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Publishing free software video games

writefreesoftware.org

1–10 of 103 posts

Re: Publishing free software video games

#2
Barotrauma is an excellent example of fully "source available" in a multiplayer game. Practically speaking, Rimworld and Minecraft are like this.

Mindustry is an excellent example of the "have your cake and eat it" open source model. Its sold on Steam, but it's GPL 3.0 and free to download elsewhere. Shrug

Re: Publishing free software video games

#3
> The Quake engine was also released under the GPL, and went on to be highly influential, serving as the basis for dozens of games, including time-honored favorites such as the Half Life series. Large swaths of the gaming canon were made possible thanks to the generous contributions of free software game publishers.

This seems misleading. Half-Life was released in 1998, but the Quake engine's source code wasn't released under the GPL until 1999, so presumably Valve had a non-Free Software license to use the code.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#4

> The Quake engine was also released under the GPL, and went on to be highly influential, serving as the basis for dozens of games, including time-honored favorites such as the Half Life series. Large swaths of the gaming canon were made possible thanks to the generous contributions of free software game publishers. This seems misleading. Half-Life was released in 1998, but the Quake engine's source code wasn't relea…

It's not just misleading. It's wrong. The timeline and order of those events is wrong.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#5
post #4

> The Quake engine was also released under the GPL, and went on to be highly influential, serving as the basis for dozens of games, including time-honored favorites such as the Half Life series. Large swaths of the gaming canon were made possible thanks to the generous contributions of free software game publishers. This seems misleading. Half-Life was released in 1998, but the Quake engine's source code wasn't relea…

It's not just misleading. It's wrong. The timeline and order of those events is wrong.

I was going to say "it depends on how you parse the sentence", but after re-reading the second sentence: yes, it's just plain wrong. Half-Life and Valve would have happened regardless of Quake's source code being released.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#6
post #4

> The Quake engine was also released under the GPL, and went on to be highly influential, serving as the basis for dozens of games, including time-honored favorites such as the Half Life series. Large swaths of the gaming canon were made possible thanks to the generous contributions of free software game publishers. This seems misleading. Half-Life was released in 1998, but the Quake engine's source code wasn't relea…

It's not just misleading. It's wrong. The timeline and order of those events is wrong.

Can't let historical facts get in the way of dogmatic furor.

Re: Publishing free software video games

#7

Barotrauma is an excellent example of fully "source available" in a multiplayer game. Practically speaking, Rimworld and Minecraft are like this. Mindustry is an excellent example of the "have your cake and eat it" open source model. Its sold on Steam, but it's GPL 3.0 and free to download elsewhere. Shrug

Unreal engine is source available too

I didn’t realize rimworlds source was available. I’m curious how some of their simulation works, that’s definitely interesting. If the Eula is friendly, I may take a look some day

Re: Publishing free software video games

#8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just misleading. It's wrong. The timeline and order of those events is wrong.

I was going to say "it depends on how you parse the sentence", but after re-reading the second sentence: yes, it's just plain wrong. Half-Life and Valve would have happened regardless of Quake's source code being released.

My dad went to Harvard and played football. He then went to USC and got his MBA.

He tells people, as a joke: I went to Harvard. I got my MBA. I went to USC. I played football.

Each, individually, are true statements. But their sequence communicates a very different meaning. :)

Re: Publishing free software video games

#9
A friend explained to me that the real benefit of foss is the community building huge things together, faster and better than any individual. So, you don’t make your game foss, but rather, you build a set of foss tools for everyone to benefit from, and the community eventually begins to contribute back, and you end up with a huge machine that does really cool things. Everybody then uses these tools to make amazing things, yourself included. It’s win win. He’s had some cool experience with this stuff, mostly outside of gaming.

But pure source code dumps, besides being valuable to students, usually isn’t that worthwhile. It’s a lot less win-win as well

Re: Publishing free software video games

#10

Barotrauma is an excellent example of fully "source available" in a multiplayer game. Practically speaking, Rimworld and Minecraft are like this. Mindustry is an excellent example of the "have your cake and eat it" open source model. Its sold on Steam, but it's GPL 3.0 and free to download elsewhere. Shrug

Unreal engine is source available too I didn’t realize rimworlds source was available. I’m curious how some of their simulation works, that’s definitely interesting. If the Eula is friendly, I may take a look some day

> I didn’t realize rimworlds source was available.

It isn't, it's decompiled.

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