Open your hearts, open your source

Open source software is a good idea. It just plain is. As you delve deeper into computer application possibilities you quickly find there are a wealth of these beauties out there. In almost all cases, they run more stable, are more streamlined, have a better variety of features, and are compatible with just about anything you throw at them. It seems like these are goals for any program, so why don't more companies open their source to the public? To be honest, I don't know. Maybe somebody could set me straight on this.

My two recent run-ins with open source software have only strengthened my opinion. First, I was looking for some way to play some really obscure video codecs on my Windows Media Player 9. I found a site that had the codecs and explained the installation so I started reading. I got down to the part where I had to load some executable in my system registry or something, but then I noticed a second option. Something to the effect of "just install Media Player Classic." Wow, sounds like a good deal to me. I checked out their site, liked the sound of things and one quick download later, I'm all media ready. It's a good little player that does more (as far as I can tell) in a better way than Windows Media. Not as flashy, but that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Now my only question is, do I try to uninstall all of Windows Media Player, or is it so far embedded in my system that I risk destabilizing things. Kind of like the car that's held together by its own rust. Or maybe not.

The second open source success story involved another one of my favorite aging games. While not quite as cool as X-COM, Star Control 2 is a very fun game. Wandering through two dimensional space, exploring more than 1000 planets, talking with 20+ alien species, what's not to like? But alas, like so many games of its period (199x where x<5), it's nearly impossible to play on modern computers. The reasons why go into the guts of DOS and are basically pretty boring. Still, there are some good games that got left behind. So anyway, 2002 or so the Star Control 2 source becomes available and a few groups got to work. Right now there is an almost perfect replica of the original that runs EVEN BETTER than the original. Some people have improved the aging music composing some nice charts for the game, some people added voice overs from another version of the game, others worked on improving the zooming features of the battle system, and the list goes on.

So here's my big question. Star Control 2 was released initially in 1992 and a slightly newer port on the 3DO system in 1994. The way technology works, the games were obsolete in 2 years and the company probably didn't make another dime off of them after 1997. So why not release the source at this point? Wouldn't that revive interest in a game? Offer free advertising and exposure? Why be stingy?

Well anyway, ala seasame street. Today's blog entry was brought to you by:

Media Player Classic
Star Control 2

and it's slightly more ambitious, if a little less successful cousin:

Star Control Timewarp