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Doom Editing Digest Vol. 01 Nr. 073
From: owner-doom-editing-digest
To: doom-editing-digest@nvg.unit.no
Subject: doom-editing-digest V1 #73
Reply-To: doom-editing
Errors-To: owner-doom-editing-digest
Precedence: bulk
doom-editing-digest Saturday, 3 December 1994 Volume 01 : Number 073
Re: Well-known bugs in DEU 5.21 [rec.games.computer.doom.editing #521]
Re: Modifying the exe and mod...
Re: Overlapping sectors - methods to cheat
A bit about the .exe hacking..
Re: A bit about the .exe hacking..
Re: Modifying DOOM(2).EXE
Re: legal issues -> rec.games...
Re: Modifying the exe and mod...
Re: A bit about the .exe hack...
Re: Modifying DOOM(2).EXE (a quickie)
Re: legal issues -> rec.games...
Re: legal issues -> rec.games...
Re: On a lighter note (Heretic?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: quinet@stud.montefiore.ulg.ac.be (Raphael Quinet)
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 17:20:01 +0100
Subject: Re: Well-known bugs in DEU 5.21 [rec.games.computer.doom.editing #521]
> Maybe a dumb question, but how can I save without building
> in 'expert mode'? Do I have to go in and change the code
> for this or am I overlooking something?
Don't use the expert mode. If you think you are a brain, you
have to accept the consequences. :-)
- -Raphael
------------------------------
From: wdwhitak@grissom.jpl.nasa.gov (William D. Whitaker)
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 94 08:20:40 PST
Subject: Re: Modifying the exe and mod...
esa104@cent1.lancs.ac.uk
Salporin@aol.com wrote:
> > So I think we
> >definitely need to talk to id and sort this thing out once and for all,
NOOOOOOOOO!
> >before we all become paranoid and afraid of releasing ANY DOOM patch at all
> >for fear we might face legal trouble.
>
> This is getting totally out of hand.
absolutely
> We are NOT
> seeing any changes of attitude or hardening of policy in Jay's recent
> correspondence.
I agree with Steve, I think that this would be a mistake. If you
push the issue, you will ONLY get the same response that Jay gave
Greg, except stronger. I hope some of you are wrong in that all
Id sees here is the money. I believe that they are more worried
about getting slapped by the big boys for the hacking. If this is
the case, we will always get the same response from Id. Also,
if this is the case, I recommend the following:
1) Shut up about this topic. A never-ending bruhaha about this will
only make it worse.
2) Dont put Id on the spot by asking them stuff like "is this ok?".
we all know what the LICENSE.DOC says.
3) Be a little more low-key about the patches, to keep the heat away
from Id.
I know Id has been utterly cool to the WADMEN, but I suspect they dont
want to be a party to some of the stuff we do: They make a good legal
target, whereas the guy that makes the wad/patch is not.
> For Chrissake, you guys, get REAL. Get on with your WADs
> and stop whining, please. Or if you must whine, do it on the newsgroups,
> please. ;)
> -Steve
Although I think this list is the best forum for this topic, I think Steve
has a point here. Jay gave a low-key (non-posted, non-verbose) response
to Greg: we could tone it down some.
-Bill
***************** I want Washington DC DOOM! *****************
LVL1-Trade Dept, LVL2-Network Media Building, LVL3-Lobbyist Building,
LVL4-Justice(?) Dept, LVL5-IRS, LVL6-The House, LVL7-The Senate,
LVL8-White House, SECRET LVL9-National Post Office HQ (What else? :)
**************************************************************
------------------------------
From: Mark Harrison <harrison@lclark.edu>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 11:17:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Overlapping sectors - methods to cheat
On Fri, 2 Dec 1994, Nicholas Fenwick wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Sorry for posting a message about Doom editing, but I've got a question
> (*gasp*). Cast your minds back a week or two when we were talking about
> making sectors that _appear_ to overlap. It was mentioned that you can
> have corridors that seem to overlap and be at different levels, by using
> clever linedefs and moving ceiling and floors, so that when you cross a
> part of the corridor the floor raises, and you can walk over the same
> spot from a different direction and it appears to be at a different
> level. Hmm. Follow that? Well, here's my attempt (crap ascii art follows):
WAAAAY back in January when people were say that it wasn't possible to
have overlapping sectors, I set myself at this task. Guess I just like
chalanges. Anyway it was quite simple and I had it figured out in no
time.
If you'd like to see a working example, find a wad file called
widowmkr.zip or I can send it to you. I used this technique in four
different places in the level and would be more than happy to help you
with any problems you are having.
You might want to check the level out just for fun anyway. I had the
misfortune of releasing it at almost the same time 1.4 came out and it
kinda got pushed into the background and ignored. But I've gotten quite a
few good responses from people who have played it. And it's filled with
all kinds of interesting ideas rather than the plain 'room after room
after room, shoot, shoot, shoot' (although there's still plenty of that!)
Mark Harrison
harrison@sun.lclark.edu
------------------------------
From: Brad Spencer <spencer@ug.cs.dal.ca>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 17:00:14 -0400
Subject: A bit about the .exe hacking..
I found this in April's Scientific American, page 116:
"In 1992 the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of
Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc. Accolade, the American company,
wanted to produce game cartridges that would run on the Sega machines but
found itself locked out by a complex system of coded microchips in Sega
game machines and cartridges.
"Accolade physically opened up and examined Sega chips to get the
binary object code and the decompiled the code to learn Sega's interface
specs -- information that is not protectable under copyright law. Once
Accolade understood Sega's interface, it produced game cartridges that,
without copying any of Sega's object code, ran on Sega machines. The
court ruled that because Accolade's purpose -- the development of
compatible game cartridges -- was legal, the copying of Sega's program
was fair use and therefore permissible."
I think this is _very_ similar to the situation of hacking the Doom
.EXE, if you consider the Doom engine the equivalent of the Sega machine
and the patches similar (but quite exactly the same as) Accolade's
cartridges. The important point here is that the court ruled that the
otherwise copyright violatory action of copying the program was
acceptable _because_ their purpose was legal (i.e. "good intentioned", as
are Greg's DeHackEd patches). Someone asked if the laywers would bother
to argue the difference between good intentioned and not good intentioned
usage, but it seems this has already been answered in this ruling. Any
thoughts?
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Spencer - Bilbo - spencer@ug.cs.dal.ca - Dalhousie University
"Everybody is Kung-Fu Fragging . . ."
------------------------------
From: Matthew Ayres <ayres@cdrom.com>
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 94 14:03:51 -0800
Subject: Re: A bit about the .exe hacking..
Brad Spencer <spencer@ug.cs.dal.ca> said...
>I found this in April's Scientific American, page 116:
>
> "In 1992 the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of
>Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc. Accolade, the American company,
>wanted to produce game cartridges that would run on the Sega machines but
>found itself locked out by a complex system of coded microchips in Sega
>game machines and cartridges.
> "Accolade physically opened up and examined Sega chips to get the
>binary object code and the decompiled the code to learn Sega's interface
>specs -- information that is not protectable under copyright law. Once
>Accolade understood Sega's interface, it produced game cartridges that,
>without copying any of Sega's object code, ran on Sega machines. The
>court ruled that because Accolade's purpose -- the development of
>compatible game cartridges -- was legal, the copying of Sega's program
>was fair use and therefore permissible."
>
> I think this is _very_ similar to the situation of hacking the Doom
>.EXE, if you consider the Doom engine the equivalent of the Sega machine
>and the patches similar (but quite exactly the same as) Accolade's
>cartridges. The important point here is that the court ruled that the
>otherwise copyright violatory action of copying the program was
>acceptable _because_ their purpose was legal (i.e. "good intentioned", as
>are Greg's DeHackEd patches). Someone asked if the laywers would bother
>to argue the difference between good intentioned and not good intentioned
>usage, but it seems this has already been answered in this ruling. Any
>thoughts?
Yes. Stop worrying about the usage and writting of DeHackEd, especially
Greg. The author of a program that does something illegal (I'm not saying
DeHackEd is illegal, but anyhow...) is not responsible for those who use it.
I'd suggest a disclaimer however.
I think Jay is saying no to editing of the .exe file to protect id. If
he tells us we are allowed to do it, big companies are going to catch on.
It's his job to protect id's copyright. If he tells just one person they
are allowed to edit the .exe, then he's completely given up the copyright.
What am I saying? I highly doubt id is going to come to everyone's door
trying to sue them. A big company is a different story however. As to
how that would hold up in court, who knows... Selling a product
commercially that modifies someone elses product would probably not hold
up in court. You can create products for other products (i.e. a Windows
program for Windows), but you can't create products that modify others
products (i.e. Aliens-TC for DOOM). They're two completely different
things. You are only allowed to use the .exe, not change it. That's
why id created the PWAD, so users could legal create "add-ons". But like
I said, I really wouldn't worry about it if you're not trying to sell
your product.
So, when can we move this talk to another mailing list? It is getting
damn annoying, with all these replies... even I've joined the wagon. I
guess at least I've said something different... a lot of you seem to be
repeating yourselfs. Perhaps I've repeated something too... oh well.
-Matt A.
------------------------------
From: Kevin Way <kway@omni.voicenet.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 18:15:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Modifying DOOM(2).EXE
> The real questions are these:
>
> Utility and PWAD authors have thus far been fairly willing to abide by
> id's wishes - no PWADs run with shareware DOOM, no WAD editors or item
> randomizers will edit the shareware WAD, etc. etc. Tree, do you really
> want to cross this particular line in the sand?
well, the EXE specs are out there.... If Tree doesn't make the next
version of DeHacked, somebody else will. What I don't understand is why
would iD help with locations of the frame tables etc if they were just
going to turn around and drop EXE hacking.
As for nobody playing dehacked deathmatches, I haven't played many
dehacked deathmatches, but I've played millions of dehacked co-ops....
It's kind of like iD said here's a toy... the EXE specs... then said NO!
You can't do anything with those!!!
I don't know what to think about the whole thing. I see great problems
with editing the EXE and selling it, or distributing the patched EXE, or
any EXE for that matter, but just a .deh patch? That seems perfectly
harmless to me. It seems like the license.doc should have read that
modified executables could not be distributed, however if you want to
play with your own, that's your perogative....
It's not like we're reverse-compiling the code and editing the engine.....
- -Kevin
------------------------------
From: Salporin@aol.com
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 18:27:16 -0500
Subject: Re: legal issues -> rec.games...
> I understand the interest in speculating about legal issues.
> Nevertheless, *please* let's move this thread to rec.games.doom.misc,
> thus everybody is able to skip the thread.
I understand why you don't want to read the thread (it has been getting QUITE
on-going now), but I disagree that it doesn't belong on a mailing list
dedicated to doom-editing. DOOM editing is what this whole thread is about.
Everyone participating in it wants to know if their future patch will get
them in trouble or not. Maybe rec.games.computer.doom.editing _would_ be a
better place for it, though.
------------------------------
From: Salporin@aol.com
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 18:27:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Modifying the exe and mod...
Ok, I'm sick of this topic. I'm going to continue work on my own patch and
release it as planned unless I hear otherwise from id.
> 1) Shut up about this topic. A never-ending bruhaha about this will
> only make it worse.
Agreed. id won't hear us if we don't make any noise.
> 2) Dont put Id on the spot by asking them stuff like "is this ok?".
> we all know what the LICENSE.DOC says.
Agreed again. I just hope nobody has already done this.
> 3) Be a little more low-key about the patches, to keep the heat away
> from Id.
We'll see what happens, but for now I'm going to continue business as usual.
------------------------------
From: Salporin@aol.com
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 18:27:36 -0500
Subject: Re: A bit about the .exe hack...
> Someone asked if the laywers would bother
> to argue the difference between good intentioned and not good intentioned
> usage, but it seems this has already been answered in this ruling. Any
> thoughts?
Yes, here's my thoughts: Thanks! That pretty much clears up this whole
issue as far as I'm concerned.
------------------------------
From: Greg Lewis <gregl@umich.edu>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 19:01:24 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Modifying DOOM(2).EXE (a quickie)
I too admit this is a little overkill, after everyone states their
opinion a fifth time. But this had to be said:
On Fri, 2 Dec 1994, Kevin Way wrote:
> What I don't understand is why
> would iD help with locations of the frame tables etc if they were just
> going to turn around and drop EXE hacking.
iD did NOT release the EXE specs. They were were developed through a
very nice piece of reverse-engineering and change-and-see-what-happens
work by Matt Fell. iD is in NO way linked to the doom EXE specs. AFAIK
iD has been against EXE editing the entire time.
Greg Lewis
Author, DeHackEd
------------------------------
From: quinet@stud.montefiore.ulg.ac.be (Raphael Quinet)
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 01:30:08 +0100
Subject: Re: legal issues -> rec.games...
> I understand why you don't want to read the thread (it has been getting QUITE
> on-going now), but I disagree that it doesn't belong on a mailing list
> dedicated to doom-editing. DOOM editing is what this whole thread is about.
> Everyone participating in it wants to know if their future patch will get
> them in trouble or not. Maybe rec.games.computer.doom.editing _would_ be a
> better place for it, though.
Being a coordinator for rec.games.computer.doom.editing and a member of
the RGCD Seering Comitee (funny name, isn't it?), I have to disagree.
This thread does not give any "technical info about editing the EXE or
WAD files for Doom", which is the topic of the r.g.c.d.editing group.
This discussion of the legal issues involved in hacking, distributing
or selling the files belongs to the r.g.c.d.misc group. I hope that
Richard will agree. :-) This thread fits in "Talking about Doom
and Id Software" but does not give much technical info.
Anyway, the discussion has been going on for several days in r.g.c.d.misc
and several interesting points have been made. The most important one
is: shut up and stop this thread. We should really end this useless
discussion.
I have several good reasons (very good ones) to believe that:
1) The official position of Id Software will always be "no EXE editing
at all", no matter how many people bother them with that.
2) As long as you only distribute patches (not the modified EXE) and
you don't sell them, Id Software will not sue you. If you play
fair and do not make too much noise about it, they will silently
ignore DeHackEd and the .DEH patches.
Don't you all understand this? They are very tolerant about what hackers
are doing (as long as no big company comes in the field and tries to sell
the hacks), but if you ask them to make any public statement about the
legality of these hacks, their answer will always be "no". They have to
do it if they don't want to loose their rights on their own programs or have
some problems with other companies.
And keep this in mind: if this discussion continues and we make too much
noise about it, we stand a greater chance of having problems. Please Greg,
continue your great work on DeHackEd, put a disclaimer in the docs if you
want, and everybody else shut up. Thanks for listening.
Let this be the last message about legality issues!
- -Raphael
[followups to /dev/null]
------------------------------
From: Matthew Ayres <ayres@cdrom.com>
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 94 16:52:48 -0800
Subject: Re: legal issues -> rec.games...
Salporin@aol.com said...
>> I understand the interest in speculating about legal issues.
>> Nevertheless, *please* let's move this thread to rec.games.doom.misc,
>> thus everybody is able to skip the thread.
>
>I understand why you don't want to read the thread (it has been getting QUITE
>on-going now), but I disagree that it doesn't belong on a mailing list
>dedicated to doom-editing. DOOM editing is what this whole thread is about.
> Everyone participating in it wants to know if their future patch will get
>them in trouble or not. Maybe rec.games.computer.doom.editing _would_ be a
>better place for it, though.
Now that I think about it, this is probably a good place for it. Look at
the number of people talking about it. If everyone is talking about it,
obviously they are interested, so maybe we should just let it go... I was
whining too about posting legal issues here, but maybe we should continue.
With all the interest everyone (but a few) are pouring into it. There
have been a LOT of messages though, kind of annoying to weed through when
you're looking for important mail.
-Matt A.
------------------------------
From: hsimpson@unixg.ubc.ca (Enigma)
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 1994 17:19:37 -0800
Subject: Re: On a lighter note (Heretic?)
>> Seeing as how we've all been ranting about legal implications of
>>EXE hacking, thought I'd introduce a breather and see if anyone knows
>>when and where Heretic would be released (This IS December 1st...)
>>
>> Any plans to start a heritic-editing mailing list???
Sign me up!
???siht-gnidaer-uoy-era-yhw-edam-reve-emag-tseb-eht-si-mood-egassem-terces
enigma <hsimpson@unixg.ubc.ca>
TTUL from my corner of the world: Vancouver, B.C., Canada where its one of
two distinct things: rainy, or raining. (It's probably shi**y too)
------------------------------
End of doom-editing-digest V1 #73
*********************************
