[chungy]

It was also a personal (and opinion) statement from Markus Persson (notch), who fully owned the game at the time, predating the formation of Mojang, let alone Mojang's acquisition by Microsoft.

I'm disheartened also by the fact it'll never become open source, but the statement was never legally-binding and never part of the terms that a purchase of Minecraft (in alpha, at that) entailed.

[bmacho]

I believe Microsoft bought that "I will release the game source code as some kind of open source." promise as well. This is how things work, right?

[philippejara]

Is that even relevant when not given any timeframe? I can and did believe Notch back when he said it, I don't think he was trying to be misleading, but with no timeframe and the game being the size that it is now microsoft might as well release the source code, yes, 500 years from now.

[kaybe]

Can we please get some sort of code escrow system going, similar to how the national libraries collect all published works in a country? Video games are culture too.