Has sega or any other developers release source codes ?

Has Sega or any other developers release any source codes of their games to the public ? if they did would it be easy to port it to dreamcast yes or no?

 

[h=2]developers would not release source codes at all.[/h]

 

Raven just decided to release the source codes for star wars jedi outcast and starwars jedi academy.

 

Some have, things like doom/quake etc.

I wouldn't say porting would be easy though.

 

Indeed id software released the source code for most of their games (source code only; no data like graphics/sound).
I don't know of any other company that does the same regularly, but I remember reading about other games for which the source code was also released.

Here are some links you might find interesting in this matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Commercial_video_games_with_freely_available_source_code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games_with_later_released_source_code
http://www.liberatedgames.com/

 

Regularly no, but there was actually a high profile one recently http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/04/star-wars-jedi-knight-source-code/

id don't release the data, but you are legally allowed to use the data from the original if you own it.

 

Yes! Look here - http://shrigley.com/source_code_archive/

Though porting to the Dreamcast would be unessesary since the emulators on the DC are full speed for Genesis.

Look up open source to find source code, some of these projects include older type games that could be ported.

The Monkey Ball clone, Neverball has Dreamcast source code available; look here

 

Porting code is a pretty big task especially if you are not familiar with the code base or style of the original coders. If the company has programming guidelines and hires quality coders, then you can get a better idea of what code does even if you have never seen it before.

Imagine someone asking you to find a certain phrase in a (physical) book with thousands of pages. It's difficult if nobody familiar with the text is there to guide you,