[realitythreek]

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.

[stepupmakeup]

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.

[xyzzy_plugh]

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.