Comment by blindriver
6 hours ago
If I read the site properly, did this person usurp the trademark for Nethack for himself? Is this an actual authorized version 4 of Nethack? I just downloaded it the other day and I think it was at 3.6.7
6 hours ago
If I read the site properly, did this person usurp the trademark for Nethack for himself? Is this an actual authorized version 4 of Nethack? I just downloaded it the other day and I think it was at 3.6.7
They cover that in the FAQ: http://nethack4.org/faq.html
Basically, NetHack development stalled out, so the developer(s?) behind NetHack 4 decided to fork it. Unlike other forks whose main goal is to put cool stuff in the game without regard for taste or balance, they wanted to stay true to the original.
Not that I agree with the fork name. It's best to not call your fork something that could be confused with the original, were the original devs to ever reach a 4.0 release.
The author of nethack4 (Alex Smith) subsequently joined the original nethack (nethack 3.x) dev team: https://nethack.org/common/news.html#newmembers
I hope one day the DevTeam releases a NetHack 5 which serves as a successor to both variants.
I think 3 and 4 are separate forks, but I could be misremembering.