[vox] Outlaws redux

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 04:46:16PM -0800, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:

<snipped Pete's discussion>

> ----- Forwarded message from Daron Stinnett
> 
> Subject: RE: Outlaws
> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:17:24 -0800
> From: Daron Stinnett
> To: p@dirac.org
> 
> Hi Pete, here's the response I received from our legal department:
> 
> "We would not "give away" the code in the same sense done with the Doom
> and Quake engines and we certainly would not such to be considered or

                                              ^ "want", I'm guessing

> become "open source". What we could do (and was previously proposed by
> legal with respect to the SCUMM Engine) was that we make it available
> ("it" being either the entire engine or selected executable files)
> either through our web site (subject to certain very limited terms that
> make clear we continue to own the code, do not give up any claims of
> ownership to the code and make it available entirely on an "as is" basis
> absent any kind of warranties, support or other assistance."

This is of course worthless for SCUMM, since an excellent SCUMM
implementation exists already as open source, of course in no way
violating L. Arts' IP (at least so far as I know).

This letter does give you an answer to your question, but it seems to
me a little rude that they have not justified their answer or expounded
upon it. Please ask him to ask legal why they feel it is important to
retain full and total control over the engine's source code,
particularly in the face of the advantages to *not* doing so that you
have already so excellently and painstakingly outlined in your
letter.

-Micah