Electronic Arts has announced the full source code for the Command & Conquer series of games: Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, Renegade, Generals, and Generals Zero Hour. Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Generals are real-time strategy games that feature military confrontations in various alternate realities and require building up military power by extracting resources available on the map. Renegade is a 3D first-person shooter with strategy elements.
The release of the code was made possible by the work of Luke Feenan, an administrator of the CnCNet community that preserves the legacy of the Command & Conquer games. Electronic Arts gave Luke access to their archives, and he did the work of restoring the state of the code from the Perforce repositories and getting it into a buildable state.
The build is supported only for Windows (the DirectX graphics API is used). To build C&C Renegade and C&C Generals, the Microsoft Visual Studio C++ 6+ compiler is required. The C&C Tiberian Dawn and C&C Red Alert code is tied to the Watcom C/C++ compiler (v10.6) and requires additional work to recreate the working build environment. Game resources are not included in the kit, so to run games based on executable files built from the code, resources from the original games are required.
The code is open sourced under the GPLv3 license with additional terms regarding Electronic Arts trademarks. Trademark rights are not transferred with the code, and the license does not grant rights to distribute modified versions of the programs using Electronic Arts trademarks, such as "Command & Conquer". Products created on the basis of the published code must not state affiliation with Electronic Arts or its employees, and must not misrepresent the history of their origin. When creating modifications, the name of the games must be changed, and a note must mention that the product is a modified version of Electronic Arts code.
Opening up under the GPLv3 license allows using components from the original Command & Conquer games to extend the functionality of existing open source projects CnCNet and Open RA, which develop an unofficial network stack and open source engine for C&C Tiberian Dawn, C&C Red Alert, and Dune 2000. The game requires the original game assets to run, which can be downloaded under the mod developer agreement, which allows non-commercial use only.
Additionally, Electronic Arts has released an updated mod development kit for the Command & Conquer series of games, as well as updated the mission editor and world-building tools, which now include the ability to publish your mods directly to Steam Workshop. The mod developer kit includes source files for XML resources, maps, shaders, and scripts suitable for all SAGE games.
Source: opennet.ru
