 Similar to the cooperative nature of the Linux kernel development, FreeCiv was extended by many volunteers, rather than only one or two authors.It had started out as a small university student project but then branched out into its current form and is still being developed today.FreeCiv also proved to be one of the earliest very popular free software games, and was among the first to be included with Linux distributions, a system commonly known now as a source of peer review or selection of quality for free gaming projects.