From: Conan Ford
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2000 1:35 AM
To: "Splendid.Hatred", PR, Quake Lives! Project
    "Slade", Quake Lives! Project Leader
Cc: John Carmack, id Software
    David "Zoid" Kirsch, id Software
Subject: REQUEST to the "Quake Lives!" project for access to source code
         not provided for publically released "QuakeWorld" binaries
	 labelled version 2.51

The project page for the "Quake Lives!" project is http://www.quakelives.com/ contains binaries for the Quake Lives project, labelled as "Win32 QuakeWorld 2.51 Secure Version" and "Linux QuakeWorld 2.51 Secure Version" on the page http://www.quakelives.com/html/downloads/downloads.html . The binaries were released January 5, 2000.

The Server versions of the binaries, when run, disallow all connections except from the client binaries which are distributed on the same page. The client versions of "Win32 QuakeWorld 2.51 Secure Version" have the capability to connect to the "secure servers".

The page in question proports to provide source code for the binaries, however, on examination, modules appear to have been omitted, specifically regarding network protocol interfaces. An include file, "sv_def.h", is referenced in many source code files (.c) but is not included. Therefore it is not possible to build the executable files with functionality equal to the binaries supplied on the page--specifically, it is not possible to build source code as supplied into client binaries capable of connecting to the server binaries supplied.

Documentation is not clear, however it appears that closed-source modules are being linked into the executable files which contains an authentication method.

REQUEST:

Under Version 2 of the GNU General Public License ("GPL"), section "TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION", paragraph 3, which the Quake1 source code released recently by id Software is under, and which the Quake Lives! project appears to be a derivative, I make the request below. For your reference, a copy of the license is available at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html .

As provided for in the GPL, I request access to complete corresponding machine-readable source code for the binaries supplied, labelled as "Win32 QuakeWorld 2.51 Secure Version" and labelled as "Linux QuakeWorld 2.51 Secure Version" as supplied on the Quake Lives! project page, the URL of which is given above.

Following is a quote from the relevant section of the GPL:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under
Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1
and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

  a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source
  code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2
  above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

  b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to
  give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically
  performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the
  corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections
  1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

  c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to
  distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only
  for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in
  object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with
  Subsection b above.) 
  
  The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
  making modifications to it.  For an executable work, complete source
  code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
  associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control
  compilation and installation of the executable.  However, as a special
  exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is
  normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major
  components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on
  which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the
  executable. 
  
  If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access
  to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy
  the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source
  code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source
  along with the object code.

Please contact me as to how I can obtain this source code at the email address from which this message is sent within a reasonable amount of time.

[ Ed: this message has, according to Conan, not received a reply. ]