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Source code for the Palm OS port of Lemmings

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Only a few day ago I linked to a massive collection of original Palm OS development resources, and today we can take a look at what it was like to put all of those resources into practice: the original source code for the Palm OS port of Lemmings. With these resources combined, there’s no excuse to not building any Palm OS applications. I’d really like a modern email client, a Fediverse client, and a slightly more modern browser surely wouldn’t hurt.

Get on it!

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Thom Holwerda

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3 Comments

  1. 2026-10-19 2:28 am
    sukru Silver Supporter

    I think there are some legitimate concerns here:

    “Any source code for which I personally hold the necessary rights may be made available under a separate license, identified alongside the relevant files. If you are a copyright holder and believe material has been included that should not be publicly distributed, please open a GitHub issue identifying the relevant files. Legitimate concerns will be reviewed, and material can be removed where appropriate.”

    And from the documents released earlier:

    Copyright © 1996 – 2000, Palm Computing, Inc. All rights reserved. This documentation may be printed and copied solely for use in developing products for Palm OS software. In addition, two (2) copies of this documentation may be made for archival and backup purposes. Except for the foregoing, no part of this documentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means or used to make any derivative work (such as translation, transformation or adaptation) without express written consent from Palm Computing.

    This is more of a “Abandonware” release, which is on shaky ground. I would otherwise welcome it. But it has the potential to “infect” actual open source implementations

    Take one of the several existing open source Lemmings clones:
    https://github.com/carlotacb/Lemmings

    What would guard it against someone using some AI Tool to copy parts of this (unauthorized) source release, “infect” the actual open source repos, and one of the Palm license holders (TCL, LG and Qualcomm today) sues them?

    Need to be careful here.

    • 2026-10-19 9:56 am
      Alfman

      sukru,

      This is more of a “Abandonware” release, which is on shaky ground. I would otherwise welcome it. But it has the potential to “infect” actual open source implementations

      I agree with your analysis, Abandon-ware isn’t necessarily the same as a green light. IP is routinely abandoned once it looses commercial value, but it doesn’t mean copyrights have ended. Copyrights last for an eternity and technically someone could come out of the woodwork asserting rights over the original and derivative works. This really reminds me of google’s book scanning project, where they commercially scanned and reproduced tons of abandoned works even though they were still technically copyright. Authors who are deceased tend not to put up a fight. I think copyright terms are too damn long anyways and if Disney hadn’t corrupted US copyright laws in the first place there would be a more reasonable path to becoming public domain.

      • 2026-10-19 11:49 pm
        sukru Silver Supporter

        Alfman,

        I think copyright terms are too damn long anyways…

        That, unfortunately, is true.

        Disney hadn’t corrupted US copyright laws in the first place there would be a more reasonable path to becoming public domain.

        And, what did that bring them?

        The original Mickey Mouse / Steamboat Willy is already public domain now. And their fear mongering did nothing. Who would want to stop consuming new content and only use 100 year old cartoons anyway?

        Not to mention films literally rotting, and them themselves being unable to steal^W use others’ others’ works (all early Disney was public domain stories like Snow White).

        It only hurt them (and more of the entire human society)

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