Pardon me for intruding, but what exactly do you hope to accomplish by open sourcing the project? Have you actually thought about it?
I also advocate a strictly controlled open source policy.
Strictly controlled open source policy? Sounds a bit contradictory. And that would be? Well, let's just hear the rest of it.
I think Karl and the programmers should figure out tasks for each of them to work on, and then have Karl give the relevant code out to them (and no one else).
Hmm, that doesn't sound like open source to me. Once again, what benefits do you hope to accomplish by not allowing anyone to work on the project? One of the coolest things about collaboration is when someone who you have no idea is submits a patch to be approved that implements something or fixes something else. You need to go live in an open source world, maybe go submit a few patches before you suggest source code management schemes in an open source project.
Let's face it, we all have different views about how PV should be. Eventually, we are going to face some tough decisions, and some people won't be happy. We are a small community, and we just can't afford to have factions running off to create their own game for stupid reasons.
So you are promoting open source because... ?
I have no Microsoft Windows systems. They are all Linux, BSD, or Solaris boxes -- all of which are now open source (Yes, even Solaris). Here is one thing you need to know about systems of software (such as an MMORPG) that are open source: they will get modified and redistributed. Your version (the "official" version) may not even be the most popular version. Check out the history of X11 and XFree86.
You will have clients from non-Karl approved sources connecting to your servers (think you can stop it with your source code available? No, they know exactly how your validation works, and how to go around it). You will have servers that are heavily modified claiming they are PV servers. You will have new MMORPGS that use the server, the client, the engine, or all. Simply put, you will have *tons* of derivative work. If you need an example, just check out the Linux world. Need some specific projects? How about:
Linux kernel
X Windows (X.org)
KDE
GNOME
Linux Distrobutions (which include hundreds, sometimes thousands, of modified programs under the same name).
Hell, Xenimus is being cloned by this project, and you don't even have access to the source code. So what do you expect to happen when an even larger group (aka, the 'net') has access to it?
Karl needs to do some research on the GNU GPL (v2 and v3), LGPL (v2 and v3), and BSD licenses. I don't think GPL is a good idea for this, and certainly not the GPLv3. I also suggest that anyone making suggestions about or implementing project management do some reading, maybe participate in some open source projects, and generally gain some more knowledge. Ragtag project management ("you do this, you do that") and "we don't need project management" are solutions that don't work for proprietary OR open source projects.
I suggest that the following projects be examined for project/sourcecode management strategies:
ReactOS
Linux kernel
WINE
GNU GCC
I also suggest that you read the licenses I mentioned above. You don't have to adopt them, just understand their words. I also suggest you know the difference between:
Free Software & Open Source Software (GNU vs OSI)
GNU GPL & GNU LGPL
Project Management vs Source Code/Asset Management
Yeah, it will take a few hours to do the research/reading. Big deal. Knowledge is power, and that power can potentially keep your project from have some really large headaches.
Patrick Baggett