> Speaking as an open-source developer (and hobby games programmer),
> my answer is: he probably won't.
Add to the problem that (I assume that) David is a licensee of the Glorantha assets in the code, so I suspect he'd have to go back to the owner to get permission to open up the source code. That seems to me to sound like so much trouble that it would not be worth doing. I think David still gets a trickle of income from people like me, who can't currently find my copy of KoDP, so will be ordering another copy soon and hoping I can make it run.
> They could release the source code without (most of) the
> art assets, since those are presumably seperate revenue objects
> (merchandising, etc). If needed, make it a dual license scheme (split
> free and commercial use) so that anyone who feels like making a
> commercial port of the game could do so and pay licensing fees to A-Sharp.
>
> In the best case, of course, someone ports the game engine to Java or
> similar language, allowing A-Sharp to utilize the new game engine to
> release a KODP2, etc., etc. But whether or not anyone actually does
> anything with the code is irrelevant to the discussion about whether
> open-sourcing or not is a good idea, though.
So, it actually sounds like there might be a business model buried in there, somewhere. there would be an open source version that anyone can compile for personal use, without art or sound, but can't distribute commercially and an executable version that only A-Sharp can distribute, with art and sound. One problem is that this would be open to abuse, if the existing or new structure of the code allows thw art and sound to be external objects that the code points to (such that users could avoid buying a license to the new version simply by using the art and sound from their old version). Also, it would still (presumably) require David to renegotiate his license. That sounds very speculative to me. If I were David, I'd have to evaluate this against the other money-making opportunities he has. It doesn't sound wildly compelling.
If there was a big pile of money behind Gloranthan gaming, I would see someone paying David to allow the open source approach simply to generate interest in Glorantha. (And, presumably, put ads in the game's startup screen and eslewhere.) But there's not a big pile of money out there.
Chris Lemens
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