> In a lot of cases it would involve tossing an incomplete bunch of code over > the wall with few instructions about actually using it. Which is > probably not

> In a lot of cases it would involve tossing an incomplete bunch of code over > the wall with few instructions about actually using it. Which is > probably not what the recipients had in mind. Minecraft modders deobfuscate and decompile the game every time Mojang publishes a new release so that mods have the symbols to link against. There are way more people out there who want to play old games and have the skills necessary to modernize a game's codebase than there are making those engines, and they have more time and better-aligned incentives. Essentially every game I know of that's been open-sourced has had someone put in the time to get it building again, even things that barely anyone played. Heck, popular frequently have full-blown from-scratch remakes, c.f. the Spring Engine, OpenTTD, OpenRCT2, StepMania.