221–230 of 277 posts
"If a game developer runs a Unity-based game server on their own servers or generic cloud instances (like GCP, AWS or Azure), they are covered by our EULA."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not true at all, though? Source has continued to get changes & upgrades over the years. It has a vulkan backend, the UI system is no longer scaleform but a web-based system called Panorama, a new physics engine called Rubikon that replaced the old Havok engine, etc... They aren't putting out many new games, although they did just release Artifact a couple months ago. But DOTA 2 & CSGO continue to get updates,…
Are those updates to the Source engine/SDK available to devs outside of Valve though?
But you can apparently hack around with Source 2 by using The Lab's Robot Repair (Source 2) as a mod base and use the Hammer 2 tools from DOTA 2. So... technically yes, you could play with it. Just maybe not easily, and maybe not entirely intentionally.
Tim Sweeney (Founder of Epic Games) reacted strongly to this in a thread on Twitter. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/108340746025221734... "We specifically make the UE4 EULA apply perpetually so that when you obtain a version under a given EULA, you can stay on that version and operate under that EULA forever if you choose."
In fairness, that's easy for a guy sitting on Fortnite to say. That said, I do agree with his point. Unity should consider making these new TOS provisions apply from today forward instead of making them apply to everything . (That probably won't happen, because it would kneecap their upcoming cloud offerings, but I think ideally that's how it should work.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also supports C#/.net and Blueprints (their own node-based language).
Wait do they? I wasn't aware that UE4 supported C#.
Improbable's response: https://improbable.io/company/news/2019/01/10/unity-blocks-s... "Worryingly, this change occurred during an open commercial negotiation with the company to find a way to do more together." So they had an ongoing negotiation and Unity just went ahead and made the change? Yikes. Also kudos to Improbable for setting up an emergency fund for partners affected by this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on your comment it seems like you haven't looked into or used a game engine since the late 90s (Cube 2 and Irrlicht?). The only real open source competition for Unreal and Unity is probably Godot, and it's not really competitive. Many of the engines you mentioned (OSG, Ogre) are not full game engine, but renderers and scene graph implementations. For that something like bgfx or even three.js if you're targeting…
Then put your money towards improving them (or writing your own, if that's cheaper/better?), rather than feeding yet another proprietary hog. By continuing to buy UE you're just digging yourself a deeper hole for when things inevitably turn sour (as they just did for Unity).
Successful releases using open-source engines are rare.
For the overwhelmingly majority, they are much better off just using one of the big game engines, even after paying them.
(1) it followed the Unity3d documented approach using UNET server and client architecture (2) it meant we get to simulate the entire scene on the server (physics, meshes, networked objects, etc)
We boot the instances on demand when a team wants to meet in VR.
Sounds like Unity's new T&C's means this architecture is dead in the water.. unless Authorized by Unity3d. :-(
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It "requires that those making the software publicly available as a service must make the service's source code available under this license".
That change seems to be in line with the FOSS ethos. I imagine that from the perspective of the FOSS community, using FOSS software in a SaaS product without releasing the code that drives the service is just a loophole.
> If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge [...] Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version
If I make a generic website that uses Mongo as a database, does that constitute making Mongo available as a service? It's clearly interacting with the functionality through a computer network, and could be said to derive its value primarily from the value of Mongo. That's clearly not the intention[1], but I would not be confident making that claim solely based on the licence text (and the FAQ is not incorporated as part of the licence).
There's also some debate about whether it meets Section 9 of the Open Source Definition ("License Must Not Restrict Other Software").
[1] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...