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Something feels a little off about calling it an "open source repo" rather than an "open source project".
Maybe it's because the project is MIT licensed, which means there is no point in buying it other than acquiring the original repo
Try integrating it more deeply and persistently into your product and brand if you haven't, interacting with the mcp userbase consistently and meticulously.
> we like open source and want Unity MCP to stay relevant and open source indefinitely.
It goes both ways. What happens if your startup goes under, which has a 99% probability? By that time, the project roadmap and governance is completely under your company's control. How/if are you going to "return" the project to open source community, and would it still matter then?
> SEO of the repo gets reset
To be honest it is not completely unreasonable, and that is indeed one more thing to worry if it completely depends on another company's whim. Also, SEO is rarely a thing people talk about when maintaining a project, and this is the first time I see "SEO" and OSS appearing in the same sentence.
> It's possible that nobody cares when tiny companies acquire fairly popular OSS repos. Our social posts barely moved the needle.
What do you expect? If I have to guess, there is not a ton of overlap of (heavy) social media users and open source contributors, and even less so for these projects that focus on specific areas.
* Not really free, there is a one-time purchase fee, apparently.
Reading this felt like visiting an alien planet. The software is MIT-licensed. All the talk of “buying” it and “ROI”, SEO, etc was just depressing and shows how utterly poisoned the culture around software has become.
Typically I would find this kind of PR stunt irksome, but I don't begrudge the little guy doing what they can to get some attention on their product, and it's an interesting read non the less since I hadn't really considered the logistics of buying an open source repo before.
I suppose a better way to put it, would be to say they bought the stars/links/name, which I have mixed feelings about.
Lots of companies have great success using GitHub repositories as a marketing tool. Coplay seem to have identified this and decided to invest in the idea without considering strategy. Owning a popular repository that your audience is engaged with is valuable because they’re using your free software: you create loyal users that you can then sell to. A successful open source project operated by your company is valuable…
Isn't the announcement itself just one more piece of SEO? Perhaps the most important one.
> The old URL redirects to the new one, so in theory existing posts/backlinks keep working. We also agreed the original creator wouldn’t reuse the “unity-mcp” repo name under his GitHub profile, which could break redirects. Why? A lot of times I faced with page 404 when clicked GitHub links that have been moved. Isn't it good idea to do it like that - Move repo to new org (to move stats and activity) - Create repo wi…
What they attempted here seems akin to a “mega-sponsorship” with more baggage than they were prepares for.
I don’t think taking over/contributing to an OSS project is a bad marketing move at all, but typically you’d contribute the company’s resources and expertise to make it worth it.
Hiring the project lead is definitely a good step, but the timing feels off. Something that would feel more natural to me:
Sponsorship -> Hire the guy -> Transfer branding
All with some time in between.
They way it feels less like a hostile takeover, which users have been trained to quickly jump ship when happening.
I wasn't expecting to see UnityMCP in the article, so I'm kinda surprised.
When MCP's started popping up, MCP for Unity was the first thing I searched for, I've used it, when it became unmaintained (maybe for a 1-2 months?) I forked it, made a few nice updates, even as a someone that used the project I didn't realized the transition of the repository!
I know hundreds of game devs, so let me share my perspective.
- Your target audience is not HN people, I'm pretty sure %80 of them doesn't even know what MCP is. - I use Cursor, %99 of game devs are using Rider, MCP tooling and integrations around it not mature enough to gain their attention yet.
- Game devs and their leads are (mostly) dinosaurs that looks skeptical using AI at work, like when I was in Rovio, you weren't allowed to use tools like, Claude, Cursor, OpenAI etc.
- I'm not surprised acquisition of an OSS project didn't get coverage on media.
Would I use it as someone who only knows the basics of Unity Editor?
- Maybe.
Do I think someone who works as a Game dev and knows Unity really well and would use it?
- Probably not. (Note: at the office right now, asked a few game dev's and they were like, naaah)
- - - - -
Your product looks cool, having something that directly works inside Unity is really neat but I don't think it would be the moat.
I think there is so much potential, if you can build a really good agent, think like Manus for Unity, that works directly in Unity and making the MCP related optional because it would be nice to have, Unity Editor part is the easiest part for them.
Ask this, would it be useful for a game developer working in a company like Scopely, Zynga, Dream Games etc?