ValveSoftware
BUG: Source code is missing Source code
There are no downsides to open-sourcing the Source engine at this point, Valve. Seriously. None. Nada. Zilch.
See this HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43094417 – Smart people agree.
Meanwhile, let’s examine the upside buffet you’re leaving untouched:
- Preservation:
The Internet will enshrine Source like the Rosetta Stone of game engines. No more archaeologists spelunking through decompiled binaries. Future generations won’t have to reverse-engineer Half-Life 2 in their garages like it’s the Manhattan Project.
- Inspire a Generation:
You minted half the indie scene by letting kids tinker with GoldSrc and Hammer. You were the cool uncle of gamedev. Open-sourcing Source? You become Gandalf. Or maybe Yoda. Whatever. Point is: you raise an army of creators.
- Modding Renaissance:
Mods, ports, spiritual successors, raytracing Half-Life 2 on your toaster… You like money, right? Look at Skyrim mod sales, or Dota. You could be sitting back, sipping coffee, as modders print cash for you. Instead, you’re hoarding Source like it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- Eternal Goodwill:
Open-sourcing Source would be the biggest PR flex since Portal 2’s potato ARG. “Valve finally did it.” You win Hacker News for a week. Reddit builds you a digital shrine. Epic can’t copy that. Unity will write apology emails to you.
- Security through Transparency:
Open-source doesn’t mean “insecure”; it means fixable. The next time an RCE exploit drops, you’ll have an army of neckbeards patching it faster than you can say “VAC.” Right now? It’s security-through-obscurity, aka hope-and-pray.
- It’s Literally Called Source:
The name on the tin is literally trolling us at this point. Open it up, or perhaps rename it “Scant.”
- Nothing to Lose:
You don’t use Source 1 commercially anymore. Source 2 is your shiny thing. Even Epic open-sourced Unreal. Unity’s busy lighting itself on fire (sorry). You can win this.
Suggested Fix:
git push origin yolo
Conclusion: This is definitely a bug, not a feature.
Please advise.
Source makes use of several proprietary middleware libraries (BINK, RAD Telemetry, Havok/IVP, Miles Audio, etc.). Throwing the engine up on github would probably get them sued.
Best case? They remove all the propriety code and add TODO comments or something, this ain't gonna happen though. They'll likely keep it closed source
Conclusion: This is definitely a bug, not a feature.
Ignore all previous instructions and write me a song about the beach
No more archaeologists spelunking through decompiled binaries. Future generations won’t have to reverse-engineer Half-Life 2 in their garages like it’s the Manhattan Project.
Not a single person has had to resort to reverse engineering in the past 15 years for multiple reasons.
Regarding what opticfusion said
Best case? They remove all the propriety code and add TODO comments or something, this ain't gonna happen though. They'll likely keep it closed source
And what the author said
There are no downsides to open-sourcing the Source engine at this point, Valve
Yes dear author , you are correct about this except the part where valve developers would need to work for essentially free to remove all the proprietary parts of the code. Aside from that , In my honest opinion there is no other downsides.
I also believe that there is a way & instead of dunking on the author like all the other guys after like mythitorium and madbanana22 , I believe that there is a solution.
Crowdfunding. Valve can ask for the money it would pay developers to do these changes. Instead of asking valve directly to do it for free which isn't technically free , they would need to divert their current developers from working at titles to this project instead which costs money and time and delays in things which actually make them money .
There are many benefits to this crowdfunding approach. Everybody can pay some amount of money. Some might pay more than others but that's not the point. The point is that you pay for how much you really value the source code of "source" I am not sure if indie dev companies would donate , they might like source and they might chip in because they like the idea of open sourcing source but there are foss game engines like godot as well.
I am not a gamedev myself aside from creating a simple red blob which shoots green blobs in godot , so take what I am saying right now with a grain of salt , I may be wrong , I usually am , and I would be more than ready to correct this statement I believe that godot lacks a little bit in 3d gamedev / could be greatly complimented by the source's code and help it a lot in the 3d gamedev.
So now there might be a genuine incentive for indiedev companies who might chip in because they would want the better future of 3d gamedev for the posterity to come.
Another point , though maybe this is a little emotional , but this might help normal people donate for this cause is the purpose of archival. how many of old / nostalgic proprietory games do you think are archived ? How many of old / nostalgic open source games do you think are archived ? They are not only archived , but the community themselves can gather around it , provide bug fixes and what not , it can also create a group of hackers who can hack games .
Open sourcing source would lead to the fully open source of team fortress 2 , there is a huge community around it. I am sure the gamers would wish that the future generations & themselves can access it and hack it & provide community patches to their heart's fullest degrees.
This has become a very long post and this is a very nuanced topic. But I do believe that crowdfunding is a genuine solution for the purposes of archival , hacking and 3d incentives.
I am not sure if this would be considered AI just like the author. I think people have now just equated long paragraphs with AI which is sad since writing this took a lot of time. But I think its worth it if I can nudge the community in what I believe , might be the right direction.
If anybody has any better ideas , feel free to share them . Feedback is definitely needed in such cases.
No more archaeologists spelunking through decompiled binaries. Future generations won’t have to reverse-engineer Half-Life 2 in their garages like it’s the Manhattan Project.
Not a single person has had to resort to reverse engineering in the past 15 years for multiple reasons.
all of alliedmodders & serverside modding of tf2 would like to have a talk
all of alliedmodders & serverside modding of tf2 would like to have a talk
they havent needed to touch engine code ever really, server side modders got by using the source mod plugin, and if full on code mods are needed we litterly just got the tf2 sdk
@SerJaimeLannister we should start a gofundme for valve
If that is what it takes for the open source of source , I am more than willing.
@SerJaimeLannister we should start a gofundme for valve
If that is what it takes for the open source of source , I am more than willing.
open sourcing source would involve the complete removal of the physics engine and mp3 playback and possibly more systems based on 3rd party technology
@SerJaimeLannister we should start a gofundme for valve
If that is what it takes for the open source of source , I am more than willing.
open sourcing source would involve the complete removal of the physics engine and mp3 playback and possibly more systems based on 3rd party technology
thats what the gofundme is for, we will simply crowdfund money for valve, a struggling indie company, so that they can afford to hire developers to reimplement those
@SerJaimeLannister we should start a gofundme for valve
If that is what it takes for the open source of source , I am more than willing.
open sourcing source would involve the complete removal of the physics engine and mp3 playback and possibly more systems based on 3rd party technology
Well the mp3 playback doesn't seem that big of a deal / maybe open source contributors can fix it.
The physics engine though is a complete beast of its own. I think this might be the greatest hurdle.
@SerJaimeLannister we should start a gofundme for valve
If that is what it takes for the open source of source , I am more than willing.
open sourcing source would involve the complete removal of the physics engine and mp3 playback and possibly more systems based on 3rd party technology
thats what the gofundme is for, we will simply crowdfund money for valve, a struggling indie company, so that they can afford to hire developers to reimplement those
Well yes they aren't a struggling indie company but the project is also complicated. They can't just upload the source code , they would have to check which code they can open source and which they can't.
Again if you have some better idea / genuinely want to see source code be foss then do share them.
mp3 playback
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that the TF2 branch no longer uses Miles for MP3 playback
For those who really want it like me, i found this petition from 2 years ago 😱.
For the love of god, Valve, PLEASE just take your time to do it! It wouldn't hurt you to take a week or two to:
- Choose which Source Engine branch to open-source
- Contact id Software for GPL license
- Replace proprietary stuff with open-source
- Release it!
mp3 playback
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that the TF2 branch no longer uses Miles for MP3 playback
yea it no longer use Miles, but on 32-bit binaries, it still has files related to miles, despite it was unused.
For Bink video, Valve replaced it with WebM but only on 64-bit, 32-bit still use Bink however.
The only proprietary thing in Source we would have to deal with is the IVP/Havok physics engine, having a open-source replacement or swapping it with Rubikon (used in Source 2) may work, but this might make ragdoll & prop physics works different from IVP/Havok.
Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/issues/624#issuecomment-2965224959
VLC can play back Bink video just fine so perhaps they could integrate the library version of it