -I/usr/include/SDL -D_GNU_SOURCE=1 -D_REENTRANT     -fsigned-char -Wno-unknown-pragmas  -MT ltable.o -MD -MP -MF .deps/ltable.Tpo -c -o ltable.o ltable.c

And it doesn't compile in Linux yet (not that I've spent much time on this so far)

[MatthTheGeek]

Well it's possible he's taken my comments on this thread as an insult to his coding

As he should. Rape is not acceptable.

[The E]

Well it's possible he's taken my comments on this thread as an insult to his coding

As he should. Rape is not acceptable.

....

No, in this instance, your behaviour is not acceptable.