Lawyers hold up Doom 3 source code release

By Fred Dutton Published 17 November, 2011

Carmack writing new code to dodge patent issue.

Legal issues have held up the planned release of Doom 3 source code.

According to a Tweet from id Software co-founder John Carmack, as reported by Shack News, the studio's lawyers are concerned about the patent for a stencil shadowing technique used in the game known as 'Carmack's Reverse'.

"Lawyers are still skittish about the patent issue around 'Carmack's Reverse,' so I am going to write some new code for the Doom 3 release," he explained.

Carmack didn't mention exactly how long that might take.

Id announced its decision to make the code public at this year's Quakecon, explaining that it hoped it would help aspiring developers learn their trade.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 6 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Cowbomb #1 6 months ago

    He's going to the trouble of re-writing 2004 code, just so he can release it for free? Carmack is a GOD.

  • special_move #2 6 months ago

    'Carmack's Reverse' is the best name for anything ever, it sounds like a chess strategy or how Carmack beats the Kobayashi Maru...

  • patchbox360 #3 6 months ago

    yeah he's awesome

  • Turrican_Freak #4 6 months ago

    Good man!

  • arcam #5 6 months ago

    Carmack didn't mention exactly how long that might take.

    Doesn't seem like it took long.

    "@turbokater this demonstrates the idiocy of the patent -- the workaround added four lines of code and changed two." https://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack/status/137189212519792640
    Edited by arcam at 17/11/11 @ 17:25

  • nimzy #6 6 months ago

    I heard the worst patent issue for the Doom 3 source code release relates to a patent Creative owns. When the game was released, they informed id about it and basically twisted their arm into including EAX features in the game. I'm sure he's rewriting that stuff too.

  • Raiko101 #7 6 months ago

    Good stuff!

  • SheffAl #8 6 months ago

    Well Carmack's gotta do something to occupy his time!

  • Der_tolle_Emil #9 6 months ago

    This makes the source code 10 times more interesting to me. I really want to see what he had to change in the code just so I can finally see an example of code that could be patented. Sadly I won't see the original code but the functionality is the same and I really cannot wait to see for myself if the functionality of the few lines of code would warrant a patent - because while I haven't totally made up my mind yet about software patents (in some cases I think they are legit) I doubt that 6 lines of code could be so incredibly awesome that you should be able to patent them (not to discredit Carmack's work, not at all).

  • Nova1977 #10 6 months ago

    Carmack Reverse sounds like it should be a character in Mortal Kombat.

  • linksdad #11 6 months ago

    The shadow stenciling was Creative's patent, and as said above was got round by ID including support for EAX. The settlement sounds like it was negotiated by adults who came to a sensible arrangement.
    The patent refers to the method for calculating shadows that is reasonably light on processing requirements. I believe Carmack re-invented it in isolation from Creative.

  • Gurgeh #12 6 months ago

    @linksdad

    IIRC Carmack came up with the idea and gave a talk about it only for Creative to go and patent it before he implemented it in the game

  • Freek #13 6 months ago

    @linksdad Also why software patents are pretty nonsensical. Many companies can come to similar solutions on their own but one asshole can patent it and prevent innovation and competition from others.

  • linksdad #14 6 months ago

    #Gurgeh His talk about it would have constituted prior art. I am sure there would have been more people present than creative. Wikipedia seems to think creative presented this first.
    #Freek I dont believe this counts as a software patent. It is the method of calculating the shadows, not the software implementation of said method that the patent applies to.