The license says it’s copyright 2025. How does that work? Shouldn’t the copyright be something like 1977?
Microsoft makes Zork open-source
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Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#42I've seen a few things called 'Zork source code' in various places over the years (even on a CD that came with a game programming book of some sort), and copies like this: https://github.com/MITDDC/zork What's the lineage here?
Zork was originally written at MIT for PDP-10s in an obscure Lisp dialect (MDL). The authors then later formed a company to sell the game on micro-computers. To do it, they built a virtual machine optimized for this purpose, a new Lisp dialect (ZIL) that could compile to the virtual machine, and the ported the game over to that new dialect. Even so, they had to split the game into three parts to fit. The source you'r…
MDL was a dialect of lisp invented by/in part/under Sussman, the originator of Scheme and SICP; what you're calling an obscure dialect was was part of the continuum of a research trajectory, one of a number of experimental languages designed to test out ideas. Sussman got his PhD in 1973 so we're talking about his later work as a student/early work as a postdoc/assistant professor, and Abelson was in the same timeframe, and Guy Steele a half decade junior, and many others in the lab whose names you would also recognize.
Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#43It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I wonder if grue was taken from Nelson Goodman's Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction
Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#44So derivative works are possible, who will be the first to attach Zork to the OpenAI API?
Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#45Wow, didn’t expect this from Microsoft. Amazing to see classic game code being made accessible for learning
This is exactly the kind of thing Microsoft likes to opensource: old, crusty, and obsolete. Let's compare. When ID Software opensourced Doom a few years after it's initial release, there was still some life in it and it spawned a myriad of forks and new developments continuing to this day. An active community formed around it. When Microsoft opensourced MSDOS, an opensource clone had existed for so long it was only of interrest to archeologists and historians. It was as whitered and lifeless as Zork is.
Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#46The license says it’s copyright 2025. How does that work? Shouldn’t the copyright be something like 1977?
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Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#47It's not just Zork: a number of games, including Hitchhiker's, are open source now. https://github.com/historicalsource
I'd wonder if Hitchhiker's would have some issues with Douglas Adams' estate, given his involvement.
Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#48Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#49It's not just Zork: a number of games, including Hitchhiker's, are open source now. https://github.com/historicalsource
The others don't seem to have the MIT license pullreq added, so they are not open source; the source code is merely available. The repos have a note: "This collection is meant for education, discussion, and historical work, allowing researchers and students to study how code was made for these interactive fiction games and how the system dealt with input and processing. It is not considered to be under an open licens…
Yeah the code was leaked without Activision's permission a few years ago. It's strange to me that Microsoft has taken this opportunity to clear up the rights to Zork 1-3 but not to the rest of the Infocom back catalog. The other games haven't been available for sale since the mid 90s when Activision put out a shovelware CD collection containing every Infocom game except Hitchhiker's and Shogun, so it's not like they have much commercial value.
Re: Microsoft makes Zork open-source
#50The license says it’s copyright 2025. How does that work? Shouldn’t the copyright be something like 1977?
IANAL but copyright is typically the year of first publication.
I could see this being important here in two ways:
1. If the source code of Zork has not been made available to the public before, then now is the year of publication.
2. If Zork source code has previously been made available to the public, perhaps the version published here has had changes made, in which case now is the year of publication of this version of the source code.
I assume that when Microsoft opens source code they have a team of lawyers that have solid legal arguments for what the copyright year should be in each case.
Therefore, maybe it’s even possible legally that
3. Even if source code was previously made available, and even if no changes were made in any way since then to any of the included source code or other files, perhaps just the act of using a different license is in its own way part of how copyright applies. Publishing something under a specific license in $CURRENT_YEAR does not retroactively make the license apply before the time at which it was made available under that license and so perhaps an argument could be made that copyright year in a license includes taking that into consideration.