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• 14/01/2010
  Well well, somewhat long time with no website updates. Well, here are a few things to tell.
  
  First of all, I may be somewhat late, but I should tell that there has been some work for something new in the EDuke32 source port of the game Duke Nukem 3D. It may still be in some kind of an Alpha stage, but I'd tell about it anyway. Well, I know that Dukers have been waiting for it, possibly for years. So, here I go...
  Client-Server multiplayer! That's right, EDuke32 is finally expected to support in-game joining the modern way. Once it supports server advertising and a few game servers are up, it should be much more straight-forward to get a Dukematch game working!
  Of course, any supported mp game other than Dukematch should work as well. We have Cooperative gameplay, and a few may also like "Duke-Tag!".
  
  To another topic, I should send congratulations to Gal Shemesh, also known as goldeng, for completing his work for "dubbing" all levels of the old good Prince of Persia game. You can visit his page on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/goldeng.
  
  To one last "little" topic, I've made a few changes with the files available from the Downloads section. A few are removed, others are added. That's it basically.
  
  
• 20/11/2009
  So, it's time to announce some kind of "breaking news" (well sort of), made up of two parts. Lets begin with the first.
  
  1. Changes in the "YANG Team" are expected to occur. Here is a way to make it clear:
  
  Current team:
  • NY00123 - Original YANG coder and the one who started YANG; Also having a website where you can download YANG from, and talking about YANG in forums.
  • Replica - Host of a YANG master server for listing rooms.
  • Turrican - Another YANG coder who joined not much after YANG has begun supporting room advertising.
  The proposed team to be after the change:
  
  • Replica - Host of a YANG master server and a website for YANG. Also expected to talk with ppl about YANG in places like forums.
  • Turrican - The only YANG coder.
  
  An alternate website for YANG is basically up right now. Here's the link: http://www.multi-players-zone.com/yang/
  
  It should be noted that my website should still be up. In fact, I don't consider my website to be "The YANG Website", mainly because it was born more than a year before YANG ever existed. And it does have things not directly related to YANG, of course.
  
  As of today, my website may still have contents related to YANG, mainly because YANG itself still links to my website in a few ways. But this is expected to change.
  
  Well, as you can see, I basically abandon direct involvement in YANG, letting other people continue where I stop.
  One possible reason for abandoning is that, in fact, I haven't really been actively playing a game like Duke online, for a few years. So, one may wonder why would I be interested in working on something like YANG from the beginning. A possible reason is that, apparently, I had in my head for quite a long time, the idea of having something like Dukester X and Dukonnector, but also working on Linux. And maybe not really much more than that.
  I decided to let Turrican and Replica continue the work, as I feel that I can trust them, and also that they would keep maintaining it with the same goals I had. One very important goal of YANG is to be a portable program. That is, not Windows only.
  
  2. Now, to the second part of the announcement. I think that I'd take a break from the online Duking community for an unknown amount of time.
  It can be a month, a year, ten years, my whole life. I don't know.
  So, you may ask, what does a break from a community mean? Well, for instance, it can mean, to not visit forums directly relevant to this community.
  
  Now people may ask why.
  Well, first of all, not being in the community is maybe not really new for me, as I haven't really been playing Duke online for a few years. So maybe I wasn't a true part of the community after all, and so it isn't so new.
  As I've said before, I got to work on YANG, maybe just to get something portable similar to the other programs mentioned before. There were short periods of having a high motivation, with long breaks (say 3 months). And indeed, progress was gradual... But, eventually, I got to a state where YANG can be a viable alternative. Room advertising supported, along with MAP file transfer which can be done in parallel to other operations like chatting. And of course, supporting more source ports, including Shadow Warrior source ports. DOS games have also been supported with the help of the DOSBox emulator.
  
  Since then, it took a short while until it really caught up. People still used Dukester X, because everybody has been using it for years. Then, Lycos has shut down hosting services, which basically meant the Dukester X main master server was down for a month or two. This is when people actually migrated to YANG.
  That was nice to see it happening. I do realise that maybe it would never happen if Dukester X wasn't down for that kind of a period. After all, most of the players using Dukester X didn't migrate to Dukonnector, even though it had global chat and supports more games and source ports.
  So far, so good. Players migrated to YANG and got to use it. But then, less than two months since the latest YANG update of February 2009, a fork of YANG was born. Although not noticeable immediately, it seems to be the beginning of some kind of a dark(er) period for me. It was mainly noticeable starting in July. It has begun a little after when I've thought about actually turning YANG into a closed source application. At the very end of July, for a few reasons or others, I decided to do it. It did mean that I'd be harder to make other programs connect to the YANG networks. This is basically when things really got worse, including a "cold war" with the one who forked YANG.
  
  So, you may ask, why was YANG open source anyway? Well, here are a few possible reasons:
  • YANG aims to be portable. As an open source app, people could get it to compile on platforms or operating systems I may not use, such as FreeBSD. Even when we talk about Linux, which I'm using as of today, an executable that I compile would probably not work well on all Linux distributions, even if we keep using the same computer. So it seemed to make sense.
  • I had no intention to do something like making money from YANG.
  • I haven't seen a good reason to close source. I did realise that players wanted Dukester X to be open, and that a few would like to modify it only if they could. So, this is what I did.
  • In general, I think I was very open back then. Why should I put many limitations on stuff like the distribution of things that I upload? Doesn't it seem a bit scary for the ones who get stuff? (Think of seeing "You may NOT do this and that...")
    Heh, I know it's maybe an extreme way to think about that, but it's still a way of thinking...
  • In fact, even after hearing about the possibilities of hacking, I still quite insisted on YANG being open. I guess the main reason is the portability.
  • There are many other open source programs, which are also successful.
  
  This is what I thought before. Now you may wonder: Shouldn't I be happy that what I did becomes useful, in any fork of YANG?
  
  Well, one possible reason is the goal of portability I had for a long time, which basically broke with the YANG fork.
  Another one is that, now I realise, I developed some kind of an emotional connection to YANG. It feels like it's my own thing.
  While talking with one individual or more about the situation with YANG and the fork, I was actually told that I was obsessive about it, just like how a boy can be obsessive about a girl, talking about her all the time.
  To be honest, I did get to check IRC logs and forum posts (and maybe still do it, probably very little), just to see people talking about YANG and how much they liked it. It's some kind of a satisfaction. And why not, considering the thought and work I made into YANG. Of course I looked for such posts when players moved to YANG. And then, I could see the first post about the YANG fork, in the Dukester X forums. Even though there were just little changes to YANG, it already felt like I lose something.
  
  After all, a YANG fork wouldn't be possible without all the work into YANG, but I also wouldn't see people crediting me the way they did before...
  
  Now, don't get me wrong. In YANG you can find an "About" message box with credits to other people. It is true that I designed the YANG interface with Dukonnector in my mind, at least partially. And so, it was a good reason for me to mention Dukonnector and aaBlueDragon, the author of Duko.
  
  Well, I could see there may be bad relationships between the one who forked YANG and me, and even between him and Replica. That's because Replica has been hosting a master server for the now closed source YANG. And I could see what appears to be the opposite of crediting (that is, being against us, yet using the work of mine).
  
  So, I realise that there may be even more problematic relationships, between me and other people; Interests would be involved here. And the feeling of loss... as someone basically took full control over YANG, while it's that program with the emotional feelings that I've got...
  
  Therefore, it may be better for me to just take a break from the online Duking community.
  Now, a few more things to tell:
  • These days, I think that if I ever start a new program where it takes some time to start it, like YANG, it'd be closed source. Or at least as long as it can be done legally (considering the licensing terms of outside code or libraries). After all, I don't even have to work on any program as a hobby; I owe nothing to the community; And a closed source program is better than nothing.
  • Considering how were Replica and me treated, it's important to remember that we both don't owe anything to anybody. As I said, If I want a program like YANG to be closed source and it's legal to do it, it'll be closed. Regarding Replica, it's also correct that all he wanted is to do a favour and host a master server for me. And later, there have been problems regarding relationships...
  • Maybe I should start something, in case that I think that I'd actually use it. Something that I'd really like to work on, have fun with it. Oh wait, but maybe I thought that I'd be back to play Duke online again, once there's a multiplayer front-end working on Linux natively...
  
  To finish, thanks for everybody who's been using YANG, and/or supporting me.
  
  
• 11/11/2009
  I think I'd tell that someone has decided to have an APT repository for EDuke32, hosted on duke4.net.
  Basically, if you're using a certain version of Debian or Ubuntu, you can get add repositories so you can install EDuke32.
  After installation and in case of an update, you should be notified of it when you're notified of repository updates in general, assuming everything works as expected.
  A Link for instructions: http://wiki.eduke32.com/wiki/APT_repository.