While I would love to see it, I don't think we will. Regarding the licensing, they could always abstract assets from code (it kind of already is) but make it so updates to the machine could be done separately. This is pretty common in video games -- thinking back to the original modding of engines started with Doom and look what it did. Heck, I'd be more inclined to buy a 'scratch' machine to tinker with if I could code it.

But I suspect a big reason is the perceived or possible actual devaluation of their IP. I say perceived because I don't think Stern is doing anything so magical it hasn't been done by others. But, they've trademarked Reel Pops, which is all software. I realize we're talking older games that don't have Reel Pops, but there are likely other things here and there and once it's out -- purposefully -- well, it doesn't help Stern. Sales on the secondary market don't help them. And, while I think Reel Pops are pretty innovative, it's the idea that is innovative, not the software to do it. That said, it could be there are under the covers coding that handles very complex situations, state, scoring, etc., they'd prefer not to release.

True, but it's easy to change today (well, relatively, using pinball browser). Funny how many complications these issues cause... like the ColorDMD folks and how they actually color the dots without copying the data.