Open source can keep a technology alive, less so a company
Cyan Worlds has decided to release the source code for Myst Online (Uru Live) to open source.
Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet in his ‘Can open source save gaming companies?‘ post seems to think that Cyan is trying to save the company from dying. I read it differently, I think they are trying to save the software from dying.
Here is a quote from Cyan:
But we’ve poured so much into UruLive, and it has touched so many, that we could not just let it whither and die. We still have hopes that someday we will be able to provide new content for UruLive and/or work on the next UruLive.
They seem to be viewing open source as a way to keep Myst alive. This is probably from both personal reasons and also with the hope that at some point Cyan might be able to monetize it again.
I think Matthew Aslett at 451 Group reads it the way I do and points out that open source is not a panacea
