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Cube source code license, usage, and documentation.
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You should read this file IN ITS ENTIRETY if you wish to do anything with
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the cube source code, even a mere build. Own builds are not necessarily
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compatible with the officially released binaries, read below.
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You may use the cube source code if you abide by the ZLIB license
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http://www.opensource.org/licenses/zlib-license.php
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(very similar to the BSD license) with the additional clause below:
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Cube game engine source code, 20 dec 2003 release.
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Copyright (C) 2001-2003 Wouter van Oortmerssen.
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This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
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warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
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arising from the use of this software.
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Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
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including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
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freely, subject to the following restrictions:
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1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
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claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
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in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
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appreciated but is not required.
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2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
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misrepresented as being the original software.
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3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
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additional clause specific to Cube:
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4. Source versions may not be "relicensed" under a different license
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without my explicitly written permission.
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The license covers the source code found in the "src" directory of this
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archive, the included enet network library which cube uses is covered by
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the "No problem Bugroff" license, which is however compatible with the
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above license for all practical purposes.
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Game media included in the cube game (maps, textures, sounds, models etc.)
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are not covered by this license, and may have individual copyrights and
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distribution restrictions (see individual readmes).
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Compiling the sources should be straight forward.
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Unix users need to make sure to have the development version of all libs
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installed (OpenGL, SDL, SDL_Mixer, SDL_Image, zlib, libpng). The included
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makefiles can be used to build.
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Windows users can use the included visual studio .net 2003 project files, which
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references the lib/include directories for the external libraries and should
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thus be self contained. The project is set up assuming you have the normal
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cube binary distribution as a subdirectory "cube" of the root of this archive,
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so release mode builds will place executables in the bin dir ready for testing
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and distribution. Do not come ask me for help in compiling or modifying the
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sources, if you can't figure out how to do this yourself you probably shouldn't
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be touching the files anyway.
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The cube sources are very small, compact, and non redundant, so anyone
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wishing to modify the source code should be able to gain an overview of
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cube's inner workings by simply reading through the source code in its
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entirety. Small amounts of comments should guide you through the more
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When reading the source code and trying to understand cube's internal design,
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keep in mind the goal of cube: minimalism. I wanted to create a very complete
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game / game engine with absolutely minimal means, and made a sport out of it
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keeping the implementation small and simple. Cube is not a commercial product,
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it is merely the author's idea of a fun little programming project.
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Cube is open source (see ZLIB license above). This only means that you have
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great freedom using it for your own projects, but does NOT mean the main cube
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code is an "open source project" in the sense that everyone is invited to
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contribute to it. The main cube code will remain a one man project (me), as my
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minimalistic design is highly incompatible with the open source philosophy. If you
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add to the cube source code, you fork the code and it becomes your own project,
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do not ask for me to integrate your changes into the main branch, no matter
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how brilliant they are.
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If you want to use cube as a base for a game where the multiplayer aspect is
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important and used by a large community, you need to be aware that cube's
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thick client - thin server architecture is extremely cheat sensitive. If you
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release a cube based game with source code equivalent to the binaries, some
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minor changes can give anyone an aimbot or other cheats in online games.
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There are several ways to make this less easy, some of which are:
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1. only distribute binaries (the ZLIB license allows this). Executables can still
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be hacked, but unless you have a really large online community, noone will
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2. write a network proxy, such as qizmo used with QuakeWorld (whose sources are
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also open source). The proxy is a small closed source program that checksums
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the executable, and maybe also some game media. You can then make servers
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or game admins request this information and ban cheaters.
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3. release the sources with an incompatible network protocol or other changes
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compared to the binaries you release.
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4. build serious cheat detection into the game. Since all clients are their own
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"servers", you can make them all keep track of stats for the other players,
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such as health etc. you can make all sorts of consistency checks on shots,
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movement speed and items. If the discrepancy for a certain client becomes
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too big, all clients but the cheater can send their "vote" to the server
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for having him banned. Even better, you can add server side stat checking.
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For the cube's own game I chose option 3, i.e. you can only play the official
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cube game using the binaries supplied by me, and you can't compile your own clients
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for multiplayer use (you can still make custom clients that work with matching
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custom servers, or play cube single player maps compatible with the real thing).
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This situation is not ideal, but there is no easy way around it.
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This scheme is probably very easy to defeat if you are capable of using disassemblers
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and packet sniffers, but please contrain yourself and don't ruin the fun of the
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cube multiplayer community. Thanks.
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Wouter van Oortmerssen aka Aardappel
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http://wouter.fov120.com
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For additional authors/contributors, see the cube binary distribution readme.html
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source/README_CUBEENGINE.txt
