As much as I love this article and the work CaH4e3 has done disassembling, documenting and improving SimCity, and the work and mission of the Video Game History Foundation and the Internet Archive, I have to question what the article means by the section header "The SimCity Open Source Project".

Is there an actual project calling itself that, or is that just a figure of speech that the writer of the article used (inaccurately)? Because abandonware, unpublished or reverse engineered software is not automatically open source, which has a very specific legal definition.

And SimCity is a trademark that is very much still in use and aggressively protected.

https://www.konitono.com/ea-kills-open-source-version-of-sim...

The original SimCity source code, based on the Mac version that I ported to Unix using TCL/Tk, was relicensed by Electronic Arts under GPLv3 for the OLPC project, and EA had some very specific conditions for using their trademark "SimCity" (for example, it had to be reviewed and approved by EA's QA department to protect their brand name "SimCity", or else released under another name like "Micropolis").

https://medium.com/@donhopkins/open-sourcing-simcity-58470a2...

https://medium.com/@donhopkins/har-2009-lightning-talk-trans...

Also the GPLv3 license itself has some very specific conditions about the use of the code. (For example, the Anti-Tivoization clause forbids publishing an app based on the code on the Apple app store.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization

The full license and a simpler explanation is shown here:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/SimCity

>In case this confuses you, here is a simpler explanation. The code is free software. But the code as released by EA uses EA trademarks. You cannot modify the code and distribute it unless you (1) make it clear to the player that you have modified it, and (2) remove all the EA trademarks from the game. (You also have to follow all the other rules in the GPLv3, the EA additional terms, and the copyrights of other contributors. This was just a very brief summary.)

The "Micropolis" project is based on that original code, which has been cleaned up, documented, and translated to other languages, but it uses the name "Micropolis" (SimCity's original working title) instead of "SimCity" because of that trademark restriction.

There was one official version of GPLv3 "SimCity" released for the OLPC, based on the TCL/Tk version I developed for DUX Software, which went through EA's QA process and was approved for release by EA to be shipped with the OLPC. But all subsequent versions and derivatives were called "Micropolis", to avoid the need to go through that complicated approval process again.

https://donhopkins.com/home/olpc-ea-contract.pdf

EXHIBIT B

EA TRADEMARK AND LEGAL NOTICE:

“SIMCITY TM & (c) 1989 - 2007 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved.
EA does not support this software. For technical support
visit: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/SimCity or email simcity@laptop.org.

RESTRICTIONS ON USE:

OLPC shall not reproduce or use (or authorize the reproduction or use of) the EA Trademark, or
any other trademark, service mark, service name, trade name, designation or logo of EA, in any
manner whatsoever other than as expressly authorized by this Agreement. Furthermore, except as
authorized hereunder, OLPC shall not reproduce or use any service mark, service name, trade
name, trademark, designation or logo confusingly similar to the EA Trademark or any other
trademark, service mark, service name, trade name, designation or logo of EA.

OLPC shall mark each use of the EA Trademark with either the superscript ® symbol or the
superscript ™ symbol as set forth above adjacent to such EA Trademark. EA may at any time, and
from time to time, amend this Exhibit B.

OLPC shall also take such other steps as may reasonably be requested by EA to evidence EA’s
ownership and license to OLPC of any of the EA Trademark, including, without limitation,
execution of registered user agreements if required by applicable law.