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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?"
Buy the rights, and then release it... Honestly, looking back, very few instances of these things happening have been the case...I mean, there are the cool companies that sometimes do it like the rare instances mentioned, and there's other companies that roll them out after their initial profitability has died (Quake, etc).
That said, short of buying the rights to the source, I doubt you'll get very far even with a petition. Look at us Linux users asking nVidia to fix the problems or opensource the blob...
ID Open sources most of their stuff after a few years. Further than that, John Carmack goes through to add comments, clean up code, and in the case of a feature that was settled after a patent dispute with someone else, re-implemented the offending bit of code prior to release. (Seem Doom 3 engine)
Cheers
Kactus
One further example is Star Control II whose source code was released by the developers. The result is known today as The Ur-Quan Masters. And, of course, Wikipedia has a whole category for formerly proprietary software...
I liked Triplane Turmoil, and old shareware DOS game, a lot. When I met the original developers by accident I offered to help port the game to SDL and managed to convince them to release it as open source: http://triplane.sf.net/
I can't answer the question either, but yet another game that has been open sourced that's missing from the Wikipedia list is Allegiance. http://www.freeallegiance.org/
The game was originally published by none other than Microsoft. Shocking, I know, but way back in prehistory (1999), Microsoft actually released some complete open source software. A game.
I'll pause while our older members grab their portable defibrillators....
Yes, Allegiance is open source and has enjoyed ongoing software development as well as a community-contributed texture "face-lift" to improve the look of the game. It has not made its way onto Linux because it was originally implemented with Microsoft's orphaned DirectPlay, and no one has been interested in replacing the entire network implementation. Its anti-cheat system, which was community-developed, is also dependent on Microsoft libraries unavailable on Linux. (Though possibly Mono has advanced far enough that's no longer true. Regardless, it's anti-cheat geared for Windows, so it's not especially portable.)
For those interested, it's an arcade-style space combat game (think Wing Commander, or the original X-Wing and Tie Fighter games) where two teams fight to control the arena. The added wrinkle is the addition of RTS elements, including a single human commander for each side who plays in RTS mode. Yes, it's that holy grail of games, an RTS/FPS hybrid. As it turns out, RTS/FPS is a hard game to learn and a hard game to play, so it has never enjoyed great popularity (contrary to the popular opinion of a million vocal wannabe game-designers on the forums of the Internet).
As with most small, insular Internet communities, the players tend to be snobbish and stand-offish to newcomers. Goes with the territory.
A software company might (and I emphasize MIGHT) be willing to open-source some old commercial software they own if it can be shown to be of benefit to them. Simply doing it for philanthropic purposes is unlikely to sway most companies, but if, say, a newer and better version of their software is coming out and the old, discontinued version people are asking for is of no threat to their profit margins, then that might be enough of a motivation as it would increase publicity, improve the image of the company (good PR is always helpful), and all the side benefits as well.
John Carmack open-sources all the engines he writes for iD software after a while, once the engine is no longer deemed commercially viable. It's unlike anyone will use the Doom 3 engine (technically id Tech 4) for example in a commercial game as it's been superseded by modern engines, and virtually no-one plays Doom 3 online so the threat from exploits is redundant. This is a great idea since it means projects such as iodoom 3 can be born to improve the engine and allow hobbyist developers to use it in their own games. I wish Valve would open source the original Goldsource engine used for their Half-Life 1 based games, but that will never happen as long as Counter-Strike is still actively played.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
A lot of folks wanted IBM to open source OS/2 after its sunset. One of the stated reasons why they didn't open source it, was because parts were jointly developed with Microsoft and others, who had joint copyrights. There would have been too many legal and copyright hassles necessary to get open sourcing done. Device Drivers were especially a big problem.
This could be true with a lot of other dormant software. Maybe nobody really knows what potential copyright issues are involved, and nobody wants to take on the liability by open sourcing it themselves, because it might cause litigation grief later.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I don't see that as too much of a problem. Freedom to modify software running on your own computer is important, but you shouldn't need to modify code running on someone else's computer.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Plenty of games, even old ones are not entirely inhouse developed, why reinvent the wheel when plenty have already done it before you. Hence they buy 3rd party engines and routines that they have no rights to open source thus dooming the game to never be open sourced even if the game developer would not mind doing so.
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?
There's a license for that ; the Affero GPL, which has the same terms as the GPL but counts use of the software via a network to be the same as distribution. But you can expect all but the most hardened Free Software advocates to avoid that one like the plague.
The original Prince of Persia was recently open sourced after the developer found the once thought lost source code on a floppy hidden away somewhere.
As a collector and researcher (of regular software, not games)...
Forget it. Most companies are not still around. If they are around, they're not the company they once were, and probably no one there even remembers the old software. If they are still around and remember their old software, they'll ignore you if you ask about it.
This is a great tragedy. It's technically illegal to do research into 1980s software, because the only way you can get it is by violating copyright. Something has gone horribly wrong when doing history is illegal.
Borland started releasing old versions of their software (not open sourcing them, just releasing the old binaries) but the usual happened: Whoever started this effort was quashed by the company changing hands.
WordPerfect blew me off totally when I asked about 4.1, 4.2, and 5.1 - I found these at a "pirate" site.
Will historically important programs like Turbo C, WordPerfect, etc ever be open sourced? Never. A whole chapter in the history of computing is essentially being lost. Only historians who know software very well and can set up emulators can even preserve this software, and only if they can find it.
Even shareware versions are lost to history. Some "shovelware" images of old shareware BBSes have old shareware, but disk space was tight back then and historical versions are gone for good because the new version always replaced the old version. Very difficult to find 1980s shareware for any package with versions released in the 90s.
Most hardened Free Software advocates consider Affero to be non-free. It introduces usage restrictions, which go against Freedom 0 ("the right to use the software for any purpose"). It also prevents most code reuse: you can't take a part and put it inside your program if it interacts with users in a way that doesn't provide means of file transfers.
Sadly, RMS has brain farts sometimes. The GFDL, for example, with a literal reading prevents locking the door to a room you have your computer in: keys and door locks might be 14th century technology, but are still a technology. Or, you can attach an "Ode to Hitler" to the work and have it immutable and unremovable.
Of course, erring the other way is wrong too. Some folks says it's good that clang is BSD-licensed. Wrong: that allows Apple to take your contributions and close the whole rest of the toolchain. I can't cross-compile for Mac, can't test build without being a Mac user, etc. With Windows there are no such problems: I run daily test builds for Windows from the comfort of my Debian box, can test any version of Windows in a virtual machine, etc. But on Mac? I have to beg someone to run a Mac build, and if there's a toolchain-related problem, there is nothing that can be done. Can't build stuff for OS X 10.4 because the compiler crashes (bug long fixed upstream...), can't build for PPC-based Mac, and so on. This is why freedoms ensured by the GPL are so important.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Sigh, I just wish I had saved the emails from when I tried talking to some of these defunct game rights holders, because it would have been a perfect example of why we need shorter copyrights and a "use it or lose it"clause but frankly after spending nearly 6 months TRYING to deal with them frankly they just made me wanna puke.
I probably better explain...anybody remember those old shareware discs we got during the days of Win3.x-Win98? You know, those ones filled with cheesy little games from all over the place? Well me and a buddy had the idea that because you can't play those anymore without major hoop jumping that is frankly beyond most, and that is if you can even find the games in the first place, that we'd cook up a nice little GUI frontend to DOSBox and sell flash sticks with these shareware games on them, just to let folks who never got to have that see what it was like and for old farts to have a trip down memory lane.
Now we of course never expected to make any money off of that, any changes to DOSBox would of course been GPLed and the price we were gonna go for was a few bucks over cost plus shipping with the few bucks being split between the guys that had wrote the shareware titles. For us it was strictly a labor of love thing, both me and my friend had kids and we wanted to let them see what it was like when we were their age, so what happened?
We quickly found out that even with games that hadn't been in print in 20+ years and that frankly never sold worth a shit in the first place (we're not talking Doom here folks, we are talking those cheesy knockoffs and platformers and puzzlers) that when we found the owners the amount of sheer fucking insane levels of greed was beyond nuts. There were several wanting 4 and 5 figures up front NOT for the code, NOT for even the complete game, but just for the right to use the original shareware! And many wanted the rights to OUR code on top! The sad part is we also found that we could just go the Chinamart route and say fuck the IP bullshit and get it done that way.
In the end we just gave up, and likely that is what they'll have to do in TFA. With copyright law as it is your grandkids will be in the nursing home before these games are PD, if they EVER are, and the ones that end up with the rights act like every 5th rate game that was placed on a floppy or CD with a dozen other games should bring in the kind of revenue it would have if it was Ms Pacman. Good luck dealing with these greedy bastards friend, because they would rather not do a damned thing with it than settle for less than what a AAA game would go for, I swear its fucking insanity!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
While not directly an answer to the question posed, gog.com's community wishlist ( http://www.gog.com/wishlist ) is one way of reviving old games. Not all companies are willing to open-source their creations, no matter how exceedingly good arguments you make, but they might be willing to revive these old games if there was a way of getting even one dollar of profit out of it.
But you see we were asking for NO RIGHTS other than the right to put it on the stick, that's all. no IP rights, no right to even put our names on the stick other than whatever plug the DOSBox guys might have given us because that would have been there under creators instead. We offered to give them links to any product they wanted to sell, contact info, anything they wanted without asking to do anymore than those original CDs did back in the day, simply offer them up to people at a cheap price. hell we weren't even gonna ask for the rights to use any of their images in the artwork, instead letting them choose whether they wanted to put something from their game or a logo or not.
so they went from getting an equal cut of every cent over the cost to...nothing. absolutely fucking nothing. Not a SINGLE ONE of the games we were looking at had been in print or sold anywhere for ANY price since the days of Win95, in fact we had gone out of our way to buy up old as the hills shareware discs to purposely find the weird quirky crap you'd find on the discs back then. And I'd remind you that the whole point of those original shareware discs was to sell a taste of a game and link back to the owner with contact info so they could sell you the complete game, not to get the same price as the next Gears Of War, yet that was EXACTLY what these companies wanted. To put just 5 games on the stick we would have had to sell each stick for more than D3, do you HONESTLY think anybody is gonna pay diablo 3 money for a game running in DOSBox that hasn't been touched in 20-25 years?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.