The writing should be assumed to be subject to copyright still even though the code is open source.
In this case it sounds like Microsoft's Legal has taken the assumption the writing is applicable under the code license and is mostly seeking to enforce trademarks and brand (don't commercially release something implying it is a Microsoft-approved Zork) more than the writing, per Scott's wording of Microsoft's legal requests here: https://github.com/historicalsource/zork1/pull/3
Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, that's not legal advice, build commercial derivatives at your own risk and with your own lawyer's advice.
In many ways it's the opposite, the code counts as writing. At least where I live (should be similar in other EU countries) from the perspective of copyright law code is largely classified as literary work. There are few special rules related to fact that code is typically written by large team employed by company compared to books being written by single author and printed by publisher. Also few special rules that don't make sense for regular literary works related to reverse engineering, interface compatibility with other software and copying as part of installation/execution process.
All the code specific licenses are arbitrary rules decided by right owners under which they license others to use their work. Book authors typically don't have to worry whether when granting permission to read their work they also need to grant rights to relevant patents, or whether dynamic or static linking should be permitted.
Assuming Microsoft owns all the necessary rights for everything I don't see a major reason they couldn't release it as single work under whatever license they want. Considering the way this specific game is written I don't think you can even cleanly separate code from rest of the writing. It's all one big program with bunch of short string literals sprinkled all over the place. You could take all the string literals, but without code defining how those strings are ordered in a non linear and interactive way it would make as much sense as reading a book where all the sentences have been sorted in alphabetical order.
I doubt any of the Zork authors were part of writer union and negotiated separate licensing rules for the text they wrote.
With regards to common case where source is released with open source license separate from art assets there are a couple of reasons. It's much easier to separate pictures and music from code and tell that those are covered by different license. For some of the art assets especially music it's not uncommon that the publisher themselves don't have full rights to them and only have limited license to use in game but not to relicense as separate works. Releasing source code without art assets makes it easier to maintain commercial value and limit ability for others to exploit the work as ready to use product (or sequals) while still allowing programmers to study the code and learn from the technical tricks in code or making new games based on same engine. If I am not mistaken at
From the historical preservation perspective art assets are less likely to bitrot and become unusable. 20 years in future you will likely still be able to rip them out of commercial builds of game with little losses and worst case observable as standalone media. But the code is a lot more likely break and not be runnable on future OS/hardware. Code also has a lot more hidden aspects that you can much more easily observe by reading source code directly instead of reverse engineering the compiled executables. Better release the source code while it hasn't been completely lost.
Presumably some, although HPE don’t use the old Cray logo, and the name is a bit downplayed when they talk about their supercomputer stuff, although it is still used (like most old computer companies, naturally they’ve ended up owned by HPE, who seem to collect them).
Ah, I noticed they had been acquired by HPE, but their Wikipedia article still listed revenue so I assumed they were a subsidiary. Looking again, the revenue is from the year before the acquisition. My mistake.
It would be neat to recreate early radio, where a broadcaster would get a play-by-play over the wire and then announce it as if watching it, complete with sound effects. It was one of Ronald Reagan's early jobs.
Probably. Barentsburg, west from Longyearbyen, is predominantly a Russian mining village. Svalbard is interesting in that it is part of Norway but citizens of some other countries are granted more rights than they’d have in the rest of Norway, and Norway also is not allowed to operate its military from Svalbard.
In practice it's a visa-free zone. Anyone from anywhere can settle in Svalbard as long as they can get there. Of course, not many want to, so it's a bit academic.
To me, the article is saying that an "ongoing investigation" is not a valid reason to grant anonymity, not that there are no valid reasons to grant anonymity.
Who is being protected from whom by granting this source anonymity? With your three examples it's clear, but not as much in this case.
Officials who are not supposed to talk about ongoing investigations, and might get fired if they do, but can't help themselves so they do it anyway under cover of "anonymity."
And honestly, probably everyone in a position to know, does know who the "anonymous" source is, but it's just enough plausible deniability that everyone gets away with it. They get to push their narrative but also pretend they are following the rules that are supposed to protect various parties in the process.
Meanwhile if I were on a grand jury and blabbing to the press every evening about an investigation, I could get in real trouble.
Is there something similar for a text based adventure game? Does the writing count as code?