All you need is a hacker to start the thing and many small ideas and contributions from other people. But Gamma Patrol is not supposed to grow, it doesn't make sense to be a constantly improving, but never completed game. If I felt the need to implement a new, fantiastic feature, I'll instead start another project, maybe Gamma Patrol II or something totally new. Larry Wall is probably still using perl or tools written in or derived from perl. That's why I want to release this specific game as shareware .
Binary releases are for convenience available, too.
If you like the game, you can send me some money for it. The source is only intended to be used for compiling the game, you are not allowed to give away modified versions of it. The advantage is obviously that everyone can compile the game, even on systems I cannot even imagine. There's no way to force you to pay for this product, paiment would be completely voluntary. If you are a programmer, graphician or musician you can make your contribution by improving the game.