Hi, I'm the lead dev so I can also answer:

1. Nothing specific to Linux/BSD. The hardest part of the codebase to work with is probably the movement/collision/AI code which is very hard to follow. It's hard to change because any change can break things in subtle ways.

2. Nope

3. Probably the networking code. Sopwith always had network code (it was written as a tech demo for an early LAN) but almost nobody ever got the chance to really use it. Seeing it finally working over TCP/IP was very satisfying.

4. I'm planning on adding a level editor which I think should really open up the game to expansion.

5. Fun and comical gameplay. Trying to avoid debris as everything around you is exploding in complete chaos is hilarious to me.

6. No plans for these at all, I'd personally be against adding them. I want to keep it as a great old game, not a lame modern one. I could talk at length about this kind of thing but that's the brief summary.

7. I've actually considered this, yes. The original HUD is very ambiguous and hard to read; effectively just some small lines with no labels. I've actually gone as far as to mock up some better graphics but there's no integration into the game yet.

8. Yes, support for custom levels was actually added recently and the latest release includes an example level. There is not yet a level editor, however, which is a big obstacle for modders. I also think that to make modding interesting the game will need expanding to support different gameplay types, new types of planes, enemies and items, etc. I have some ideas but a level editor should be the first priority.

9. I've personally lost interest in the modern game scene. There have been a couple of recent games I've enjoyed, Elite: Dangerous is one example. I suspect it's partly because I'm old now and don't have the time to follow this stuff. In general I tend to prefer playing (and modding) older games and have had fun recently introducing my daughter to them.

Calling it abandonware seems like a strange choice of phrase: it has been open source (GPL2) since the early 2000s, and SDL Sopwith (linked in the post) is based on that source. So it very much still is in active development.

Sure. The SDL port (I'm the maintainer) is still under development, and new features continue to be added. The original graphics and sound are deliberately preserved - the goal is to make it a great old game and not a lame new one. The project was admittedly dormant for a number of years and I've just recently come back to start working on it again.

The most significant development recently is the addition of support for custom levels. Until now there's only ever been a single level that can be played over and over. Other features added in previous versions include medals, swappable palettes (to emulate old displays), the in-browser version and TCP/IP networking.

Though it's interesting to see that with Tomb of the Cybermen, not everyone felt that way:

Those fans who were too young to have seen the black-and-white stories when they originally went out were generally disappointed, because they had unrealistic expectations and a lack of understanding of what TV shows in general, and Doctor Who in particular, were like in the 1960's.

Personally I love the early Doctor Who episodes, especially Tomb of the Cybermen, but I have to be honest that the quality of some of these early episodes is very hit and miss, and while some are great, classic pieces of television, others have really not aged well.

Context.

Are you seriously trying to claim that GNU run their production servers on Hurd?

Come on, they do some crazy stuff but they're not THAT crazy.

This doesn't seem much smaller than Tom Fine's Atari-Small font (maybe a pixel shorter?). I expanded this font to a full DOS extended ASCII version for my Doom source port.

A while ago, I scanned in a review of Windows 1.0 that I found in an old magazine. It's quite interesting to read - the subtitle is "brightening up MS-DOS", and it is described as taking only four seconds to switch applications, compared to 30 seconds to start Microsoft Word from scratch! Glad to see some things never change.

The question everyone is asking: Will Google Me be as successful as Windows Me?

I for one can't wait to get some of these "smart e-pants".

I've noticed that when I post a new blog entry on Livejournal, it appears in Google's results within 2-3 minutes. I know that Livejournal has a public feed for all new blog entries across the site, so I assume Google must be indexing this (and presumably others).

Neat hack, but the OP specifically mentions binary data ("writing bits ... in a completely controlled fashion", "1s and 0s") :-)