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Comment by jpgvm | Hacker News Reader

It's not normal source code.

It's not like you found the source to the latest Halo game or something.

This is like finding the source to the original Halo game, of little to no commercial value but of immense cultural value.

Where possible these artefacts are archived so they will be around long after the companies have folded.

Unfortunately it's just not possible most of the time as companies end up taking their software to the grave.

Which makes this all the more depressing. This was an incredibly rare opportunity to archive something of cultural significance to millions of people, completely wasted because it fell into the hands of someone not equipped to deal with the situation properly or contact someone that does.

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But in this case, that's Blizzard's right. They own it whether you like it or not. Just because something is important doesn't mean they should lose property rights to it.

Abandonware is a thing and I remember there being some legal headway made recently in that respect, but Starcraft isn't abandoned. They just released a compatibility patch and made it free to download.

I'm not talking about distribution, merely archiving.

I don't think it's reasonable to argue against archiving when it clearly has cultural significance.

There's absolutely no chance in hell the dude saying he sent a copy to archive.org would have stopped those reddit threads from foaming at the mouth. People want the code, not the archive.

It's their right now, but in "life + 70 years" it could have been an incredibly valuable cultural heritage in the hands of the public. Now the game will die when Blizzard chooses to stop adapting the game to new platforms.

It's Blizzard's right, but only insofar as that happens to be what copyright terms say right now. Also, something having intrinsic value to society at large outside of the ability of a private entity to benefit from ownership is, quite literally, the reason why people should lose property rights to copyrighted works at some point.

> that's Blizzard's right

Sure, legally. But the question is whether we care. Ethics are relative.

I would make a slight amendment to that

>whether we care

But I'm glad that there are those who get it.

Blizzard does not lose their rights to it when somebody uploads the source code publically. If someone decides to use theor source code that they did not obtain a license for, blizzard can always sue.

Reading and learning from said source code is, and should not ever be illegal.

Uploading it is using it. The uploader would be sued if anyone. Anyone else using the code would be sent a C&D first.

Intellectual Property isn't property, and publishing things does not deprive anyone of their property rights. It's a kludgy hack set up by Congress to prop up industry.

Blizzard probably doesn't own all the source to SC1, they could have licensed code from other companies that they can't release even if they wanted to.

Registering and getting copyright should depend on providing a no-strings-attached source format to a universal archival organisation. If you intend to sell your product or defend your copyrights you would have to have it registered and archived first. Should you stop selling the product the archive would be opened since you obviously aren't making money off the product anymore.

This would effectively limit copyright to the products' natural lifecycle and prevent hoarding the bits "just because I can", thanks to copyright imbalance.

Not too sure about "no commercial value" considering the impending release of StarCraft: Remastered

Correct: the right to distribute a game with that branding and those mechanics is valuable if you have the means (such as any copy of the source) to do so.

The source by itself is hardly (monetarily) valuable, pretty much to anybody. Blizzard clearly still has other copies, and anybody else wouldn't be able to do much of anything commercially with the code.

It's quite possible somebody has even already reverse engineered much of it, rendering it even less valuable by itself, even to copy-cats.

> It's quite possible somebody has even already reverse engineered much of it, rendering it even less valuable by itself, even to copy-cats.

Starcraft reverse engineered to run on ARM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7372414

Wow, this is a very overlooked comment. I had no idea about Starcraft: Remastered. They're releasing the original game in HD.

Pretty much nulls all of the 'no commercial value' arguments I see here.

It doesn't. Want to bet that "Starcraft: Remastered" has a major code overhaul? Just read their release announcement.

Even if the code was still similar to the original one, the non-HD version is given away for free...

No. They're using the same gameplay code as the original Starcraft:

    Q: How did you go about replicating all the unexpected “bugs” that made BW micro
    so special? Did you simply reuse code from the original game, or did you find a
    solution to replicate the nuances of BW’s gameplay?

    A: StarCraft: Remastered is able to achieve this effect as it uses all the same
    gameplay code as Brood War. This means that Dragoons and Goliaths are still a
    bit derpy in how they react to movement commands. The Reaver’s shot doesn’t
    always find a target. Mutas stack.

    The fact is that the gameplay is identical enough that old replays from 1.16
    will play and work just fine under StarCraft: Remastered.

from http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/520464-an-intervie...

The code doesn't have commercial value because it contains no secrets that would allow you to implement a competitor to Starcraft HD/Remastered.

The code doesn't give you the legal permission to distribute and brand a game Starcraft. The reality is the code has no commercial value, the brand on the other hand may as well be a license to print money.

This was an incredibly rare opportunity to archive something of cultural significance to millions of people

It's a bit like losing Leonardo Da Vinci's paint recipes - it's a loss, but it's not a big loss. The important thing about his art is the art itself. The same is true of Starcraft.

This is exactly why I dig up the bodies of influential historical figures every chance I get.

You search them for gold masters of source code on CD-ROM?

I found one on Lincoln, but it was just some cat photos and backups of selfies from the cessation of the Civil War at various Reconstruction projects.

> It's not normal source code.

...its not?

No. It's not.

Chiefly because Starcraft is not a normal game.

This is a game that defined a cultural generation in South Korea, established e-sports singlehandedly and in many ways made the RTS genre what it is today.

It should be archived. Even if it can never be released due to copyright or other legal nonsense it shouldn't be left to a commercial entity to ensure it survives.

So, if I were an influential person, should my private diaries also be made public, even though I have no wish to share them?

After one's death, it's no longer their business what happens to their secrets. One has no dog in the race any longer.

Sure, but AFAIK Blizzard is not dead yet.

I have a bad news for you: this is usually exactly what happens.

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