[game_preservation] Kickstarting the IGDA Preservation SIG

[Greg B]

Kieron and group,
 I would also like to chime in on the more difficult, but still important
task of preserving source code for these games, where available. I know that
Simon and some others know that I do game IP law full time. One of the most
important legal pieces for defending against a patent case in the game
context is having the date-stamped source code for a piece of prior art.
Finding a playable game with preserved date-stamped source code is often a
type of Holy Grail to help defend a against patent case.
 Having said all of that, I do want to stress "where available." I'm sure
some people are still holding on the that 1987 source code just waiting to
make millions on the re-release of the game, but that code is probably worth
far more to the publishing/development community archived for historic
purposes and for the selfish purpose of defending against IP attacks.
 Greg

 On 10/19/05, Kieron Wilkinson <preservation_sig at igda.org> wrote:

>

> Simon Carless wrote:

> > The key resources I see right now as it being important to unite:

>

> Yeah, we are going to have to talk about this. I know you guys had some

> ideas on this. We'll have to see where we can go with this...

>

> > - The Computer History Museum (Sellam Ismail is a full-time software

> > curator there now!)

>

> By coincidence, I have recently been in contact with Sellam recently to

> help recover a long lost game from some 8" disks held by the developer.

> (more on that when I know more, it hasn't happened yet AFAIK) Nice guy!

>

> Nice kickstart they got this week! For those that have not heard:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4350972.stm

>

> > - CAPS Project

>

> Now SPS (Software Preservation Society - www.softpres.org<http://www.softpres.org>

> ).

>

> Actually, it is probably worth pointing out where I hail from. I help

> run SPS (formally CAPS) which is a technical effort for collecting and

> preserving games that use magnetic storage media (floppy disks, for the

> moment anyway), along with a few other people, most notably István

> Fábián. Feel free to look at the site for more details. We have

> currently preserved 2500 games from the Commodore Amiga computer which

> are digitally encapsulated in a form away from physical media and

> associated longevity problems. These disk images are from error-free and

> unaltered copied of games (since we have the technology to check both of

> these things thanks to István), and are hence suitable for preservation

> and archiving. We are currently working on other systems, most notably

> systems with hardware based floppy controllers (controlled all by a

> chip, rather than mainly in software like the Amiga), which is used in

> most other computer systems. The Amiga was the most technically

> challenging to do this sort of thing, and so made a suitable starting

> point (and other reasons).

>

> Given this background, I'm coming very much from the digital

> preservation side of things. These are almost certainly going to be the

> only working copies that will be left in the frighteningly

> not-too-distant future - certainly by the time the copyright expires.

> You can't do one without the other though, collecting physical copies of

> the media is just as important - as my house stuffed with thousands of

> games testifies. (If you wondered, no, I'm not very popular for it with

> certain others - especially since I never get time to actually *play*

> the things!)

>

> --

> Kieron Wilkinson

> Preservation SIG

> International Game Developers Association

> _______________________________________________

> game_preservation mailing list

> game_preservation at igda.org

> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>

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