Sourcecode for abandonware

Hi guys, I've been lurking here for a couple of years for updates on OS4 but today is my first post.

I don't know if it's a dumb question or not, but I was wondering if sourcecode may be available for some old abandoned titles, and if so where I may be able to get it? I'd hate to think that they were lost to history.

Specifically I'm thinking of some old Microprose titles, but I'd love to take a look at any number of classics.

Thanks

Sk

@Skinner

Your talking about stuff thats not OpenSource code, you most ask the people what wrote software, anyway are you any good at 68000 assembler code, because thats what most of the stuff was written in.

@LiveForIt

Heh, was hoping you wouldn't say that, it's been a long time since I've dabbled in assembly and it all looks a bit mystifying to me now!

I knew that most C64 games were written in assembly, but I thought much of the Amiga stuff would be in something like C - or at least the parts that didn't require speed.

In any event, I know it's not open-source, but I thought if the copyright had been abandoned that the source may be floating around the net somewhere.

Sk

@Skinner

Quote:

The Amiga500 was 7 mhz computer whit 880k disk drive, 68000 assembly was the coolest thing at time, it saved diskspace and it was fast, the low level audio/graphics was where different from to days graphic/audio cards, reading and writing bit and bytes to chipset registers.

There might be few games written in Pascal or C, but this lots of work to update. I love to see some of the old games whit AHI sound and 32bit graphics.

@Skinner

Quote:Are there really old commercial Amiga games for which the copyright was abandoned?
In a lot of countries that wouldn't even be possible any way, but what you usually get is just the right to downloads the old games from the homepage of the owner and use them for free, for example Cinemaware games, or another site got a licence to make them available for download and use for free, but of course that doesn't mean the owner gave up any other rights, for example in nearly all cases even redistributing them isn't allowed but only downloading them directly from the homepage of the owner, or from another site which got a licence from the owner for that.

@LiveForIt

The Amiga was powerful enough to handle C and many games where written in pure C with assembler parts only where necessary for speed. Even big hit comercial titles like Lionheart where written in C. Some games are written in BASIC too. So assembler was not the only language used for serious development on the Amiga. It was cool yes, but even in the glory days of the Amiga it was sometimes skipped for easier to handle languages.

Yeah I suppose you're right, now that you mention it I have seen conditions on redistribution of old software like you described.

But on the other hand, in many jurisdictions enforceable intellectual property laws can sometimes hinge on whether attempts have been made to protect their rights. If a company no longer exists, and their products are all over the internet with no efforts at enforcing copyright (which in some cases may only require them, for example, being a member of a software foundation that pursues copyright violations) this sometimes leads to their rights no longer being enforceable.

But, hey, I just thought I'd throw it out there to see if anyone knew if some source was floating around. I'm not looking to get my hands on source which falls into a loophole of vacated IP rights, I just thought there might have been some released by old software houses for the nostalgists like ourselves to pore over.

Sk

@drHirudo

Thanks Doc, thats good to know (and what I expected). Perhaps my quest is not futile afterall :)

Many of the ports from PC used C most likely, although nothing prevents an industrious person from simply rewriting it in asm for Amiga and Atari ST.

@Skinner

here is Alien Breed II - 3D
http://aminet.net/search?query=alien+breed

have fun

@Skinner
There is no such thing as "abandonware" and there is no such thing as abandoned copyright.

Copyright expires after a time period which is usual the life of the author + X years where X=50 in Canada. When a corporation holds the copyright the same rules still apply which is why you'll see references to the Mikey Mouse Law in the USA. Corporations hate it when Copyright expires for obvious reasons...

Copyright exists as a license by society to the author. We (society) grant the author certain rights for a defined period of time after which the work (software in this case) becomes public domain. The purpose of this arrangement is to encourage people to create works which they can profit from and share them with society at the same time. Copyright has nothing to do with trademarks or patents in case you were wondering.

An author may at his/her sole discretion put the work into the public domain after which copyright laws no longer apply.

An author is also responsible to enforce their copyright on their work and if they do not, the work may pass into the public domain as ruled by a judge (i.e. not you or me). This requires a) that society makes a reasonable effort to contact the author and b) the author makes no attempt to enforce their own copyright. If the author has already died, his/her estate would still be able to prosecute copyright violations.

@ssolie

Quote:Not everywhere. For example the german equivalent of the copyright ("Urheberrecht") is neither transferable nor can be given up, i.e. someone from germany can't relase public domain software.

Quote:In the USA and Canada, maybe a few other countries as well, but in most parts of the world that's not the case and a court can only void copyrights if the work is too minimal to be worth granting it, for example it's allowed to use small samples of other songs in a song as long as the result is fundamentally different to the original and therefore has to be treated as own creative work.
Theoretically it's not even the case in the USA since they are party of the Berne Convention, since 1989, just like adding a "(C) year by foobar" text isn't required any more to have a copyright at all, but pratically both still is since in the strange US law system precedence cases are more important than the acutual laws, even if they precede the current laws.

Abandonware is a bit of a legal grey area in many countries. It's still subject to copyright, for now, but your chances of the copyright owner taking action for the illegal use of the software is pretty slim. In some cases the owner isn't worried, in some cases there is no legal owner, in others the legitimate owner might not even realise they are the owner.

Tracking down the owner could be a pretty major effort in some cases, and even then there's no guarantee they still have the source code. What are the chances that Electronic Arts still have the source to DPaint II (or even IV) lying around somewhere?

Not trying to sound too pessimistic though. Your best bet is to track down the owners of your favourite bit of abandonware - start with the low-hanging fruit like those from companies still in business.