Free The TA Source Code

JFL writes " A petition to request that the Total Annihilation source code's current owner, Infogrames, release the code into the public domain is currently in full swing over at the French site TA Forever. " I recently picked up TA again, and played around with it - while the graphics are looking a bit dated, the design for the system is great - a very extensible design system, and one that you could build some interesting environments on top of. The use of height is something that was, and to a certain extent, still far ahead of other RTS ^? games.

Comments

Why not demand all games 2+ years old be opened?

[Win-Developer]

I don't get why people want this specific game released?

If you're going to make such a fuss over this game, why not sign petitions to get Unreal Tournament's source released? It's just as old as this game.

Why doesn't anyone make a fuss for the laundry list of games that no one generates profit from anymore?

In case you're wondering, you can still buy this game in the stores, so it's still generating profit for the company(albiet marginal profit).

Forget it

[SumDeusExMachina]

Not only are there probably licensing issues that they would have to overcome should they choose to open the source code to it, but you really have to ask yourself, do they really want their name tarnished by open source?

No, really, think about it for a minute. Sure, opening the source to an older game sounds great at first, but one must consider the full implications of that move. If the source is made publicly available, it will only result in crashy, ugly mods that are hard to use or install. Plus not everyone has Microsoft Visual C++ handy in order to compile the source and install it on a proper gaming OS. So anyone who is new to the game and wants to pick it up will take one look at it after downloading, think "god, what a mess. It isn't worth the trouble." and will probably think less of Infogrames for it.

Also, what license do you suppose they will use? If they want what they are claiming to want, shouldn't they put it under the BSD license so that it is truely in the public domain? I mean, after all, if it is so old as to not generate profitable sales anymore, why worry if someone else takes the code and releases their own modified binaries for profit?