Quake, Meet GPL; GPL, Meet Quake
Back in the summer of 2005, id Software released the Quake 3 engine to the public under the GPL license. For open-source enthusiasts, it was amazing news, but to the general public, it seemed like mostly marketing nonsense. Releasing the Quake 3 engine, unfortunately, wasn’t the same as releasing the game, so the average gamer didn’t gain anything—at least, not at first. In this article, I introduce some great new games that use the Quake 3 engine. They’re all free, and they all run natively under Linux.
First, let’s talk about what id Software really did when it released the engine under the GPL. As Linux users, we’re familiar with terms like, “Free as in speech and free as in beer”. For the record, I have never understood the latter part of that motto. Beer is rarely free. Nonetheless, the Quake 3 engine is indeed free in several ways: