zlacker

>>brayth+(OP)
I'm kind of curious about the license status of this. Zork has been commercially sold (on iOS) within the last 10 years, and I don't quite know how this source would be MIT's to give away, unless there is a deal with whatever legal entity owns Infocom's intellectual property these days.

>>microt+P5
Infocom wasn't founded until 1979 -- this source code is from an earlier version of the game which was widely distributed among PDP-10 systems.

The original authors might have a copyright claim, but it's not clear that Infocom (or its heirs) would.

>>duskwu+y8
Infocom sold derivative works of this, so its seems to me that they would have some rights to this code.

If it was some sort of non-exclusive license, there should be no problem, because the authors seem to be on board with the release.

If the authors transferred their copyright to Infocom upon forming the company, then this code is technically no longer theirs to give away, especially since the IP rights were subsequently re-sold (maybe even multiple times).

I agree with others in this discussion that at this point, the code most likely has primarily academic/historical value. But that would not necessarily stop an owner from suing a deep pocketed entity like MIT.