Linux laptops, revisited (can any sleep like my PowerBook does?)

[Shane Hathaway]

Von Fugal wrote:
> In fact sad sad is the day you want to use an old piece of software
> (maybe a game, most likely in fact) that is long gone and not only no
> longer supported but it's not even purchasable AT ALL. It's terribly
> selfish of one to think that nobody will ever want to use their software
> and improve upon it once they are gone or have lost interest in it. That
> may be their "right" under current law, but it's a crying shame when it
> happens.

Case in point: I got a copy of the $15 commercial version of Tux Racer 
(for Linux) one Christmas.  The commercial version turns out to be far 
more fun than the open source version: the tracks have a lot more 
variety, there are several characters, doing consecutive tricks earns a 
lot of points, there is a 2 player mode, and the music is good enough to 
play loud.  Sunspire Studios once said they would release the commercial 
version as open source, but they never did, and now the company has 
vanished.  It's getting harder to keep it running since it depends on 
old libraries.  In 10 years it will probably only run in a virtual 
machine, since all the libraries it depends on will have long since 
moved on.

The source code probably still exists somewhere.  If only I could get it 
(with a Free license), I would happily do the work to modernize and 
distribute it.

Shane