They have the Tribes 1 source code, not the Tribes 2. Which Thyth does have, last i heard.
How else could one write the Ruby Interpreter?
I do not have the Tribes 2 source code. GarageGames does.
They're pretty much free to bring up the old system as it was, but it would be an incredibly dumb move to do so without working with the TN team. There are still significant architectural advantages to the authentication system I designed, and there are a bunch of active users using our system. Getting them to move would require a compelling reason.
If they, lets say theoretically, rebuilt the Tribes 2 engine much as they are doing with Tribes 1 and made it instant action. How far would they go? Full in game browser support? Clans? Tribes 2 was a pretty full featured product in its heyday, the likes of which have yet to be duplicated by modern games.
I think a complete GG rebuild of Tribes 2 would be some pretty mean competition for good old TribesNext, especially since they are the guys that built the damn game in the first place. The question is, what would it gain them? Giving out a nearly decade old game for free is great for us end users but what is the end goal? They can't exactly point at it and say, hey we made this game a long ass time ago and it was awesome. As part of their porfolio its a pretty ancient piece of history.
Especially with all the people running around that the game effectively ended their jobs.