[ghaff]

Easier said than done.

- It's risk for them with basically no upside.

- Someone at their company needs to do a deep-dive into the code and verify that there aren't licensed third-party libraries and possibly remove them. Even companies that genuinely want to open source software that they've acquired may spend a year doing this sort of due diligence.

[tlavoie]

Well, or they could release a patch that simply nerfs the license check on the binary. No risk in terms of lost profits, for software they no longer sell.

[jasonjayr]

That assumes the (a) the source is still available (b) the build environment is still available and working, (c) a staff member is still available that understands the system and/or (d) the time to figure it out and rebuild, test, and create the binary diff/patch ....

[tlavoie]

Well, yeah. The point was that there are changes that could be made, without having to make it possible for everyone else to build, that would enable continued binary support.

[yardstick]

Or could just release the tool that issues new keys/serials/licenses.