Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas
Where are the old dos-like RPG games? Can you say rogue? Nethack?
torne:
Having said that there do exist ports of Nethack to shockingly constrained systems, but they are mostly very hard to play.
Powder (http://www.zincland.com/powder/) is a roguelike under a Creative Commons licence which is designed for input-constrained systems such as the GBA and PSP, this might be possible to port but while open source it is not compatible with the Rockbox license.
My still work-in-progress Frotz port (Z-machine text adventures) implements a primitive buffered TTY-like display for Frotz's benefit; this code would probably be useful to anyone who wanted to port text mode games, though its API is not much like curses. I am considering expanding it and making it more curseslike for general use :)
saratoga:
Are there any GPL versions of nethack? The ports I've seen all have some weird non-GPL license, and wiki says the original is also under that license, so unless someone has rewritten it from scratch I doubt any ports are GPL.
Jason Arthur Taylor:
--- Code: ---C:\>grep -i shareware "Role Playing Games_ Nethack, Rogue, Unreal World, and many more!.htm" | wc & grep -i freeware "Role Playing Games_ Nethack, Rogue, Unreal World, and many more!.htm" | wc
14 236 3372
20 248 4409
C:\>expr 20 * 100 / ( 14 + 20 )
58
--- End code ---
In english=58% of those RPG dos games are freeware. Freeware != GPL, but isn't it close? Like, dude, send an email to a randomly picked author and code will be sitting in the inbox my morning. I'd put $$ on it. And maybe a bounty, but not much.
This thread reminds me to ask the obvious or too stupid to ask quesiton (not sure which it is, but at least this is off topic): where is the x86 arm dos emulator plugin? Did transmeta's stench smoke them out? 640kb is dos max, so should run on most of these boxes, no? Sort of like putting 1950 hemi engine inside a yugo.
saratoga:
--- Quote from: Jason Taylor on December 29, 2009, 10:20:34 PM --- Freeware != GPL, but isn't it close?
--- End quote ---
No thats not how licensing works. All rockbox code must be under a GPL compatible license. If its free but not GPL you cannot use it in Rockbox.
[Saint]:
--- Quote from: saratoga on December 29, 2009, 10:25:05 PM ---If its free but not GPL you cannot use it in Rockbox.
--- End quote ---
Well....it couldn't be included in any official build of Rockbox, but it could be used, just not "legally".
What the end user does is their business, but Rockbox certainly isn't going to get involved in any legal disputes over licensing for using code that is non GPL.
In theory, (if anyone wanted to take the risk) there's nothing to stop anyone from porting non GPL code for use with Rockbox and uploading it somewhere....but the Rockbox Team certainly won't do it.
Basically, it can be done, just not "legally"....but what anyone wants to get up to in their own time is their business I guess ;)
I probably couldn't say that I wouldn't use it if someone did manage to port one of these games, but I wouldn't make a huge song and dance about doing so...
Anyway....a HUGE issue would be the keyboard I'd say, as the virtual keyboard currently has no shift or alt input.
[St.]
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