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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?"
Yes, but they develop everything in-house. Once you start contracting for the engine, art, sound, etc., it becomes more difficult.
And what company wants to release code today in our litigious environment. Patent trolls would have a field day. It is safer for most companies to keep their code locked up than to allow these patent trolls to freely search and find 6 lines of code that they think violates a patent.
They're not selling it, they're just using it. No one bitches when Random Dude modifies code on his end for his own purposes, why does it matter if it's Random Corp instead?