Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 130 posts

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#121

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

yellowapple wrote: post #44
kevin_b_er wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If rare video game market is anything like I think it is, this will disappear into a jealous "private collector". You'll never ever see the source code because they feel that dumping or providing digital copies of the disks would degrade the value of their collection. And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness.

Is there a non-profit that would be willing to buy this stuff specifically for archival purposes if a bunch of folks pooled their money to that effect?

Frank Cifaldi and the Video Game archive do a lot of preservation work. https://gamehistory.org/

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#122

Post by djmips »

jt2190 wrote: post #111
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not how it works. Al Lowe is indeed violating copyright by selling these. You can't just go selling your ex-employers source code because it "happened to be on your laptop". It's absolutely a copyright violation. The reason you can sell physical goods is because of the first sale doctrine and alike. Al Lowe never bought this source code on physical media; rather he created it during his employment. Thus he…

A quibble: The source code belongs to Al Lowe’s ex-employer only if he had a work for hire agreement in place with them. Copyright is implicit and, unless otherwise agreed to, belongs to the creator by default. Anything I write (including code) I have the right to copy unless I transfer that right. (This, by the way, is why your employer requires that you sign those “we own everything you create while you work for us…

I'd like to point out that the credits for the games in question include a group of engine programmers which I assume is included in said source code.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#123

Post by djmips »

Reedx wrote: post #26

Anyone know the odds of the floppies still working? I'm guessing some will and some won't. They must be nearing or past expiration date...

My anecdata is very strong for floppies from that era having a great chance of still working and there even some tech out there that can read borderline floppies and get the data from a population of reads using simple statistics.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#124

Post by insulanus »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #37
all2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Already massive amounts of data have been lost to the grind of technology forging 'forward'. As we lose the information, we lose context, and without context 'facts' about the past begin to lose meaning to the present reader. History, and the stories we have, is/are mankind's most important asset. Without the context of our past as a species, we lose the ability to navigate into the future effectively (without c…

I think that raises an interesting problem - if you want to look back 1000 years the sources are scarce, and largely composed of the thoughts of the educated or the wealthy - people who could read and write and store these items. 500 years from now we're going to be faced with a totally different problem - if a user wants to learn about the year 2018 where do they start? Official documents will appear to be stored be…

It's a good point, but by then we'll have software to model the relationships between all of the known sources - New York Times Journalists, Reddit Trolls, etc., and filter out some of the craziness.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#125

Post by insulanus »

lscotte wrote: post #107
subway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public suffers anytime knowledge is lost.

But this is property, not knowledge...

Well, this is both property and knowledge. I'd argue that the information content is more "real", since information is a real property of things in the universe. Property is a (useful) abstraction that humans have collectively agreed on, so that people don't get clubbed as often as in the past.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#126

Post by jakobegger »

djmips wrote: post #122
jt2190 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quibble: The source code belongs to Al Lowe’s ex-employer only if he had a work for hire agreement in place with them. Copyright is implicit and, unless otherwise agreed to, belongs to the creator by default. Anything I write (including code) I have the right to copy unless I transfer that right. (This, by the way, is why your employer requires that you sign those “we own everything you create while you work for us…

I'd like to point out that the credits for the games in question include a group of engine programmers which I assume is included in said source code.

According to an addendum to the listing, the engine is not included.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#128

Post by wglb »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #116
wglb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true only if explicitly called out in documents you sign when you join the company, or sign a consulting contract. There needs to be language that calls this out. Mind you, pretty much every US company has that as part of their HR policy or contract agreement.

Sorry, that's not the case. The relevant laws governing this are called "work for hire". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire Other countries don't necessarily have it spelled out so clearly, but instead leave it to case law. However, it's mostly the same around the globe. The contracts are so your employer owns inventions created outside of work hours, not using employer equipment. This part of your employm…

I stand corrected.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#129

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

akkartik wrote: post #46
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that raises an interesting problem - if you want to look back 1000 years the sources are scarce, and largely composed of the thoughts of the educated or the wealthy - people who could read and write and store these items. 500 years from now we're going to be faced with a totally different problem - if a user wants to learn about the year 2018 where do they start? Official documents will appear to be stored be…

https://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-Stross/dp/04410150... describes a different problem. In the 27th century the 21st century is considered a dark age not because anything particularly bad happened but just because data archival technology took a big step back. Early storage media were far more fragile than paper.

> Early storage media were far more fragile than paper.

That's true, but on a timeline of human history that's a pretty brief window and there was a lot of distrust in the medium at that time. We're going to have ~30 years where they have to rely on the old methodologies still, but the 20th century is a whole new ball game. They won't be able to retrieve circa 2000 floppy disks, no, but I feel like a lot of what's been around for the last decade is going to probably stick around.

Re: Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection

#130

Post by tfandango »

ngneer wrote: post #55

I remember my father taking me to see the Sierra offices, right by Coarsegold, CA. They were closed, but it was a fun trip, given how happy those games made my childhood. I know I am not the only one here.

Same with me, but they were open. We walked in and they just gave us a tour. I remember they were working on Space Quest 3 and showed us what it sounded like on the Roland MT-32. I was lucky my Dad was super into technology so as soon as we got home he went out and bought one.
Post reply on HN