Open Sourcing Underdogs / Games

[martiniturbide]

Hi there.

I'm sorry to be the guy who throws an idea and then can not help to execute it, but that is what I'm doing right now.

It can be interesting if the team can also try to get more of the Underdogs games open source by contacting the authors and politely ask them to share the source code.

I'm doing the same things for my community (the OS/2 community) and I'm getting good results. My campaign is based on: look up the  developer, find their information, contact them and request the source code of their software to be turned open source with the goal to preserve their work and possible for other developers to lean from their code and continue their project.

Some of the things that I learn and I use on this campaign.

• I announce to the author that my intentions are "not for profit" and that is a personal hobbie to preserve software.
  
• Don't get angry if the developers thinks that open source is evil... just move on.
• If the developers agrees to open source it, I ask him what is his desirable OSS license for the source code. If he has no idea I will choose between GNU GPL and BSD depending on the authors desire.
  
• I organize the obtained source code in Github - You can take a look but you will get bored :)  - https://github.com/os2world
• I announce to the community every time an application turns open source.
  
• I also use a Wiki to organize my "Hit List" of developers I want/need to contact.
  
• When the software is from a company that has been bought by a a different company and re-bought by a other company, it is very hard to get it open source. You can lost track of it.
  
• If the source code is lost for ever. We can ask the developer to turn his binary Public Domain / freeware so it can stop be abandonware. 
  

Sorry I can not help to execute the idea, I already have too much I can chew right now (family, job, OS2World, Zophars, Lenovo Community). But it can be interesting to try to preserve also the source code of the games and it can also be something that can help get the site more notability if some of the classic games starts to became open source thanks to your efforts.

Good luck and keep the great job you are doing with the Underdogs !!

Regards