Microsoft is never going to release the source code. It's just not going to happen, ever. It goes against the business model they've maintained for over 20 years now. It's frustrating, I know, but I can say with 100% certainty that it'll never happen. They just won't do it.
We'll just have to accept Freelancer for what it is. If you're really serious about wanting a Freelancer replacement, the only course of action would be to develop your own (new) game, or wait for someone else to do it.
Quote:It only takes ONE thing to make Freelancer IMMORTAL...
OPEN SOURCE
There is a little game called "BZFlag" which was a college project for a grade by a guy named "Badger" done more than ten years ago. He released it for open source and it is one of the most popular open source games of all time. It started with tanks driving around with "blocks" randomly scattered. Now it has textured maps, 3Danimation, effects--quite amazing from where it began. And if you like shoot through/drive through features in that game, you can thank me (uncredited). I found the exploit that let you "drive and shoot" through solid objects and made maps with it and the devs gave in after being furious at me and years of resistance and finally built it as a mapping feature. Now its common place. Great guys supporting that game. Change can happen. Another game, "Warzone 2100" which was also an X-box title was relinquished to the Open Source community and it can happen.
Open Sourcers would FLOCK to Freelancer. It would be the "Mother Of All Open Source Game Projects"
Let's keep hoping!
What you need to remember is that we're talking about Microsoft.
Currently, one of Microsoft's biggest enemies is Open Source, and as the years go on it's just going to get worse for them. Microsoft wants to kill open source initiatives, not encourage them - this is one of the biggest reasons why they don't release their source code. There's been very few cases of Microsoft releasing source code, and when they have it's always been the source code of unused/unwanted/worthless API's and such.
.. You'll notice most or all of these projects benefit Microsoft, and they only host source code that's designed specifically to work with their products. You won't find useful, meaningful source code on this site, not unless you're a programmer working on something that enhances the abilities of another Microsoft product, that is - all the same, you won't ever find cases where Microsoft actively supports the open source community, and in the offchance that you do, they're only doing it to protect their reputation. Microsoft will only ever do what benefits Microsoft, and open sourcing a product like Freelancer will never fit in that criteria for them. You'll notice there's never any mention of the "big", meaningful open source projects on those pages, like Linux, Firefox, and so on - it's because these things will never benefit Microsoft, and they're always looking to kill projects just like these because in the coming days they'll actually threaten Microsoft's hold on the market. If you've ever read "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates, you'll know what I'm talking about. Bill Gates himself has predicted that one day corporations like Microsoft will die to things like open source, since open source is not a business model that can be competed with - it's an idea, a belief.
I was more hopeful a few years ago, back when Bill Gates was still CEO. Bill Gates actually isn't that bad of a person (and on the whole would've been much more receptive to any suggestion like this), but now that Ballmer is holding the reigns at Microsoft, you can seriously abandon all hope of Microsoft ever becoming a genuinely decent corporation like some of the people here are suggesting. I'm sorry to say that it just won't happen, especially in today's world, where Microsoft actually has formidable competition (open source, GNU/Linux, Apple, etc) gearing up for a war that they may actually have a chance of winning someday.
