Game development legend John Carmack - he of id Software and Doom fame - has been singing the praises of open source development practices this week, promising to release the source code for 2004's Doom 3 to the public later this year.
Carmack unveiled the plan at this year's QuakeCon event in Dallas, confirming that id's parent company ZeniMax is allowing them to release the code and that it will be made available after the release of id's much-hyped Rage this coming October.
Carmack called for other developers to follow suit and make old code available to the public, as it considerably helps younger developers learn how to make better games.
Raging ambition
Speaking of Rage, which has been in development for six years now, Carmack said:
"We invented this genre and we followed it a long ways...Maybe we shouldn't have been quite as ambitious."
However, he is clearly happy with the (near) finished game, adding: "It really is probably the most enjoyable id game, from my perspective, we've ever made."
On discussing the limitations of console tech, Carmack said, in customary out-spoken fashion: "It pains me a lot that Microsoft and Sony don't allow us to plug into a keyboard."
Carmack was always a PC gamer first and foremost, of course, and he notes that id and other developers are "just using the PC as a muscular console at this point."
Finally, id has announced a bunch of special offers on Steam this week, to celebrate QuakeCon 2011.
