Publishing/Integrating Xonotic with Steam

I was wondering if it was possible to someday publish/integrate Xonotic with the Steam engine. My logic being that it would be a great tool to help push the project to a greater audience and thus ensure the project's longevity.

What brought this up was a discussion between myself and one of the developers for Urban Terror. Apparently they have had some backroom discussions regarding the idea and apparently are open to it.

With the steam engine being ported over to Linux soon and recently over to Mac, we'd still be able to tend to our traditional audiences while also being able to integrate the Steamworks platform.

Thoughts? I sent an email to Steam about costs and such and I'm waiting for a reply.

You mean the Source engine?

The answer is no anyway to this idea, because:

1. The whole idea behind the Xonotic project is to be free and open source, this was one of the reasons for forking, and:
2. The licensing on the Source engine is as far as I know not compatible with free open source licenses at all.
3. Switching engines would mean throwing all gamecode away. That's over 100 000 lines of code to rewrite in another language, unless the target engine also supports QC with all the latest extensions (the latter is only supported by DP, afaik)

Edit:
Oh, realized you probably mean the Steam distribution platform. That I have nothing against, and it would obviously be a huge plus to get Xonotic up there when the first release is out. The question remains however what Valve's policies on that are: if they allow GPL licensed games or not (so far I've never heard about one on Steam). Also, they might demand some form of shady "control" over the game and/or eg. it's server lists etc, and this is obviously a no-go. If they would only allow for distributing the game and launching it via Steam, possibly with an integrated server browser/chat/whatever, then great.

Yeah, it would cease to be Xonotic if we switched engines entirely. That would be such a slap in the face to all the developers who have worked on the Nexuiz project over the years.

I'm speaking about the distribution platform, if some people didn't catch it.

This was discussed before.

Though it didn't seem like we reached a conclusion. Has steam been written to about distributing a free and open-source game?

Though it didn't seem like we reached a conclusion. Has steam been written to about distributing a free and open-source game?

I've emailed them, and I'm still waiting for a response.

But I'm guessing they won't mind one bit, because I know for a fact that Valve actually supports open source and 3rd party game development (look at Garry's Mod for example when it comes to Half Life 2/Counter Strike, ect.)

The only possible issues that could arise would be from the Nexuiz (console) group. They could claim that we have taken their source code, which might make us unattractive to Valve in case they would have to get involved in any kind of legal issues.

The only possible issues that could arise would be from the Nexuiz (console) group. They could claim that we have taken their source code, which might make us unattractive to Valve in case they would have to get involved in any kind of legal issues.

But that's wrong - console nexuiz took the name and nothing else.

But that's wrong - console nexuiz took the name and nothing else.

I was under the impression that they also took source code?

Still no response from Valve, I'll try phone calling them.

I don't think they did, but in any case, it is *our* source code.

The only possible issues that could arise would be from the Nexuiz (console) group. They could claim that we have taken their source code, which might make us unattractive to Valve in case they would have to get involved in any kind of legal issues.

LOL in that case I think the community would be like BRING IT BITCHEZ!!1!one!

LOL in that case I think the community would be like BRING IT BITCHEZ!!1!one!

+1

Okay so I called Valve, and the representative that I talked to said I would have to have permission from the person(s) leading the project to negotiate anything. Since I'm in no position at all to do anything, I think I'd just like to come out and say that, from their end, it sounds like they'd give it one hell of a big thumbs up.

Anyone on the Dev team want to drop them a line? This could be a great opportunity for us.

LOL in that case I think the community would be like BRING IT BITCHEZ!!1!one!

+1

Okay so I called Valve, and the representative that I talked to said I would have to have permission from the person(s) leading the project to negotiate anything. Since I'm in no position at all to do anything, I think I'd just like to come out and say that, from their end, it sounds like they'd give it one hell of a big thumbs up.

Anyone on the Dev team want to drop them a line? This could be a great opportunity for us.

Time to grab all the devs and direct them to this thread and see what they think. div already said that as long is it remains GPL then there wouldn't be anything stopping it. Did they ask for any fees?