: They would have no legal basis to do so. Bungie gave away the source before
: they were bought by Microsoft, and even if it had been later, you can't
: take that back.
: As Claude earlier mentioned, we don't yet have word back from Microsoft Legal
: on the exact license for the Trilogy Release stuff, but we *do* have
: written permission from Bungie (or at least, Claude does somewhere... I'd
: be cool to have those emails publicly available), which would hopefully
: count for something.
: On a related note, I wonder... Bungie used to give some line (or at least,
: there were cited as having done so) about owning the
: "copyrights" on the "file formats". I'm curious
: exactly how you copyright a file format, independent of the content
: contained within that file; what original work is the copyright held on?
: The file headers? Cause I'm pretty sure file structure would have to be
: covered by patent, not copyright. I don't think it's possible, via
: copyright alone, to prohibit people from writing new programs from scratch
: that output files in a certain format, with all-new content.
: So unless Bungie (and now MS) has an actual *patent* on the Marathon file
: formats (which I doubt they do, though we should look it up anyway), the
: only thing that MS could possibly prohibit us from using is the original
: art, sounds, etc from the trilogy. And possibly the names of the
: characters (which could be either a copyright or a trademark issue, though
: since they've gone so long without defending those 'trademarks' I'd wager
: they're indefensible by now). But I haven't seen anyone pull crap like
: that since Paramount came down on Star Trek fan fiction. Though if anyone
: were to do it, it would be MS.
: The source is legally licensed for public use under the GPL, the file formats
: are AFAIK unprotectable unless they've got a patent, any possible
: trademark violation for use of character and place names is by now
: indefensible because trademarks require constant defense or else they're
: lost... about the only thing even mildly at risk is original Marathon art,
: sound, and text, and even then we've got written permission, albiet
: imprecisely worded. Even if MS wanted to be a bunch of dicks, they've got
: at most about one little toe to stand on.
: Not that I expect they'd even bother, anyway.
I don't think they would probably care much about Aleph One...A1's great and all, but the online interface pretty much stinks, along with some of the strangest bugs.
If they were to release the Marathon Trilogy on XBLA, I would hope the focus would be on a lag-free, easy to use online experience (ala Halo 2). I would also hope they add some user-friendly option screens for the new control setups that would be required (something Doom sadly lacks).
Last but not least, they could have some sweet "achievements" for the Trilogy.
