What's got me really excited is that Quake 3 will support some primitive software objects that can jump from peer to peer and execute. This was/is the promise of ActiveX and CORBA, but I think the Quake environment will be a breakthrough on this front. It's the same thing that's been promised by Telescript and other "agent" software. It looks to me like Q3 will have a critical mass of developers to make it happen. Really neat stuff there. Too bad it won't ship with Java or a subset of Java.
As for making it free: most companies view free software as a loss leader, not an ideology. I'm a huge advocate of open source (and Open Source), but MS has shown that it's possible to be partially open and still control the technology with an iron hand (a detailed spec, for many purposes, is the same as being "open"). What open source software needs is a more concrete ideology (or ideologies) of socialising information technology. We need open source software, open educational curricula, open financial information, open envrionmental information, etc. etc. etc. These open project help define a new lowest common demonimator from where non-profit and for-profit enterprises might build better things. What open source can do, is, do the "easy" stuff well, and leave the "hard" stuff for the profiteers.
>What's happening is a segmentation of the game market, where id and other
>firms are writing the graphics engines, and other firms are providing the
>maps, character-sets, and custom innovations, an interesting division of
>labor. Also, many of the newer 3D games are turning into genuinely
>interactive scenarios, where you walk around and use things, talk to other
>characters, etc. There's already loose talk that graphics engines will
>undergo the same development curve as Linux, i.e. that the thing will free
>itself from the clutches of corporations and mutate into open source,
>public software. Id, to its credit, has not been shy about making its
>source code public, and has really been a class act to other developers,
>designers, level-builders, etc. Interestingly, Microsoft, by contrast,
>seems to be pissing off more and more game designers, for its sloth,
>arrogance, and attempt to push proprietary graphics standards down
>people's throats; John Carmack, id's brilliant lead programmer, is
>particularly critical of Mister Softie, and he's not someone who usually
>takes sides in *any* kind of corporation vs. corporation debate.
John Kawakami johnk at cyberjava.com URL of the moment -- http://www.riceball.com/quote