
Al Lowe reveals his Sierra source code collection - vatueil
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/al-lowe-reveals-his-sierra-source-code-collection-then-puts-all-of-it-on-ebay/
======
rixrax
Al Lowe, if you're reading, I am humbly asking you to consider putting all the
source code you have for Sierra etc. games up to GitHub for all of us to
{gaze|look|worship...}. Let the collectors have the pleasure of having it all
on the original physical medias, but let the rest of us mere mortals have
access to the essence.

Edit: alas, it's pointed out that above may not be possible as IP is owned by
someone else.

That out of the way - Your / Sierra games had such a profound impact on my
life. I would go as far as to say that without Leisuresuit
Larry,Space|Police|Kings Quest and others I might have never started
[seriously] learning English and mastered it to the point that later I was
able to move abroad and eventually immigrate to the new world. ( btw - that
statement probably pretty much accounts for any possible problems with my
English and poor choice of language at times ;-) )

~~~
diggernet
If he can't give the source away on github because he doesn't own the IP, then
he can't sell it either. But he is.

~~~
larsiusprime
Not true. Otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to sell paintings you own, but
don't also own the copyright to reproduce digitally. Copyright and ownership
of physical artifacts are two different things.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
No, that's not how it works. Al Lowe is indeed violating copyright by selling
these. You can't just go selling your ex-employers source code because it
"happened to be on your laptop". It's absolutely a copyright violation.

The reason you can sell physical goods is because of the first sale doctrine
and alike. Al Lowe never bought this source code on physical media; rather he
created it during his employment. Thus he is not permitted to sell it.

~~~
jt2190
A quibble: The source code belongs to Al Lowe’s ex-employer only if he had a
work for hire agreement in place with them. Copyright is _implicit_ and,
unless otherwise agreed to, belongs to the creator by default. Anything I
write (including code) I have the right to copy unless I transfer that right.

(This, by the way, is why your employer requires that you sign those “we own
everything you create while you work for us” documents.)

Edit: But this case seems to hinge on Al selling the physical media, rather
than the IP rights. More like selling a used book.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
This depends on your jurisdiction, and in many places precedence has been set
by case law.

But generally, unfortunately, no. If you create something "on the clock" _or_
using your employer's hardware (even in your free time), then the copyright is
_typically_ implicitly transferred to your employer.

 _EDIT_ : This is actually covered in season 1 of Silicon Valley... Yeah,
legit reference, I know ;)

~~~
wglb
This is true only if explicitly called out in documents you sign when you join
the company, or sign a consulting contract. There needs to be language that
calls this out.

Mind you, pretty much every US company has that as part of their HR policy or
contract agreement.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
Sorry, that's not the case. The relevant laws governing this are called "work
for hire".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire)

Other countries don't necessarily have it spelled out so clearly, but instead
leave it to case law. However, it's mostly the same around the globe.

The contracts are so your employer owns inventions created outside of work
hours, _not_ using employer equipment. This part of your employment agreement
is actually frequently contested and deemed unenforceable _unless_ the work is
in the same area of expertise as your full-time employment i.e. using
knowledge from your job. But it comes down to individual cases.

 _EDIT_ : It's covered on the Wikipedia page I've linked. However, just to
clarify, the act of being employed is automatically considered work for hire
by the legislation. If you're _not_ an employee, but rather a contractor, then
you may explicitly form a work for hire agreement in writing as part of the
contract.

~~~
wglb
I stand corrected.

------
DonHopkins
How perfect: he used Elephant Memory Systems floppy disks -- they never
forget!

[https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/11/s-l16...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/11/s-l1600-2-980x549.jpg)

I loved my Elephant t-shirt!

[https://www.etsy.com/listing/603919849/vintage-80s-1981-elep...](https://www.etsy.com/listing/603919849/vintage-80s-1981-elephant-
memory-systems)

~~~
djmips
This seems so odd to me since I remember when Elephant was the new cool kid on
the block; cooler than Verbatim etc.

~~~
reaperducer
We were a BASF/3M house. And they were $5 a pop. If you could find a place
that sold floppy disks at all.

FAO Schwartz to the rescue!

------
aninteger
I am interested but not enough to pay over $1000. I actually hope that some
(well all) of this code makes it to the computer history museum.

~~~
kevin_b_er
If rare video game market is anything like I think it is, this will disappear
into a jealous "private collector". You'll never ever see the source code
because they feel that dumping or providing digital copies of the disks would
degrade the value of their collection. And public suffers just a little more
under greed and selfishness.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> And public suffers just a little more under greed and selfishness.

I don't know if "I don't have a copy of King's Quest 3 source code" counts as
suffering.

~~~
subway
The public suffers _anytime_ knowledge is lost.

~~~
gisely
Will the public suffer from not knowing what this comment said a century from
now?

~~~
all2
Yes. Already massive amounts of data have been lost to the grind of technology
forging 'forward'.

As we lose the information, we lose context, and without context 'facts' about
the past begin to lose meaning to the present reader.

History, and the stories we have, is/are mankind's most important asset.
Without the context of our past as a species, we lose the ability to navigate
into the future effectively (without crossing into unfortunate places again,
like world war, or slavery, etc.).

We have nothing but stories. Without those, we are nothing.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I think that raises an interesting problem - if you want to look back 1000
years the sources are scarce, and largely composed of the thoughts of the
educated or the wealthy - people who could read and write and store these
items.

500 years from now we're going to be faced with a totally different problem -
if a user wants to learn about the year 2018 where do they start? Official
documents will appear to be stored beside the thoughts of Kardashians besides
trolls. It'll be very hard to parse through any information to get an actual
sense of what was happening.

I mean, it's the same problem, using the primary sources to try and figure out
the truth, but it'll be the opposite problem as we have now.

~~~
akkartik
[https://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-
Stross/dp/04410150...](https://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-
Stross/dp/0441015085) describes a different problem. In the 27th century the
21st century is considered a dark age not because anything particularly bad
happened but just because data archival technology took a big step back. Early
storage media were far more fragile than paper.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> Early storage media were far more fragile than paper.

That's true, but on a timeline of human history that's a pretty brief window
and there was a lot of distrust in the medium at that time. We're going to
have ~30 years where they have to rely on the old methodologies still, but the
20th century is a whole new ball game. They won't be able to retrieve circa
2000 floppy disks, no, but I feel like a lot of what's been around for the
last decade is going to probably stick around.

------
st3fan
Should have just donated it to archive.org instead of making a quick buck out
of it.

~~~
TheDong
Unfortunately, it's still copyrighted and so cannot be legally displayed or
distributed by the internet archive for another ~65 years (95 years from
publication for copyright to expire). Many of us won't be alive to see this
code legally.

The copyright period could also increase again if the law retroactively
increases it again.

~~~
djsumdog
Yea that's what confuses me. Is he even legally allowed to sell this stuff?
Should he even still have that stuff?! This gets into sketchy legal ground.

I wish he had contacted the German company he claims currently owns the rights
and just asked if he could post it all up for free. It's not like it's going
to hurt sales on platforms like GoG if they still have it up. He's already
gotten some of the rights back for LSL1 at least when he did that remake
(which honestly isn't all that great). He could have posted all the code and
then sold the originals too; so it's in the commons and one person gets to be
a collector and everyone wins.

So .. EA doesn't own this? I thought Sierra was owned by EA (or got bought by
some company that got bought by EA). I know The LSL rights went to some other
company for a bit who produced the two PC/PlayStation Larry games (the
university and movie one. Honestly I liked the University one; don't know why
people hated on it. It was funny).

~~~
code_duck
It’s like selling a copy of a book that you own. Unless you signed some sort
of confidentiality agreement, there’s nothing that prohibits you from
transferring the physical copy to someone else.

~~~
jccalhoun
I think a better comparison would be owning the original manuscript. I might
own the original manuscript to The Hobbit but that doesn't mean I can publish
it.

~~~
code_duck
Correct, you couldn’t copy it and re-distribute, but you could sell your
original copy.

------
dec0dedab0de
I miss typing commands in the classic sierra games. Trying to figure out the
right commands and names of items was much more fun than the point and click
games that followed. Also you never know when you would stumble upon a joke
while saying something ridiculous.

~~~
catoc
I played everything. Kings Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police
Quest... hated it when they went the 'point-n-click' way.

Still whistle the police Quest opening tune to my daughters sometimes... What
are you whistling daddy? How do you get the experience of classic adventure
games across...?

------
dstroot
Leisure Suit Larry was the first game I played as a kid that felt “adult” and
“naughty”. Somehow that made it irresistible to my younger self. This brings
back some great memories. Thanks for sharing!

~~~
DonHopkins
I played Softporn Adventure on my Apple ][, which Leisure Suit Larry was based
on.

There was a casino that let you bet negative amounts at the blackjack table,
then lose on purpose to make lots of money!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure)

Then there was "Interlude: The Ultimate Experience". It came with a paperback
book full of naughty stuff, which my pirate friend gave me a xeroxed copy of
to go with the floppy disk.

[https://boingboing.net/2012/08/10/sexy-video-game-from-
the-a...](https://boingboing.net/2012/08/10/sexy-video-game-from-the-
apple.html)

You'd load the game on the computer, run it, answer some questions, and it
would tell you and your (probably imaginary) partner: "For a good time, turn
to page 74 for Interlude No. 82 - Caveman Caper!"

Looks like this PDF has the table of contents, but it's missing all the "good"
parts:

[http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/syntonic/k7_sy...](http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/syntonic/k7_syntonic_interlude_manual.pdf)

And I'll never forget the HyperCard Smut Stack! ("ping!")

~~~
jfoster
> There was a casino that let you bet negative amounts at the blackjack table,
> then lose on purpose to make lots of money!

Sounds a bit like one of the early bugs on Amazon.com:

[https://youtu.be/-hxX_Q5CnaA](https://youtu.be/-hxX_Q5CnaA)

------
mosselman
EBay seems like the worst possible place for this. Why not donate it to some
organisation that would work out a way for people to look at at least parts of
the code?

~~~
NicoJuicy
Why? Amazon auctions never really took off. He got in the news ( see this
post). He got what he wanted.

A lot of arbitrage/sales still happens on eBay, it's not hard when the sellers
are looking at #1 to earn money on #2

~~~
mosselman
I meant with regards to the loss for society when this disappears into some
private collection. I’d be better in a museum. I am sure he’ll earn enough
short term money from the auctions.

~~~
prepend
It’s been disappeared in a private collection for years.

I’m sure he’s cool with someone buying all the stuff to form a private
collection.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I kinda agree on that. The loss for society of the source code of an old
game.....

I don't see any extra value. I do agree it would be nice to see the source
code and look at it. Some have an emotional attachment to it, but if it
wouldn't have been sold/shared, nobody would have cared or request it.

------
ngneer
I remember my father taking me to see the Sierra offices, right by Coarsegold,
CA. They were closed, but it was a fun trip, given how happy those games made
my childhood. I know I am not the only one here.

~~~
tfandango
Same with me, but they were open. We walked in and they just gave us a tour. I
remember they were working on Space Quest 3 and showed us what it sounded like
on the Roland MT-32. I was lucky my Dad was super into technology so as soon
as we got home he went out and bought one.

------
thrower123
I wish somebody would make available the Civil War Generals code base. It's
getting painful to keep a VM ready to be able to play it. I would gladly pay
for a legal modernised version

~~~
washadjeffmad
It seems you can play it natively with Steam Play for Linux, DosBox, or WINE.

~~~
thrower123
Can you? I didn't think dosbox handled windows games. I've been keeping an XP
vm around just for this.

------
aidenn0
In the original Leisure suit larry, there was actually a (really long) time
limit. I don't know how anyone could ever hit it by accident, since the game
pauses for input pretty regularly. The VGA remake removed the time limit.

------
mschuster91
Semi-OT: Anyone who knows who holds the copyright and/or source code to
Sierra's Earth Siege 2, please contact me by the email in my profile! I'd be
really happy if someone can shed a light here...

~~~
crooked-v
Currently Hi-Rez Studios at least has the rights to distribute the full
series, since they legally have the ISOs available to download as a promotion
for Tribes: Ascend.
[https://www.tribesuniverse.com](https://www.tribesuniverse.com)

------
tibbon
Argh - just send these to Jason Scott to archive responsibly instead....

------
rags2riches
Looks like the 3.5" floppies have had the hole punch treatment to increase
capacity! That wasn't always great for reliability as I remember it...

~~~
fallous
Um, hole punching was used on 5 1/4" and 8" floppies, not 3.5".

~~~
marcins
I guess, because technically most people used a drill for 3.5” disks.

------
CobrastanJorji
Hrm....he says he hasn't tested it, but there was a remake of the game, and
Lowe supposedly worked with them on it. You'd think they'd have jumped to at
least examine the original source. Or maybe they explicitly decided not to
check if the IP rights were owned by a different company than the one that
owned the copyright for the code itself.

~~~
glwtta
Why would they? Code from 1987 is of exactly zero interest to someone
developing a game in 2013.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
It's a text command driven game, isn't it? Getting an encyclopedic listing of
all of the different text that the original recognized would be most easily
handled by reading it from the original code.

I suppose just examining the original media might have been enough. Or maybe
they abandoned that command style? I didn't play the remake.

~~~
djsumdog
If they wanted to referrer to the original dialogue or images, it's easy to do
without the source. ScummVM and other projects already have tools out there to
extract all the game data from old Sierra games.

~~~
scrollaway
Sierra games did not use SCUMM. That was LucasArts (the MM stands for Maniac
Mansion).

~~~
Rondom
SCUMMVM can read many other non-SCUMM game files these days.

[https://scummvm.org/compatibility/](https://scummvm.org/compatibility/)

~~~
scrollaway
Wow, had no idea. TIL thanks!

------
ru999gol
if he were to actually care about digital preservation he would just put all
of it on github even anonymously. But he doesn't so he doesn't. I know what
Jason Scott would do.

~~~
glwtta
Where does he claim to care about digital preservation? And I'm pretty sure
GitHub would have to remove code posted without permission, anonymous or not.

~~~
kalleboo
But by the time they got around to removing it there would be thousands of
backups around the world

------
therein
This brings back memories I hadn't recalled in a long time.

[https://youtu.be/nyZ2X73VrGs](https://youtu.be/nyZ2X73VrGs)

------
VikingCoder
First, what's the legal status of this code?

Second, should we do an immediate crowd funding campaign to purchase this, and
make the contents available to everyone?

~~~
merlincorey
> First, what's the legal status of this code?

Apparently it is currently owned by a German entertainment company:

"Realize that, while you’ll have my data as of the day of Larry 1’s creation,
you will not own the intellectual property rights to the game, the code, the
art, or anything else," Lowe says in the LSL1 listing. "Nor do I. The IP
rights were sold over and over again, until they are now owned by a German
game company."

~~~
paxy
Correct me if I'm wrong but he can't legally sell these disks then right (at
least before wiping them first)?

~~~
icebraining
He can, he just can't make copies of them. It's like selling an used book.

In the US, it's called the First-sale doctrine:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
sale_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine)

~~~
ChrisLomont
He may not have such rights. It’s unlikely he was legally allowed to have this
copy of the code; he likely just kept the copy because he felt like it.

If the copyright owner didn’t sell/transfer/contract this to him, he basically
has a stolen copy.

I do wish this copy is legally transferable; I suspect it is not.

~~~
djsumdog
Yea that's what I thought.

This might have been made before modern NDAs and all the IP documents you
handover when you join a tech shop today, or maybe Ken and Roberta W made some
special deal with him since he was there really early on with the company?

Even if that's not the case, there's a good chance all the original contracts
were lost too. I mean, it really all depends on if Activision (or whoever
currently owns the original LSL/Sierra IP) finds out and decides to come after
him.

~~~
xvilka
Vampires of corporate law will never miss this chance. Of course they will sue
him to bankruptcy.

------
Reedx
Anyone know the odds of the floppies still working? I'm guessing some will and
some won't. They must be nearing or past expiration date...

~~~
DonHopkins
Well the Elephant Memory Systems floppy disks claim to "Never Forget"!

[https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/11/s-l16...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/11/s-l1600-2-980x549.jpg)

[https://youtu.be/v7AgSapZAi8?t=500](https://youtu.be/v7AgSapZAi8?t=500)

------
crb002
These have enough artistic value to go to the Library of Congress or the Met.

------
crooked-v
I'm suddenly reminded of Betrayal in Antara. Man, that game was weird.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Did anyone say Kult - The Temple of Flying Saucers?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeyZ57rWdGg&t=6m21s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeyZ57rWdGg&t=6m21s)

~~~
mpeg
I was obsessed with that game as a child, if it was remade it would have
quick-save and be ruined :)

That and Future Wars are probably the first sci-fi games I played in the Amiga
500.

