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Is there a risk those closed source projects would be sued following the release because they disclosed some forgotten sin? I'm thinking mostly of anti competi

Is there a risk those closed source projects would be sued following the release because they disclosed some forgotten sin? I'm thinking mostly of anti competitive practices from Windows.

grishka 3y ago
It's not like this kind of stuff can't be found by reverse engineering. For Windows specifically, the ReactOS team is doing lots of it to document the inner workings of internal Windows APIs so they could reimplement them.
realitythreek 3y ago
There’s a bunch of costs to releasing closed source code as open source. Generally they’d have to have a team of developers review it, they’d need their lawyers to review it and any licenses. That every company that had licensed code used would also need to go through their own process. At any time, one of them could say no and the process stops. So you’re basically paying for everyone’s time and possibly to relicense some parts. And im sure I’m missing other parts.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  Yep, it's a huge time sink even in the best case scenario, let alone with ancient software encumbered by transfer of ownership through multiple corporate custodians. It's not that unusual for it to not even be wholly owned by a single entity due to licensing requirements.
- stepupmakeup 3y ago
  It's unfortunate that when a company DOES chose to release old software, the entire revision history is thrown out due to processes like that. In the software world, this probably doesn't matter too much, but video games can go through massive changes during development. But it also depends on factors like if game assets were even stored in version control in the first place.
qingcharles 3y ago
I doubt it. The Windows sources are available officially through Microsoft if you're spending enough money and your project requires them.
drewcoo 3y ago
> anti competitive practices from Windows You would more likely be amazed by all the dumb hacks in the system for backward compatibility, mostly for other companies' software. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050824-11/?p=34463 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050824-11/?p=34...
- realitythreek 3y ago
  It seems dumb and it is dumb, but it’s also an important feature of Windows that your terrible app from the 90s can still run today with minor changes generally. Less so if it’s win16 but anything win32 is good to go. Also, Linux has a similar philosophy as Linus has eloquently described in the past. [1] [1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75
  - hulitu 3y ago
    > It seems dumb and it is dumb, but it’s also an important feature of Windows that your terrible app from the 90s can still run today with minor changes generally. This is a myth which is mostly not true from some time.
    - realitythreek 3y ago
      Can you explain how it’s not true? I’ve personally run software from the 90s. I am not a myth!
      - vGPU 3y ago
        Windows 11 killed NTVDM and 16 bit support.
squarefoot 3y ago
> Is there a risk those closed source projects would be sued following the release because they disclosed some forgotten sin? I know nothing about law, but I guess software companies would protect themselves in advance by mandating that all their developers use only software and sources that belongs to them anyway. That would be useful in case of a lawsuit where a court could force them to show the sources to prove they don't come say from the claimant's reverse engineered software, or some other FOSS project. Things might be different with 3rd party modules and libraries, where an obscure module was licensed from a company that went out of business ages ago, but all their assets were acquired by another party who finds the module in the wild and decides to sue. Just speculating, but although I'm 100% in favor of FOSS, if the above were real possibilities, I couldn't but understand why some companies are so reluctant to release even old code they couldn't profit from anymore.
- anders_p 3y ago
  It's not that simple. When developing software, a company might aquire a license to add some library or code to their product. This happens all the time with OS's like Windows (licensing the ability to play media formats, etc.) or games (licensing certain engines or algorithms). That doesn't mean the company squired a license to release the libraries or code as open source 20 years later. So you'd have to go through the codebase with a fine-toothed comb, line-by-line, because the original developers don't work for you anymore, and the license agreements are long lost. Releasing large software projects are a massive cost to any company that wants to be protected from potential lawsuits.

Is there a risk those closed source projects would be sued following the release because they disclosed some forgotten sin? I'm thinking mostly of anti competitive practices from Windows.

grishka 3y ago

It's not like this kind of stuff can't be found by reverse engineering. For Windows specifically, the ReactOS team is doing lots of it to document the inner workings of internal Windows APIs so they could reimplement them.

realitythreek 3y ago

There’s a bunch of costs to releasing closed source code as open source. Generally they’d have to have a team of developers review it, they’d need their lawyers to review it and any licenses. That every company that had licensed code used would also need to go through their own process. At any time, one of them could say no and the process stops. So you’re basically paying for everyone’s time and possibly to relicense some parts. And im sure I’m missing other parts.

xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
Yep, it's a huge time sink even in the best case scenario, let alone with ancient software encumbered by transfer of ownership through multiple corporate custodians. It's not that unusual for it to not even be wholly owned by a single entity due to licensing requirements.
stepupmakeup 3y ago
It's unfortunate that when a company DOES chose to release old software, the entire revision history is thrown out due to processes like that. In the software world, this probably doesn't matter too much, but video games can go through massive changes during development. But it also depends on factors like if game assets were even stored in version control in the first place.

qingcharles 3y ago

I doubt it. The Windows sources are available officially through Microsoft if you're spending enough money and your project requires them.

drewcoo 3y ago

> anti competitive practices from Windows You would more likely be amazed by all the dumb hacks in the system for backward compatibility, mostly for other companies' software. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050824-11/?p=34463 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050824-11/?p=34...

realitythreek 3y ago
It seems dumb and it is dumb, but it’s also an important feature of Windows that your terrible app from the 90s can still run today with minor changes generally. Less so if it’s win16 but anything win32 is good to go. Also, Linux has a similar philosophy as Linus has eloquently described in the past. [1] [1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75
- hulitu 3y ago
  > It seems dumb and it is dumb, but it’s also an important feature of Windows that your terrible app from the 90s can still run today with minor changes generally. This is a myth which is mostly not true from some time.
  - realitythreek 3y ago
    Can you explain how it’s not true? I’ve personally run software from the 90s. I am not a myth!
    - vGPU 3y ago
      Windows 11 killed NTVDM and 16 bit support.

squarefoot 3y ago

> Is there a risk those closed source projects would be sued following the release because they disclosed some forgotten sin? I know nothing about law, but I guess software companies would protect themselves in advance by mandating that all their developers use only software and sources that belongs to them anyway. That would be useful in case of a lawsuit where a court could force them to show the sources to prove they don't come say from the claimant's reverse engineered software, or some other FOSS project. Things might be different with 3rd party modules and libraries, where an obscure module was licensed from a company that went out of business ages ago, but all their assets were acquired by another party who finds the module in the wild and decides to sue. Just speculating, but although I'm 100% in favor of FOSS, if the above were real possibilities, I couldn't but understand why some companies are so reluctant to release even old code they couldn't profit from anymore.

anders_p 3y ago
It's not that simple. When developing software, a company might aquire a license to add some library or code to their product. This happens all the time with OS's like Windows (licensing the ability to play media formats, etc.) or games (licensing certain engines or algorithms). That doesn't mean the company squired a license to release the libraries or code as open source 20 years later. So you'd have to go through the codebase with a fine-toothed comb, line-by-line, because the original developers don't work for you anymore, and the license agreements are long lost. Releasing large software projects are a massive cost to any company that wants to be protected from potential lawsuits.