Well, I've never heard of this, someone can tell me something about this?

-Have been released?
-If not, why Ubisoft don't want to release it?

Well, I guess that never has been released, but I would like that somebody explain the reasons of this sad destiny of source code.

No, the source code hasn't been released. And it's very unlikely that it will happen.

You might read the source code discussion at the French community message board.
Bertrand Carré (Slyben/Phoenix/Raistlin) also posted in this thread:
murmuran.net/pod - POD3 Project.

Wow!

Big problem with the source code! The discussion was stoped in the 2007 year. And now the possibility for use the source code for remake a new pod engine are lost!

Resuming:
-The source code don't want to be released from his owners
-The reason are simply, the source code are too old, and don't help to make a newer engine (or port, or something)
-If the source code was released, it was compiled on Watcom 10 (for the software render) and was compiled on Visual 4 (for the DirectX 3 render) this can't be recompiled for a newer render. Because all the code work on a fixed double texture pipeline render. And in the present, all render games work with shader pipelines.

Haaam..! anyway, this older and abandoned pod game seems to be alone, in the space, in the minds of all poddies, and leaving us far away his sounds... on the IO planet.

...or should say, the IO moon (of Jupiter). Hahaha!

Snif!

POD is not reference on Ubisoft's website, it's a proof that it's completely lost...

The game information and patches are still on the German Ubisoft website:
Ubisoft - POD

However, most of the files can be found on the FTP servers:
[url=ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pod]ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pod[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pub/gameservice]ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pub/gameservice[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pub/pod]ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pub/pod[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pub/podpatch]ftp://ftp.ubi.com/de/pub/podpatch[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/CDPatcher]ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/CDPatcher[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/Demos/poddemoD3D]ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/Demos/poddemoD3D[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/GameService]ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/GameService[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/podtheme]ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/podtheme[/url]/
[url=ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/PodUpgrade]ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/PodUpgrade[/url]/
The French and Italian upgrades for the MMX bundle (OEM) are lost and can only be found on the Back to Hell (Extended Time in France) CD-ROM.

@cataflexia
Even if the source code is old and might be difficult to port on modern systems, I am pretty sure some smart guys will quickly find a solution. The main reason is probably not technical that simply that the owners don't wanna release it. Code need to be fully reviewed before being released as it might contain some copyrighted code, sensitive information or third party libraries that cannot be shared.

Additionally releasing source code is not going to bring Ubisoft any penny, so why bother with that ?

The remaining two people who were known to have the source code seemingly lost it many years ago due to storage failure. We're still trying to dig it out from some archives, but right now it looks like it's gone.

Ray,

Thank you for your dedication to this old game. It's unfortunate to hear about the loss of the source code, and it's a real shame that this seems to be the last chance to recover it. I would have loved to take a look at the source code purely for informational purposes, without any commercial intent.

I greatly appreciate the work of the people back then. When I think about how much time I spent with the game in the early to mid-2000s, it makes this situation doubly regrettable. I would have given anything just to take a peek at it, to see how development was done back then. The source code is also a document of its time, and my appreciation would only increase if I could see all of that. I have great respect for these achievements.

My admiration goes out to the original developers who achieved so much with the limited resources and tools available at the time (there were no ready-made game engines that could be used as a base). It seems that this last hope has now died due to storage errors and failures.

It's a pity, but hopefully, the game will be kept alive for a few more years thanks to the efforts of some people. We can only hope that Microsoft will maintain all old compatibility layers until then, so that we can continue to play the game for a few more years. Otherwise, the game is unfortunately really doomed, and looking back, it was a great time with it.

I've not said it's _completely_ lost, just that the hot paths we had sadly no longer had it, so it might take some time to follow the remaining leads.