Ask Slashdot: How To Get Old Commercial Software To Be Open-Sourced?

First time accepted submitter Optic7 writes "Many gamers have probably dreamed about the idea of an old favorite game or other no longer supported or developed commercial software being converted to an open-source license so that it could be updated to add new features, support new hardware, other operating systems, etc. However, this type of change of license seems exceedingly rare, unless the copyright holder itself decides on its own that it would be beneficial. The only examples I could think of or was able to find in a brief internet search were Blender (3D animation software that had its source code bought from creditors after a crowd-funding campaign) and Warzone 2100 (Game that had its source code released after a successful petition). With those two examples of different strategies in mind, have any of you ever participated in any efforts of this kind, and what did you learn from it that may be useful to someone else attempting the same thing? Even if you have not participated, do you have any suggestions or ideas that may be useful to such an effort?"

Comments

Re:Become Rich

[jellomizer]

Releasing a previously closed source project to open source is much harder then people realize.

1. You have to deal with many copyright owners. If you look at some titles you may see mutable companies connected to it. Some of these companies have been closed or acquired however there is someone who still own some copyright. You need to get all those parties to agree.

2. You might open source it. But it probably can't be GPL. Sometimes you will find that they used third party libraries. That are closed source and those companies are active in the developments libraries. Assuming these library owners allow you to release the source with there reference in them.

3. Companies will sometimes hold onto the title to make a remake/reboot/sequel later. Or they will sell a package cd of all the games. So they will not want to open the game up.

In general even if you own rights to the source you may not be as free as you thought.