Copyright theft insurance

[Elianto]

Also I think that an open source version could give many benefits to AGS since I see that many guys here have great ability and could give faster improvement but I also think that CJ can do the work like he's already doing satisfying every need of game creators if anyone gives him the right time to work on this (since He's doing all for free!!)
In the end I can understand that after all his efforts he doesn't want to risk to ruin all and he likes to keep his work his own...

[Radiant]

I think that's exactly what the extensive plugin system is for.
If CJ were to make AGS open-source, he'd have to spend a lot of time either commenting it to make it more user-friendly, or being swamped by e-mails from people who don't understand his code.
Why would you want to accelerate the graphics, AGS runs at 60+ fps here and I'm on a 350 MHz box... also JPEG graphics compression isn't lossless (a simple huffman algorithm would be better). I think that if CJ doesn't want to implement some feature (e.g. SetCharacterName) he has a good reason for it and it would only overly complicate AGS if other people would implement it in his place. Plus you would get several branching versions that aren't necessarily stable or compatible with one another (look at the raging Red Hat vs SUSE debate, for instance)

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

My, this thread is getting long. What I find funny about it is, most people are kinda repeating themselves, which is not surprising since there are really only two opinions - yes/no, and why. And even the reasons why are being repeated.

It's funny how these things come up - the same with that 2.5D or 3D engine thread... they keep coming up, and people keep forgetting what AGS is all about - old-style adventure games. And if people want more, they have plugins. Really, what more could we want? Especially with the core engine being as wonderful as it is (and keeps getting better. Try and talk about source code IF CJ ever abandons AGS, 'cause THEN we'll need it. Until then...).

EDIT - See? I'm repeating what's been said, too!

[Privateer Puddin']

Personally I would have a go at adding hardware accelerated graphics support (optional of course)

I think Chris said at Brittens he had a go, and it didn't make too much of a benefit, unless that was something else ._.

[Joseph DiPerla]

Well, has anyone who wrote the plugins ever thought about giving the source code to CJ to implement into the engine? I find lots of those codes usefull becouse I would use the flashlight plugin in my games and even the math plugins.

And you can say why not just leave it alone and use the plugins? Well, becouse I develop and use Linux as well. I have a duel boot. At Work I only use linux. The linux version doesn't support plugins.

Rather than making it source, just give CJ the source to your plugins, maybe he can use it.

[Kweepa]

To put the functionality of the maths or flashlight plugins in the game itself, it would be much better (and easier for CJ) to write from scratch rather than poking around in someone else's code. The maths plugin particularly is just a wrapper to C functions.

As has been stated (GOTO 10) having little used functionality in plugins makes it easier to support and document AGS.

I'll be happy to supply the code to my plugins to anyone who wants to convert them into Linux plugins (and write a plugin manager for Linux!).

I'm hoping/guessing that AGS 3 will have floating point and maths functions.

[scotch]

It's off topic now but.. for anyone who, like me, wants to use higher resolutions and antialiased characters and have a chance to use some other graphical effects hardware acceleration is a massive difference.Ã,  I am talking about something like going from 20-30fps on my athlon XP2600+ machine (which is what I get now in test games) to 200-300fps (which is what I get if I load the same graphics into a 3d accelerated engine).Ã,  And the reason jpg is so good is precisely because it is lossy (yes, I typed lossless before the edit :'( ), just like mp3 and ogg, it produces massively smaller filesizes even over png and especially the gif style compression AGS uses now, with an acceptable loss in quality.Ã,  This is a big deal for me again, because my backgrounds get up to over 2MB each as it is. I am not saying AGS should default to using lossy compression on graphics, as it would make a lot of pixel art very ugly, but it more than halves the size of my backgrounds over the current compression type and would be a worthwhile addition for me.
Plugins are great, but this kind of thing could not be done as a plugin as far as I can see.Ã,  I am writing my own engine now anyway, designed for more high end graphics (and 3d too), but it would be much easier if I could add some of these things to AGS, or at least take pointers from AGS's code on how to do certain things.Ã,  I will be reinventing a lot of wheels, and I am not a very good coder at all

[Gilbert]

And the reason jpg is so good is precisely because it is lossless, just like mp3 and ogg...

Hehe.

* Gilbot V7000a loves finding typos.

[Kinoko]

And you can say why not just leave it alone and use the plugins? Well, becouse I develop and use Linux as well. I have a duel boot. At Work I only use linux. The linux version doesn't support plugins.

Gee, typical Linux user ^_- "Me, me, me" "Why isn't everything compatible with Linux?" "I use Linux so everyone should" "I call it my Linux 'box'"

(Don't take any notice of me, I have a grudge against Linux because I used to have a friend that never shut up about it)

[Joseph DiPerla]

Uhmm... I am not thinking of me me me here buddy. If I use linux and someone has a game that uses plugins, that game is no good to me. At home its all fine and dandy. ButI play games at work too on my lunch break. But its all Linux. Most of the time in fact that I play a game is at work.

I only get about an hour a week to play at home on my windows box. Oh and Linux is great. My only complaint is that its hard to understand and do things in it and it doesn't have many of the commercial software found on Windows developed for it.

But lets not lose the point of this topic. I was saying , why not just give the source code to the plugins to CJ maybe he could make use of it and add a feature.Who knows.

Another possibility for CJ to open source AGS is to only give the source to people who have made great and complex games, Plugin developers (Not the math ones, my friends 9 year old brother could make that plugin), Eviltypeguy and anyone who is truly a programmer and it shows. Then have them sign a contract and have them help youdevelop and port AGS.

That could be another possibility. Atleast have them hunt for bugs or something while CJ looks to add new features.