I don't think that would be an issue, its just a bit arbitrary and exclusive with the system in place of how one gets developers for these projects-they all expect things that shouldn't be expected of developers and really deters some people to even mention that they are knowledgeable in X or Y. There is also a point that is very relevant to this in talking with
@Kate Goldwalker. There are a lot of people that played the game that still keep up on the news of these projects or the community but don't necessarily participate as much as we do in it until the day comes for the rise of POTCO from the gallows. They'd likely participate in open source if given the opportunity and the right group of people were to oversee it as there is definitely some sort of guidance that'd be necessary for an open source project.
I highly doubt it. We've seen countless branches of development for past-POTCO projects. Many are unwilling, or even unable, to work together to reach their common goal.
The Toontown community consisted of so very many knowledgeable programmers, reverse engineers, and people who have such a large interest in how the game worked, it's intricacies, it's exploits, everything and anything technical. They wanted to know how it worked, and they were able to find and figure out how. This lead to the "hacking" situation. I mean, who do you think created that nice little program that those script kiddies fooled around with? Someone very knowledgeable on the inner-workings of python. Who do you think wrote all that code that the script kiddies then imported in with said program? Someone very knowledgeable on the inner-workings of python.
The POTCO community never consisted of such knowledgeable programmers. Sure, there were a few here and there. But many kept to themselves and now are either long gone, still prefer to keep to themselves, or are just too busy to contribute. Many of the people who have attempted to remake POTCO, are amateurs, learning python and the Panda3D API only to remake POTCO. The "hacking" that took place in POTCO was never something as serious as Toontown. No one made any bots, no one could hack in items, no one could do anything to the degree Toontown experienced.
So I ask... Making POTCO development open source.... What will it do? In the short term, and in the long run? Here are my thoughts.
People will still be unwilling to work together. Many will simply download themselves a copy of the source code and try and develop it themselves. Sorry, but I just do not see this community ever wanting to fully work together. I do not know what it is, but any suggestion for "Unity" is disregarded or ignored.
There will be little to no developers. The vast majority of those who show up will not know what they are doing, or know very little. The project will only be slowed down by these people as commits and changes to the code will have to be rolled back or not implemented at all. Sorry, but no one is just gonna show up that hasn't ever played POTCO. No good developer who knows what they are doing is going to work on reverse engineering a Disney game made in 2005-2007 for free.
Lastly, unless the developers know what they are doing, it can be a HUGE security problem if ever finished successfully. I could download a copy of the source and make my edits and recompile it to run it while playing the game. Unless significant security features are implemented, I do NOT see a good future in line for a open source POTCO.
...but, I have held my tongue long enough about exactly whom TLOPO is enlisting.
