keropi wrote:

so what if games use dosbox?

What about plain, old curiosity? Something wrong with that keropi?

If you don't understand DOSBox commands, just go to the DOSBox site and get a front-end that uses a GUI. I use D.O.G. and it makes my DOS games control really easy. A couple clicks and D.O.G. will edit the .Conf file for you, no messing in DOSBox, etc. For multiple DOS games (I am running about a dozen) you cannot beat a GUI Front-end like D.O.G.

I would say that pretty much any of the DOS programs there use DOSBox. I have purchased Redneck Rampage and it does. They even provide a mini front end for changing the Graphics Mode so you don't have to edit the conf file. I had to set it to OpenGL to get better graphic performance. The only place I see DOSBox mentioned is on the community forums.

I think they are trying to insulate the game buyers from the intricacies of configuring a game, just install using their setup and it's ready to run.

According to this thread (You can only access it if you have access to the site):
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/morals_of_gog/4

As of 10/5/2008 these games use DOSBox on GOG:

Descent 1+2
MAX
Conquest of the New World
Shattered Steel
Stonekeep
Redneck Rampage Collection

earth worm jim as well it seems.

Can anybody who bought one the dosbox based games check if you can find the sourcecode of DOSBox somewhere in the package (or a written offer for it) ? I have trouble locating it in my copy of Conquest of the New World.

I have seen the GPL text for Dosbox in GOG dosbox games, for sure!
I will report in a while when I get back home

OK, both Stonekeep and Redneck Rampage have inside a DOSBOX folder that has inside:

I download EWJ1+2 now, will check it too

Conquest of the new world is the same.
That directory doesn't contain the sourcecode of DOSBox. I haven't checked the indidividual files in that directory for an offer for the sourcecode, but I think it is simply the stock 0.72 instalation of DOSBox.

yes, no source code present. Is there a special reason you are looking into this matter?
AFAIK GOG only has a small util to change via gui the rendering option of DOSbox...

check line 134 of dosbox_COPYING.txt

so they should either include the source or have a pointer to it?

something like that, but I don't think they can point to our site for the code. Maybe somebody who knows a bit more on that will post in this thread as well.

I have made this issue known to GOG

UK_John wrote:

In any event, Freespace 2 is free if you are knowledgeable enough to 'fit it together'

I thought that was one of those things where although the engine is open source, the actual game data was not made publicly available.

Isn't the source code for both the BUILD engine and the Descent engine freely available? They could make native ports of Descent and Redneck Rampage.

Jorpho wrote:

UK_John wrote:

In any event, Freespace 2 is free if you are knowledgeable enough to 'fit it together'

I thought that was one of those things where although the engine is open source, the actual game data was not made publicly available.

That's true, though there's a bunch of idiots that believe the entire game is open source and freely redistributable. They also have that 'share with your friends' clause in the EULA which they exploit and make excuses out of (anonymous downloaders are not your real life friends). I really hate this misinformation.

Jorpho wrote:

They could make native ports of Descent and Redneck Rampage.

Yes, however Redneck Rampage never had its GAME portion of the source released.

Good Old Games in now in open beta instead of closed, so anyone can create an account and purchase games.

http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/morals_of_gog/34

Response from GOG team:

Mikee New User GOG.com Team Registered: Apr 2007 From Poland Posted 12 hours ago 32 +3 points Hi all, […]
Show full quote

Mikee
New User
GOG.com Team
Registered: Apr 2007
From Poland
Posted 12 hours ago
32
+3 points
Hi all,

Some short explanation from our side. Actually, I'm not directly from the GOG team itself (I’m from CDP mother company) but I had a chance to talk with boss of GOG and that were conclusions of our discussion:

First we are very happy and appreciate the fact that we can use DOSBox here at GOG. DOSBox is amazing piece of software and we believe that authors should get both appreciation and donations.

We agreed that DOSBox is a bit hidden at GOG. That is not our bad motivated and well thought move;) It is just the way it happened. Mostly due to the two factors, GOG team were afraid a bit that to wider info about DOSBox will scare users (they might not get to the point that it is preconfigured and integrated) and the second was due to (I know stupid explanation but that how it happened;) some design decisions about webpage itself. But anyway, we agreed with proposal from this thread that thanks to DOSBox creators should be more visible here and we will came up with some ideas soon.

The biggest shame is actually that we didn’t find time to establish closer cooperation, as both topics (GOG and DOSBox) are have lots in common. Again stupid explanation, we have here extremely small team, lots of duties, and trips around the world to get new content and somehow this wasn’t on the top of our priorities. But we feel this need and we sooner or later will do something about it.

Last thing is donations. We discussed it as well, and we agreed that at the certain point (when GOG will go to more complete stage, meaning not beta, and will generate more incomes than costs) we should consider this as well. We are here not greedy, business bastards;) and we will happily donate those whose work help us to makes our life easier.

As I wrote I’m not from GOG team itself but it is kind of official position:) Adam, boss of GOG, was supposed to post his answer here today, but he felt so guilty that he didn’t take proper care about DOSBox earlier, that I think, he didn’t know what to exactly write:))) So I made his life easier and post conclusions from our discussion instead of him:)

I hope that my post put some light on the topic:)

Thanks for everyone to pointing out the issue. This will make us to take care about it faster;)

DOSBox is on their thanks page at least:
http://www.gog.com/en/thanks/