Winch Gate, the developer and publisher of Ryzom, today announced that their science-fantasy MMO Ryzom is now open source. To that end, Winch Gate has launched the Ryzom Core Development project, which makes available the game's source code including the client, server, and tools as part of the Ryzom Core toolkit.

Players can use the Ryzom Core toolkit  to make modifications or enhancements to the existing code, or even develop their own virtual worlds. The most peculiar bit of this news is the fact that Ryzom is, well, still running, oftentimes a game's source code is released when the game has been dead for a long time or is simply quite old. It should be interesting to see what players come up with using these tools, we'll be looking forward to news of your creations!

For more information on Ryzom Core, check out the official FAQ here.