Software companies, especially.

Ahem. AUTO ASSAULT

They refused to even SELL me the code for 25k, which is more than what their entire final year brought in. Great game, they killed it with dozens of servers on launch, along with near zero advertizing.

They merged the servers far too late; even their bonuses they gave for renewers died; people found other games.

Amazing, I’ve only encountered ONE bug in the game, which is something I do out of habit. They fixed it immediately. I miss that game…one of the best MMOs out there besides EVE and Anarchy Online. *sigh*

3D Realms did good by open sourcing the first duke nukem episodes.

John Carmack!

That is all.

st2000 makes a valid point that can’t be ignored. We’ve seen IP that gets buried only to be reawakened after a few generations either as an organic rebirth, or as a result of an acquisition from another company. These trade secrets, patents, and other forms of IP may be useless in the present, but may be valuable in the future. Open sourcing may destroy this exclusivity.

BUT the article makes a good point too. Open sourcing doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing IP rights. And we all know how valuable open source projects and content can be. This is definitely a case-by-case thing.

If I were to ever go on and earn my Ph.D. in some field of business (marketing/new product development…or even my JD if I ever got interested in IP law), I would love to explore this topic as I’m willing to bet the level of scholarly research on this is very limited.

Hm, I guess I’m conflicted on this now that I think about it.

“Dead” projects might be “dead” for a number of reasons; no market, no reasonable/efficient use at the time, change in company direction, production or distribution hardships, or simply lack of funding.

A company that goes bankrupt cannot declare something they have given away to be of any satisfactory value when dealing with creditors in court. Keeping things secret by killing them might be a valuable resource to them should things go wrong…

When intermittent windshield wipers were “developed”, the assumption was nobody wanted them. Within a short time, it was bad to NOT have them. When society or technology changes, that “useless” thing might become a valuable tool in the future.

The owners of the property should be the deciding factor in all cases I can think of so far.

I also see this:
Company ABC decides to kill their product, and makes it open source, without any benefit other than PR that they may have to pay for.
[DudeHax0r_911lol] will take this, make something useful out of it, but only 1% is his creation. He sells the idea to an entrepreneur and makes a fast buck. It’s now copyrighted because it isnt 100% OS. Problems arise and the investor cant raise enough money to do anything with it, so he lets it die.

The originator gets nothing, an investor loses money, and the product is still dead…and [DudeHax0r_911lol] barely does anything and makes money off it.

That’s kinda “wrong”

@st2000 I *LOVE* your idea. Will enough people care, though? I assume most of “our” friends like the same things and hack, but thats how we seem to think everyone is, as its our own closed circle of friends. When I meet new people, most couldnt give a crap about hacking or my hobby, no matter how much it relates to their interests…much like how I dont pollute the sea or kill animals for the hell of it but I could care less about a “dolphin-free” label on my tuna. I just want good tuna.

Much to think about with this one…

There are a few projects that I wish were done this way, Ultima X Online, Ultima 8 pt 2, and the drivers for the Aiptek Tablet I have XD.

(Seriously, do they think APEtek was a good marketing strategy?)

Diablo II, anyone?

Not going to happen, as they would then basically be competing against themselves. That have been the basic problem for industries of all kinds since post-WW2. Humanity have become so good at making stuff that we can potentially flood the world with cheap devices that last virtually forever with a bit of basic maintenance. So the only real way to keep the capitalist system going is to make sure that they do not last forever. And that is done via parts that is engineered to break after x years, with no replacements stocked (except for replacing it with a whole new device, that starts the cycle all over again). Planned obsolescence basically.

Another shining example is Parallax’s Decent (1 & 2) which is quite comparable to Doom.

Forget the big stuff – how about if they just open source things like scanner/printer/widget drivers? I have seen lots of old hardware no longer used simply because there are no drivers available for them in upgraded OS versions. Perfectly functional hardware is trashed for no good reason. If the drivers were open-sourced, these products could continue to be useful.

Doom and id Software were my big thoughts also. Thanks for getting me all nostalgic

I think a few other people made this point that the source for alot of dead stuff isn’t exactly dead. Most companies like to just make a new product without it truly being new. Nintendo’s projects come to mind. The DS still uses the same type of hardware and and software down the generations along with the gamecube and WII. Maybe even with their new upcoming console. Or photoshop and windows for another example. Don’t expect win 95 to be open source because they still use alot of that stuff in it today!

Most companies just rebrand their stuff to resale as “new,” but internally it’s the same product in a different shell with new bells and whistles.

So no this stuff isn’t going to get released because they still use it in those new products.

Why would any company want to release a good, old product to open source when they can make so much more money selling crappy new products every quarter.

While listening to Science Friday on NPR on the subject of annoying things and sounds etc, I see the most annoying phone keypad I have ever seen.
Crush it now!
There is a simple solution though to the problem. Don’t buy closed source anything, yet alone arty-farty designed goods. Don’t read closed source info. Fill the dock at Goodwill, cause that’s what we are told to do with our e-trash in Indiana now.

I want to see 3D Realms releasing his blood source code

All of the comments so far have missed one glaring point.

Product A may depend on Product B, C and D licensed from 3 different companies. Often, B, C and D will give source code licenses to Company A so they can make Product A.

Product A is now a flop/dead but the codebase includes product B, C and D’s source, sometimes customized just for Product A.

They could release Product A’s source code, but it is probaby useless without B, C, and D’s source too, all of which may still be viable products / libraries.

The only way to get companies to do this would be if our less then useful government gave them a tax break, either as recycling, or depreciation of an asset.

@Sodor
The game Blood? I have asked about it. Seems they would do it, but the source to it was lost long ago. So sadly no one has it.

if you desire open source so much why you buy shinny apple crap ? hypocrites

Open Source, and capitalism aren’t incompatible. Open source may be incompatible with an economic model based ever growing consumption beyond basic survival needs. In any event if open source is going to be anything, it’s going have prove it can create products that people want to purchase. And that those products can be manufactured for a fair return on investment. I’m not sure for calling for open source for products, that have already shot their wad as the general public is concern, can move open source along. Folks it’s called commerce. Commerce takes place in every society, even under communism. Perhaps not within North Korea, but that country, is a sad exception to the rest of the world in most regards.

Odd question and off topic (sorry) but the Nokia coffin, is it based on an actual Nokia phone?

I’m sorry, but Phillip is an idiot.

Yes, MANY man hours go into the development of such a product.

What happens to those man hours?

THEY ARE USED TO AID FUTURE PROJECTS.

Phillip is asking manufacturers to give up millions of dollars of knowledge and experience gained by their investment. Why the HELL would anyone do that? It makes no sense! It would give your competitors an inside look in to your engineering practices.

Phillip, you need to take your mouth off of the bong, and go get a dose of reality. It would do you a lot of good!

@KanchoBlindside

The only place that these people can call themselves “hackers” is here, at a site where the term is used so loosely that it no longer has meaning.

The days of real hackers are virtually gone, with few people actually truly reverse engineering a product and then modifying it (ON THEIR OWN) to do something that it was never meant to do. Instead, they feed off of write-ups and do-it-yourself instructions of past projects, then get their material posted as if they have done something worth mentioning.

Don’t get me wrong, creativity still exists, but a vast majority of *real* hackers are employed as some sort of engineer, and therefore their work is generally not published! You may see the end result of their work as a finished product, but the intermediate steps (like reverse engineering the competitor’s product) will never be published.

I get kind of sick of a bunch of non-hackers patting each other on the back and calling each other “hackers”, but at the same time, I find the site intriguing, mainly due to the occaisonal interesting write-up such as the one relating to the remote-control hummingbird a while back :D

Sometimes there are safety or regulatory issues with open-sourcing stuff. (car ECUs being an example of where open-sourcing them could lead to safety issues, especially on cars with computer controlled safety systems like airbags or to regulatory issues related to things like emissions)