Abandonware

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abandonware logo of the website abandonware.org :
Prohibition sign of a scene in which Pac-Man is carelessly disposed of in the trash can as a symbol for a retro game that has become abandonware, alluding to the handling of digital classics during the Atari dissolution in 1996.

As abandonware ( English abandon "give up", "left") refers to (most commercially developed) software , which is a manufacturer no longer markets and for which he no technical support offers more. There is thus z. For example, it is no longer possible to obtain a replacement for damaged data media directly from the manufacturer or to use the manufacturer's services .

Abandonware can be seen as the digital equivalent of the orphan work .

Problem Description

The product life cycle of software often provides that the program reaches its end of life from a certain point in time . So i. d. Usually both (commercial) sales and further support are discontinued. Typically, this happens when a product is no longer expected to generate sales that exceed costs, or because the product itself has been replaced by a successor product ( planned obsolescence ). Sometimes the reason for abandonware is the insolvency of a manufacturer or the loss of rights or unclear legal relationships with software.

A software user who wants to continue using abandoned software can run into problems because the product is no longer maintained, i.e. no more errors are corrected or compatibility adjustments made for new hardware or operating systems.

If software becomes abandonware, this can, in extreme cases, lead to the loss of the original source code , since the data backup measures in the company are then often shut down, if they exist at all. One example is the closure of the Atari Corporation in 1996, when the original source code of some milestones in computer game history, such as Asteroids or Centipede , ended up on the trash and could have been irrevocably lost for posterity.

The problem of the maintenance and long-term archiving of software is exacerbated by the fact that physical digital media ( floppy disks , optical data storage devices , hard drives ) only have a short lifespan compared to other media (books, etc.), and the necessary hardware, formats and technologies quickly become out of date, as well as through restrictive copy protection mechanisms . If software is only available in a DRM- secured form of digital distribution or as SaaS , switching off the server providing it immediately leads to the software becoming unavailable .

The lack of availability of software and the associated source code can also become a problem for software archeology and research into software development history.

species

The term "abandonware" is widely used for several types of software that is no longer sold or supported:

  • (commercial) software whose rights and / or source code are owned by a company that no longer exists,
  • (commercial) software whose rights are held by an existing company, but this company has no interest in support,
  • (Commercial) software from an existing company that wants to provide further development and support, but is not allowed to do so due to lost or missing rights,
  • Open source software that no longer has a maintainer .

Reactions to the unavailability

Abandonware websites

The first websites were founded on the World Wide Web around 1997 , which dealt with the problem of the unavailability of this software under the title "Abandonware", archived this software and made it available for download . One distinguishes oneself morally from the so-called warez pages insofar as the financial damage for manufacturing companies is assessed as minor and, above all, an archival function for the general public (but also the manufacturing company itself) in order to protect digital works before they finally disappear preserve.

Peter Ringering, who founded the Webring Abandonware Ring in February 1997, is often named as the founder of the term "abandonware" . Ringering looked for websites that dealt with classic games, contacted their webmasters and gradually formed the web ring , with the central hub abandonwarering.com , which had indexed all pages for searching. In October 1997, the Interactive Digital Software Association sent warning letters to all sides of the abandonware ring, which resulted in most of them being shut down. As an unintended side effect (also known as the Streisand effect ), however, this led to the establishment of a second generation of abandonware websites, the number of which soon exceeded the original one. Well-known and extensive abandonware sites of the second generation, which emerged in the late 1990s, are Home of the Underdogs and Abandonia .

Right from the start, most abandonware sites focused on old computer and video games . The spectrum ranges from old game consoles such as the Atari 2600 to the computers of the early 1990s , such as the Amiga and the IBM PC .

Despite ever-present efforts within the scene to come to agreements with the software companies or to exert influence on the legislature in order to step out of illegality, such plans have not been seriously tackled to date, and the operators of abandonware sites therefore continue to act aware of violating copyright law. Conversely, there is also some sympathy among individual developers for abandonware sites, as they ensure that their works can be noticed and not be forgotten.

“[…] Personally, I think that sites that support these old games are a good thing for both consumers and copyright owners. If the options are (a) having a game be lost forever and (b) having it available on one of these sites, I'd want it to be available. That being said, I believe a game is 'abandoned' only long after it is out of print. And just because a book is out of print does not give me rights to print some for my friends. "

- Richard Garriott : Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware . Interview (2002, GameSpot .com)

“Is it piracy? Yeah sure. But so what? Most of the game makers aren't living off the revenue from those old games anymore. Most of the creative teams behind all those games have long since left the companies that published them, so there's no way the people who deserve to are still making royalties off them. So go ahead - steal this game! Spread the love! "

- Tim Schafer : Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware . Interview (2002, GameSpot .com)

"If I owned the copyright on Total Annihilation , I would probably allow it to be shared for free by now (four years after it was originally released)"

- Chris Taylor : Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware . Interview (2002, GameSpot .com)

Approval by rights holder

Sometimes software that was previously sold commercially is later made non-commercially available again by the rights holder, partly as a promotion for new software, partly because the user community was able to convince him of the need for availability (e.g. artistic or milestone character of computer games) . Games that have been released by their rights holders for (mostly non-commercial) use and distribution, formally lose their status as abandonware and are - depending on the case - freeware , free software , public domain or published under their own licenses. However, they can often be found on abandonware sites. Examples are “ Beneath a Steel Sky ” or “ Flight of the Amazon Queen ” or Amstrad and many Borland products.

Long-term archiving initiatives

Internet Archive

In 2004, the Internet Archive started to create a digital archive for “vintage software” in order to preserve it for the future via long-term archiving . For this project an exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the United States had to be requested in order to bypass any existing copy protection. This was approved in 2003 for a period of three years. The exception was renewed in 2006 and extended indefinitely until there are further amendments to the law. The Internet archive does not make this software available for download, however, since the exemption is only valid for the sole purpose of “archival preservation of digital works”. 2013 started the Internet Archive, however, so, classic games as a playable browser - Streaming via MESS offer emulation, z. B. the Atari-2600 video game ET the Extra-Terrestrial . From December 23, 2014, thousands of archived, classic DOS computer games will be presented for teaching and research purposes using DOSBox emulation in the browser .

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress of the United States began approximately from 2006 with organized archiving of computer games. In September 2012, the collection included 3,000 games from many platforms and 1,500 strategy guides. For example, in August 2014, the Library of Congress was able to get the source code and data of the unpublished and lost game " Duke Nukem: Critical Mass " and archive it.

European archiving initiatives

Another approach is the Keeping Emulation Environments Portable Project, which tries to achieve long-term archiving and availability via virtualized emulators . This is an EU research project co-financed by the EU ( 7th Research Framework Program ) and was first presented by the Computer Games Museum in Berlin in September 2008. It should ensure the long-term availability of digital objects of various types in their original context by integrating existing and newly created emulators in a so-called emulation framework.

In 2012 a group of European museums and organizations came together to form the European Federation of Game Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects (EFGAMP) in order to preserve computer gaming .

Similar efforts have been made in Japan for years.

ICHEG

Since around 2009, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games , or "ICHEG" for short, has been tracking computer game preservation over five aspects: original software and hardware, marketing materials and publications, production records , game records and, finally, the source code of the Game. In December 2013, the SSI founder Joel Billings handed over some SSI games with source code to the ICHEG Museum for archiving. In 2014 ICHEG received a collection of Brøderbund games as well as a "practically complete" Atari arcade machine collection, including source code and other data, for permanent archiving.

Computer History Museum

Approx. 2010 began Computer History Museum with the archiving of source critical software, starting with MacPaint 1.3, which by Apple Inc. was released. In 2012, the source text of the APL programming language followed . In February 2013 Adobe Inc. donated the Photoshop 1.0.1 source code for the collection, followed by Apple Inc.'s Apple DOS source code in November 2013 . The source code is made available to the public for download under its own non-commercial license. Xerox Alto's source code and other resources followed on October 21, 2014 .

MOMA

Since 2012, MOMA has also tried to archive computer games explicitly with the source code.

Archiving by the fan base

First page of the WC1 source text handed over to the Wing Commander fan community for archiving purposes in 2011.

There is also the rare case that a fan base is given a software for archiving purposes, for example it happened in 2011 with the source texts of several parts of the Wing Commander game series or Ultima 9 from the Ultima series in 2015. In 2008, Jason Scott was unable to get one An archive with all source texts of the Infocom computer games was obtained, which later ended up at the Internet Archive for archiving.

Republication via digital distribution

Since the possibilities of digital distribution from the 2000s onwards made commercial distribution and the provision of software significantly cheaper, it began to make commercial sense to sell abandonware in some cases again. In this regard, the provider GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games ) has a pioneering role in the field of computer games and began in 2008 to locate the rights holders of abandonware games in order to be able to re-publish the games legally and technically. For example, in February 2013, gog.com was able to get the title System Shock 2 , which had not been published for around 10 years due to complicated licensing relationships, from the abandonware state. As a further example, the title Conquest: Frontier Wars , which had not been published for about 10 years, became available again via gog.com in December 2013 , including the source code.

Responses to the support failure

Software support from the user community

Sometimes the user community tries to make necessary adjustments to the software itself (e.g. for compatibility with new hardware or operating systems) after the end of official support, which occurs with the abandonware status . However, since neither the development tools nor the software source code is typically available, this is a difficult and time-consuming undertaking. Nonetheless, some software communities manage to maintain support themselves with unofficial patches using debugging , reverse engineering of data and file formats and binary adjustments to the executable files themselves . Examples of community support via patches you have created yourself are Fallout 2 , Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines or Windows 98 , for further examples see the article Unofficial Patch .

For example, in 2012 when the multiplayer computer game Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance was abandoned, when the official multiplayer server and support were shut down, the game community itself took over support via a multiplayer server and client developed in-house .

In the case of non-PC or very early PC software, instead of adaptation or porting, attempts are made to make do with emulators, some of which have been developed in-house, in order to ensure that the software can be executed. Examples are MAME , an emulator system for many arcade machines , the UAE for the Commodore Amiga home computer or DOSBox for software from the DOS era.

Approval of the source code

Sometimes user communities succeed in convincing the manufacturer at the end of the support timeframe to release the source code of a software instead of letting it become abandonware. This gives the user community the opportunity to effectively take over the support itself. The difference to the release of the entire software (e.g. as freeware) is often that the artwork and data are not released, but rather have to be available in a commercially acquired version in order to obtain executable software. These source code releases take place under various licenses, partly under open source licenses, partly under own licenses that restrict commercial use, but partly also as a public domain , which allows any use and adaptation. The manufacturers id Software and 3D Realms are among the first to propagate and implement this approach, but also, for example, the lead developer of Falcon 4.0 , Kevin Klemmick, spoke out in 2011 in favor of making the source code of expiring software available:

"I honestly think this [source code release] should be standard procedure for companies that decide not to continue to support a code base."

"I honestly think that this [making the source code available] should be the standard procedure in companies that decide to no longer support a source code base"

- Giorgio Bertolone : Interview with Kevin Klemmick - Falcon 4.0 Lead Software Engineer

Well-known examples are therefore many titles from id Software and 3D Realms , but also individual games from other developers such as Homeworld or Myth II . The great advantage of the availability of the source code is the possibility of porting it to current platforms, e.g. B. Myth II on Linux or Jagged Alliance 2 on Android . For other game software for which the source code has been released, see List of commercial computer games with published source code .

An important example of successful source code release for general software is the Netscape Communicator Internet browser , released March 31, 1998 by Netscape Communications . This was handed over to the Mozilla Foundation , which continues to develop it to this day, and forms the basis for many browsers, e.g. B. for Firefox . Another example is the office software StarOffice , which was released by Sun Microsystems in October 2000 and is being further developed as the OpenOffice / LibreOffice suite to this day (as of January 2015).

Legal position

Berne Convention

In countries that have acceded to the Berne Convention , the copying of software and computer games, even if the author is a foreigner, is subject to the protection of the respective national laws. The revised Bern Convention guarantees a minimum term of protection of at least fifty years beyond the death of the author ( post mortem auctoris ).

Germany

In Germany, the copyright law and, if applicable, the art copyright law are the relevant sets of standards that a. regulate the right to reproduce and distribute works.

United States

In the USA, the DMCA prohibits techniques such as reverse engineering and can thus make it difficult to preserve digital works there. In October 2003, however, the US Congress allowed four additions to the DMCA to pass. a. defined the purpose of archiving as a temporary exception.

"3. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. ... The register has concluded that to the extent that libraries and archives wish to make preservation copies of published software and videogames that were distributed in formats that are (either because the physical medium on which they were distributed is no longer in use or because the use of an obsolete operating system is required), such activity is a noninfringing use covered by section 108 (c) of the Copyright Act. "

- Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies (PDF; 165 kB)

In November 2006, the US Library of Congress approved a permanent exception to the DMCA that allows the bypassing of copy protection for software when it is no longer sold or endorsed by the copyright owner.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kevin Parrish: Atari 7800 Source Code Rescued - Atari released the source code for the 7800 console and games ( English ) tomsguide.com. July 7, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b 7800 Games & Development ( en ) atari-museum.com. 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2012: "These games were rescued from Atari ST format diskettes that were thrown out behind 1196 Borregas when Atari closed up in 1996. The Atari Museum rescued these important treasures and recovered them from the diskettes."
  3. ↑ g4tv staff: The Lost History of System Shock ( English ) g4tv.com. May 30, 2011. Retrieved May 30, 2012: “Looking Glass Studios closed in 2000, a year after System Shock 2's release, and the copyright to the series went into the hands of an insurance company. That left EA with only the System Shock name, but no actual development rights. "
  4. ↑ Bo Moore: Lost in limbo: on the hunt for PC gaming's abandoned classics . PC Games . March 27, 2015. Retrieved May 1, 2015: “The saga of No One Lives Forever's resurrection has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. […] The problem was, it was just the trademark - no one was quite sure who held the game's copyright. […] Digging into dead or forgotten IPs is tough work. These games came from an era when big-name publishing was the only model for success. Even though many of the games on this list were made by small, dedicated studios, they still relied on companies like EA to get to market. But as studios were swallowed or shut down, the rights of their beloved games often got lost in the shuffle. It's unfortunate that so many of them are still lost today simply due to the apathy of the rights-holder. "
  5. ^ John Andersen: Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis, Part 1 ( English ) Gamasutra . January 27, 2011. Retrieved January 10, 2013: "The existence of decaying technology, disorganization, and poor storage could in theory put a video game to sleep permanently - never to be played again. Troubling admissions have surfaced over the years concerning video game preservation. When questions concerning re-releases of certain game titles are brought up during interviews with developers, for example, these developers would reveal issues of game production material being lost or destroyed. Certain game titles could not see a re-release due to various issues. One story began to circulate of source code being lost altogether for a well-known RPG, preventing its re-release on a new console. "
  6. ^ Adam Barenblat: Sega Can't Find The Source Code For Your Favorite Old School Arcade Games ( English ) Kotaku. July 25, 2008. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  7. ^ Bubble Bobble ( en ) Arcade History. September 11, 2012. Retrieved January 10, 2013: "In 1996, Taito announced that they lost the original source code program to Bubble Bobble following a reorganization - when it came to the recent ports and sequels, they had to work from program disassembly , playing the game and (mainly) the various home computer ports. "
  8. ↑ Silent Hill HD was made from incomplete code on Destructoid (English)
  9. ↑ Fabien Sanglard: Reverse Engineering Strike Commander ( en ) January 22, 2014. Retrieved January 23, 2014: “Most people assume the source codes and gold versions of all finished games were stored in a Vault somewhere at EA. But after getting in touch with people at Wing Commander CIC, it appeared that all the source code was lost when the company closed. "
  10. ↑ Michael W. Gilbert: Digital Media Life Expectancy and Care ( English ) www.oit.umass.edu. 1998. Archived from the original on December 22, 2003. Retrieved January 4, 2011.
  11. ↑ bit red . Software Preservation Society. May 7, 2009. Retrieved January 4, 2011.
  12. ^ Anthony John Agnello: Nothing Lasts Forever: Confronting the Problem of Video Game Preservation . usgamer.net. February 19, 2014. Accessed July 10, 2015: "'How game historians are working to ensure the future of archiving as the medium shifts to an all-digital format.'"
  13. ↑ Ben Kuchera: Finding treasures in the code: Why the source code of classic games matters, even to non-coders ( English ) polygon.com. March 17, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
  14. ↑ a b Marc Saltzman: Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware ( English ) gamespot.com. 2002. Archived from the original on December 14, 2005. Retrieved on December 29, 2012: “By day, 28-year-old Sarinee Achavanuntakul is an investment banker in Hong Kong, but by night, she runs the infamous Home of the Underdogs, a website she founded three and a half years ago, and receives an average of more than 30,000 unique visitors per day. According to Achavanuntakul, the purpose of starting Home of the Underdogs was simple: to preserve out-of-print games that publishers no longer support, to keep them from falling into oblivion, and to honor other underrated games, including freeware games and recent commercial titles that might have been poor sellers. "
  15. ↑ The Abandonware Ring FAQ ( English ) The Official Abandonware ring. 2006. Archived from the original on March 28, 2007. Retrieved March 8, 2007.
  16. ^ Greg Melton: Abandonware Free For All - Re-discover outdated software titles from yesteryear ( English ) g4tv.com. December 11, 2001. Archived from the original on July 1, 2006. Retrieved December 25, 2013.
  17. ↑ Jim Leonard: Abandonware In A Nutshell: Why Nobody Wins - The IDSA's Position ( English ) mobygames.com. 2003. Retrieved December 25, 2013.
  18. ↑ a b Marc Saltzman: Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware ( en ) gamespot.com. S. 4. 2002. Archived from the original on December 25, 2005. Retrieved on December 29, 2012.
  19. ↑ Marc Saltzman: Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware ( English ) gamespot.com. S. 5. 2002. Archived from the original on December 25, 2005. Retrieved December 29, 2012.
  20. ↑ Ben Kuchera: EA gives away Command and Conquer Gold - EA wants to celebrate the 12th anniversary of Command and Conquer, and they… ( English ) Ars technica . September 2, 2007. Retrieved December 25, 2012.
  21. ↑ Kevin Savetz: Can "Abandonware" Revive Forgotten Programs? . byte.com. September 17, 2001. Archived from the original on October 14, 2007. Retrieved March 8, 2007.
  22. ^ Cliff Lawson: Amstrad ROM permissions . comp.sys.amstrad.8bit. August 31, 1999. Retrieved January 19, 2013: “1) 'What exactly do you have to do to use Sinclair ROMs in an emulator, such as acknowledgments etc?' Amstrad are happy for emulator writers to include images of our copyrighted code as long as the (c) opyright messages are not altered and we appreciate it if the program / manual includes a note to the effect that 'Amstrad have kindly given their permission for the redistribution of their copyrighted material but retain that copyright '. "
  23. ↑ CDN → Museum ( English ) Archived from the original on October 20, 2007. Retrieved on December 29, 2012.
  24. ^ The Internet Archive Classic Software Preservation Project . Internet Archive . Archived from the original on October 19, 2007. Retrieved October 21, 2007.
  25. ↑ Internet Archive Gets DMCA Exemption To Help Archive Vintage Software . Archived from the original on October 20, 2007. Retrieved October 21, 2007.
  26. ^ Library of Congress Copyright Office : Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies (PDF) pp. 55137-55139. October 28, 2009. Archived from the original on December 2, 2009. Retrieved on December 17, 2009.
  27. ^ Library of Congress Copyright Office : Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies . Pp. 68472-68480. November 27, 2006. Archived from the original on November 1, 2007. Retrieved October 21, 2007: “Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. "
  28. ^ Tilman Baumgärtel: Timothy Leary, the games developer - How do you get historical computer games? The Internet archive streams dozens of classics, and Timothy Leary prepares games for research in New York . The time . November 14, 2013. Accessed on November 14, 2013: "Because the Internet Archive streams the games, so you don't load them onto your own computer, you don't violate copyrights when you use the programs."
  29. ↑ Adi Robertson: The Internet Archive puts Atari games and obsolete software directly in your browser ( English ) The Verge . October 25, 2013. Retrieved October 29, 2013.
  30. ↑ Internet Archive's Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Copyright Policy ( en ) archive.org. December 31, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2015: "Access to the Archive's Collections is provided at no cost to you and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only."
  31. ↑ Abby Ohlheiser: You can now play nearly 2,400 MS-DOS video games in your browser ( English ) Washington Post . January 5, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
  32. ↑ Each New Boot a Miracle by Jason Scott (December 23, 2014)
  33. ↑ collection: softwarelibrary_msdos in the Internet Archive (December 29, 2014)
  34. ↑ Kris Graft: Saving video game history begins right now . Gamasutra. March 5, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  35. ↑ Heather Chaplin: Is That Just Some Game? No, It's a Cultural Artifact (English) , New York Times . March 12, 2007. Retrieved September 27, 2013. 
  36. ↑ Meet The Men Trying To Immortalize Video Games by Joseph Bernstein (Oct. 27, 2014)
  37. ↑ Trevor Owens: Yes, The Library of Congress Has Video Games: An Interview with David Gibson ( English ) blogs.loc.gov. September 26, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
  38. ↑ Michelle Starr: Unreleased Duke Nukem source code found at Library of Congress ( English ) cnet.com. August 6, 2014. Retrieved August 12, 2014: "A cache of recently acquired video games at the Library of Congress turned up a true find: the source code for unreleased PSP game Duke Nukem: Critical Mass."
  39. ↑ 7th Framework Program [ICT-2007.4.3 Digital libraries and technology-enhanced learning]. 2009, accessed November 30, 2009 .
  40. ↑ European Computer and Video Game Archives and Museums Joining Forces to Preserve Gaming Legacy computerspielemuseum .de (on March 26, 2012)
  41. ↑ British Library starts videogame website archive project on independent.co.uk by David Crookes (13 February 2012)
  42. ↑ Professor races against time to preserve Japan's video game culture ( Memento from January 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) by TAKAFUMI YABUKI (September 22, 2013)
  43. ^ Jon-Paul C. Dyson: ICHEG's Approach to Collecting and Preserving Video Games ( English ) museumofplay.org. October 13, 2010. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
  44. ↑ Christian Nutt: Strategic Simulations, Inc. founder donates company collection to ICHEG ( English ) Gamasutra . December 16, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2013.
  45. ↑ Jon-Paul C. Dyson: The Strategic Simulations, Inc. Collection ( English ) ICHEG . December 16, 2013. Archived from the original on December 24, 2013. Retrieved on December 22, 2013.
  46. ↑ Dave Tach: Broderbund founder donates collection including Myst, Prince of Persia to Museum of Play ( English ) polygon.com. March 4, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  47. ^ Owen S. Good: Museum acquires 'virtually complete' source code from Atari's arcade heyday ( English ) polygon.com. April 22, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  48. ↑ MacPaint and QuickDraw Source Code . In: Computer History Museum . July 20, 2010. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  49. ↑ Erik Hesseldahl: Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum . businessweek.com. July 20, 2010. Archived from the original on February 9, 2012. Retrieved on August 23, 2014.
  50. ↑ The quest to save todays gaming history from being lost forever . Ars Technica . June 1, 2015. Retrieved January 17, 2016: "" [Jobs] sent a one line e-mail saying it was a good idea, and it was done the next day, "Spicer recalled. "Having an internal advocate is key." "
  51. ↑ Len Shustek: The APL Programming Language Source Code ( English ) computerhistory.org. October 10, 2012. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
  52. ↑ Bryan Bishop: Adobe releases Photoshop original source code for developers nostalgic ( English ) theverge.com. February 14, 2013. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
  53. ↑ Adobe Photoshop Source Code (English)
  54. ↑ Len Shustek: Apple II DOS source code ( English ) computerhistory.org. November 12, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  55. ↑ Apple II's 35-year-old operating system is now open to the public ( English ) engadget.com. November 13, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  56. ↑ CHM license (English)
  57. ↑ Paul McJones: Xerox Alto Source Code - The roots of the modern personal computer ( english ) In: Software Gems: The Computer History Museum Historical Source Code Series . Computer History Museum . October 21, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2015: "With the permission of the Palo Alto Research Center, the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use only, snapshots of Alto source code, executables, documentation, font files, and other files from 1975 to 1987. "
  58. ↑ Bo Moore: 'All Hell Broke Loose': Why MoMA Is Exhibiting Tetris and Pac-Man . wired.com . May 30, 2013. Retrieved January 18, 2016: “The end goal is to acquire the game's original source code, which can be quite difficult to pry away from secretive gamemakers. If that's not possible at first, Antonelli at least wants to wedge her foot in the door. 'We're going to stay with them forever', she said. 'They're not going to get rid of us. And one day, we'll get that code. '"
  59. ↑ a b BIG NEWS: Wing Commander I Source Code Archived! ( en ) wcnews.com. August 26, 2011. Retrieved January 14, 2013: “Thanks to an extremely kind donation from an anonymous former EA / Origin developer, the source code to the PC version of Wing Commander I is now preserved in our offline archive! Because of our agreement with Electronic Arts, we're not allowed to post recovered source code for download - but rest easy knowing that the C files that started it all are being kept safe for future reference. Our offline archive contains material that has been preserved but which can't be posted, including other source code and budget data from several of the games. "
  60. ↑ Wing Commander III - The Source Code ( English ) wcnews.com. September 13, 2011. Retrieved on January 14, 2013: “As we celebrate Wing Commander III's first widespread retail availability since the late 1990s, we would like to mention for anyone that we have the game's source code in our offline archive. We know it's frustrating for fans, who could do amazing things with this, to read these updates ... but it's also in everyone's best interests to remind EA that we have the raw material from which they could port Wing Commander III to a modern computer or console . Just let us know! "
  61. ↑ Wing Commander IV: Source Code ( en ) wcnews.com. April 3, 2012. Retrieved January 14, 2013: “As with Wing Commander I and Wing Commander III, we are pleased to announced that an extremely kind former EA / Origin employee has provided a copy of the Wing Commander IV source code for our preservation efforts! We can't offer it for download at this time, but it is now preserved for future use. "
  62. ↑ WtF Dragon: Ultima 9: The Source Code . ultima codex. November 26, 2014. Retrieved October 28, 2015: “As we continue to mark the occasion of Ultima 9's fifteenth anniversary, I'm pleased to announced that the seemingly dormant Ultima Source Code Offline Archival Project (USCOAP) has finally borne some fruit : the Ultima Codex has added the source code for Ultima 9 to its offline archive. "
  63. ↑ GET LAMP Raw Interviews Pretty Much Up on ascii.textfiles.com by Jason Scott (December 3, 2012)
  64. ↑ Chris Kohler: 'Infocom Drive' Turns Up Long-Lost Hitchhiker Sequel . wired.com . April 18, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2016: “Remnants of the unreleased sequel to Infocom's text adventure version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have been made available to the public by Waxy.org. Playable prototypes, design docs, source code and a string of e-mails between Infocom designers and management provide a fascinating look at the game's turbulent, if aborted, development process. Among the assets included: design documents, e-mail archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made. "
  65. ^ Andreas W .: Interview with Gabe Newell. In: Half-Life Portal. Gutekunst internet services, November 22, 2007, accessed on July 27, 2012 : “ The most difficult time for developers was during the cartridge games for the Nintendo, the publisher's money was stored in the warehouses in the form of silicon. You couldn't take any chances, so you stayed strictly conservative about things that worked. With Steam exactly the opposite is the case, you can try everything without losing any money. The unlimited shelf space makes Steam interesting for old, no longer available games. "
  66. ^ Frank Caron: First look: GOG revives classic PC games for download age ( en ) Ars Technica. September 9, 2008. Retrieved December 27, 2012: "[…] [Good Old Games] focuses on bringing old, time-tested games into the downloadable era with low prices and no DRM."
  67. ↑ Tom Bennet: How GOG.com Save And Restore Classic Videogames . rockpapershotgun.com. September 16, 2015. Retrieved January 22, 2016: “Preservation of old games involves more than just an extra patch. The journey from dusty unplayable relic to polished, cross-platform installer is a minefield of technical and legal obstacles. The team at Good Old Games remain the industry leaders in the restoration of classic PC games, tasked with reverse engineering code written more than 20 years ago […] 'Source and game code is an extremely rare commodity for us', explains Paczyński. 'Older titles have often gone through so many different hands that no one knows who has the original code anymore, or it no longer exists in any usable form.' With source files lost forever, the team's only recourse is to retrofit retail code taken from a boxed copy of the game. "
  68. ↑ g4tv staff: The Lost History of System Shock ( English ) In: g4tv.com . May 30, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2013: “So why can't you buy the System Shock games through download services like Steam or Good Old Games, where it's one of the most requested titles? And why hasn't anyone rebooted the series or created another sequel? The answer is where things get messy. "
  69. ^ Adam Smith: Many Questions: System Shock 2 Comes To GOG ( en ) Rock, Paper, Shotgun. February 13, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2013: "Today, Good Old Games announce that they will finally, and exclusively, be selling a digital download version of System Shock 2. It will be available tomorrow."
  70. ↑ Hartmut Gieselmann: Shodan lives: Classic game System Shock 2 reissued . heise.de. February 14, 2013. Accessed on May 21, 2013: “If you hadn't bought an original disc 14 years ago, it was difficult for you to legally acquire the classic for a long time. Because until recently it was unclear who held which rights to 'System Shock 2'. "
  71. ↑ Sebastian Jäger: New edition from today at GOG . gamona.de. February 13, 2013. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  72. ↑ Classic Gem Promo: Conquest: Frontier Wars ( Memento from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  73. ↑ Conquest: Frontier Wars on GOG on robertsspaceindustries.com (English)
  74. ↑ Andreas Sebayang: Gothic 3 Community Patch should fix almost all bugs - more than 700 changes in the last Community Patch . Golem.de . March 23, 2009. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  75. ↑ Voyager: Ultima The Reconstruction - Fanpatches ( English ) reconstruction.voyd.net. April 8, 2007. Retrieved May 28, 2011: "Fan patches are those packages released by an Ultima fan to either repair bugs in a game that were never fixed by Origin, solve platform compatibility issues, or enhance the gaming experience."
  76. ↑ Shawn Sines: Fallout 2 Restoration Project ( English ) gamefront.com. January 8, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  77. ↑ Alec Meer: Undying: Vampire Bloodlines Patched Anew ( English ) rockpapershotgun.com. July 15, 2011. Retrieved on August 2, 2011: “Bloodlines […] was essentially abandoned by its publisher after its developer closed a few months after release, but the fans have just kept on going, fixing things, improving things, digging up locked away extra content [...] "
  78. ↑ Hans-Christian Dirscherl: Not to be killed: Win 98 Service Pack 2.1 . PCWelt.de . November 29, 2005. Accessed on April 6, 2011: “Some information about this strange update pack: Since Microsoft has never released a service pack for Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), a programmer from Turkey has his own service pack for Windows without further ado 98 SE users created. It includes all Windows 98 SE updates from the Windows Update page and other updates and improvements. "
  79. ↑ GPGNet Services Update 2 (GPGnet has been shutdown) ( Memento from December 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on gaspowered.com (English)
  80. ^ TJ Hafer: Community-made Forged Alliance Forever keeps Supreme Commander multiplayer alive . PC gamer . November 19, 2012. Retrieved on August 28, 2014: "The official multiplayer servers for Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance have been decommissioned for a while now, but fortunately [...] the community-driven Forged Alliance Forever has emerged."
  81. ^ Forum Post by Lobby Creator . Archived from the original on September 3, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
  82. ^ Forged Alliance Forever official site . Retrieved August 25, 2013.
  83. ^ Editorial staff: Forging On, Supreme Commander has returned a changed game preview . In: PC Gamer . No. 240, June 2013, pp. 86–87.
  84. ↑ PC gamer pod cast 87 . Retrieved August 25, 2013.
  85. ^ John Bell: Opening the Source of Art . Technology Innovation Management Review. October 1, 2009. Retrieved December 30, 2012: “[…] that no further patches to the title would be forthcoming. The community was predictably upset. Instead of giving up on the game, users decided that if Activision wasn't going to fix the bugs, they would. They wanted to save the game by getting Activision to open the source so it could be kept alive beyond the point where Activision lost interest. With some help from members of the development team that were active on fan forums, they were eventually able to convince Activision to release Call to Power II's source code in October of 2003. "
  86. ↑ Giorgio Bertolone: Interview with Kevin Klemmick - Lead Software Engineer for Falcon 4.0 ( English ) Cleared-To-Engage. March 12, 2011. Archived from the original on March 18, 2011. Retrieved on August 31, 2014.
  87. ↑ Bob Colayco: Microsoft pledges Allegiance to its fanbase ( English ) GameSpot .com. February 6, 2004. Retrieved July 22, 2011: “The release of the source code came in response to the enthusiasm of Allegiance's small-but-dedicated fanbase. Microsoft's Joel Dehlin commented that the development team has, 'been amazed at the level to which some of the Allegiance fans have remained hard-core. We're astounded at the progress that has been made at creating new factions, hosting new servers, replacing authentication, etc. It seems that Allegiance hasn't really died. With that in mind, we're releasing the Allegiance source code to the community. '"
  88. ^ Andy Largent: Homeworld Source Code Released ( en ) www.insidemacgames.com. October 8, 2003. Retrieved November 24, 2012: "With the release of Homeworld 2 for the PC, Relic Entertainment has decided to give back to their impressive fan community by releasing the source code to the original Homeworld."
  89. ^ Howard Wen: Keeping the Myths Alive ( en ) linuxdevcenter.com. June 10, 2004. Retrieved December 22, 2012: “[…] fans of the Myth trilogy have taken this idea a step further: they have official access to the source code for the Myth games. Organized under the name MythDevelopers, this all-volunteer group of programmers, artists, and other talented people devote their time to improving and supporting further development of the Myth game series. "
  90. ↑ pyro: Myth II 1.7.2 Released for Linux! - Project Magma is proud to announce the release of Myth II 1.7.2 for Linux. ( English ) Project Magma. February 28, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2012: “No longer will Linux players have to resort to using Wine or booting into Windows to take advantage of the latest improvements to Myth II or to play online with other players. Instead, they can now enjoy the same native Myth II experience alongside existing Windows and Mac players of the game. "
  91. ↑ JA2 Stracciatella Feedback → Jagged Alliance 2 Android Stracciatella Port RC2 Release - please test ( Memento from February 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on the Bear's Pit Forum, October 3, 2011 (English)
  92. ↑ MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif April 1 / PRNewswire / -. Netscape Communications and open source developers are celebrating the first anniversary, March 31, 1999, of the release of Netscape's browser source code to mozilla.org ( English ) Netscape Communications . March 31, 1999. Retrieved January 10, 2013: “[…] The organization that manages open source developers working on the next generation of Netscape's browser and communication software. This event marked a historical milestone for the Internet as Netscape became the first major commercial software company to open its source code, a trend that has since been followed by several other corporations. Since the code was first published on the Internet, thousands of individuals and organizations have downloaded it and made hundreds of contributions to the software. Mozilla.org is now celebrating this one year anniversary with a party Thursday night in San Francisco. "
  93. ^ Brian Proffitt: StarOffice Code Released in Largest Open Source Project ( English ) linuxtoday.com. October 13, 2000. Retrieved January 10, 2013: “Sun's joint effort with CollabNet kicked into high gear on the OpenOffice Web site at 5 am PST this morning with the release of much of the source code for the upcoming 6.0 version of StarOffice. According to Sun, this release of 9 million lines of code under GPL is the beginning of the largest open source software project ever. "
  94. ↑ Ross Miller: US Copyright Office grants abandonware rights ( English ) joystiq.com. Archived from the original on January 28, 2008. Retrieved January 2, 2008.
  95. ↑ Emma Boyes: Abandonware now legal. In: GameSpot . CBS Corporation , November 27, 2006, accessed December 12, 2015 .
  96. ↑ Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works (English)