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Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

ramatak.com

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Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#311

Post by dcow »

maccard wrote: post #247
TMM2K wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can access the source code to unreal engine when you get a license, but the terms are not by any stretch of the imagination open source. You wouldn't be able to freely share your modifications for instance.

> You wouldn't be able to freely share your modifications for instance. Have you read the unreal engine license agreement? [0]. Section 3.a covers modifications [0] https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/unreal

Section 3.a covers products you’ve made with the licensed technology. I don’t see any language about modifications to the licensed technology.

Edit: I see some language covering this further up.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#312

Post by marcosdumay »

makomk wrote: post #2

Much as I love open source and the Godot engine, this seems more like a wake-up call on the importance of corporations not being able to unilaterally, retroactively change contracts in ways that impose new charges and violate existing contractual commitments that others have relied on. If they can do that then open source doesn't offer much real protection.

Copyright laws are all completely out of balance and stupid. As a rule, corporations can not retroactively change contracts. If this one is legal (I wouldn't try to guess), it will be because of the EULA rules.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#313

Post by dcow »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #235
doikor wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that is what the Unreal Engine license allows you to do https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/unreal > 2. How You Can Use the Licensed Technology > Epic grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to privately use, reproduce, display, perform, and modify the Licensed Technology in accordance with the terms of this Agreement (the “License”). This means that as long as you are not v…

Well, you can always modify source code and use it privately - you hardly need a license for that. The additional sections that allow distribution are the important bits and I guess the devil is in the details.

No you cant.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#314

Post by ED_Radish »

nerdjon wrote: post #187

For the record, I am not a game developer but I don't think that changes my opinion on open source technology. Open Source software is great, but that also comes at the cost of support when you are running into a problem. Particularly if you are on a critical timeline, especially if trying to fix a bug after something is released. You are at the mercy of the community being able to help (and most likely only being ab…

https://w4games.com/ seems to be trying to provide an enterprise option for Godot

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#315

Post by vinceguidry »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #230
cdash wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is there so much misinformation around this. None of what you said is true.

Possibly because people like you respond with no actual information in your post that people could learn from?

I am less impressed with the defensiveness you're responding with when ignorance is pointed out than I am with the people pointing out the ignorance.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#316

Post by jasonlotito »

Ekaros wrote: post #66
intelVISA wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Unreal thing is that Unity has/had ~8,000 employees last year. Sounds like an awful lot for a mobile game engine.

That seems quite a lot. Compared to game development teams with their own engines which they have kept modern while releasing games...

To be fair, the difference here is that Unity is doing more than just an engine for a specific type of game. Rather, they are building lots of different tools for lots of different games.

For example, Larian (BG3) and Wube (Factorio) each have their own engine. They are specially built specifically for the games they are making.

Also, you say "have been kept modern" but even that is questionable. "Modern?" What does that really mean? It's "modern" enough for the game. Starfield was just released, and it was released without ray tracing.

And we are just talking about games. Unity and Unreal do more than just working on the engine for games. So yes, while it's a lot, it's not fair to compare the bespoke engine use by game companies and engines like Unity and Unreal.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#317

Post by marcosdumay »

unsigner wrote: post #45

Unity was a dream, or a lie, the lie that you can make games without a somewhat competent software team. Now TFA gives hope to another dream, or a lie, the dream that magical open source fairies can let you keep getting away without a competent software team. It won't. Find those programmers, build a team, build a company where this team has a place, adjust your business model (i.e. raise your prices) to where you ca…

Eh... You aren't supposed to have a competent software team to use Unity? That's news.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#318

Post by leecommamichael »

swalsh wrote: post #229

I wish game development wasn't so monolithic. You're either all in on Unity, or all in on Unreal, or all in on GoDot. They are designer forward, code later. Each has a marketplace of sorts, but in my experience it's substandard. Compare that to web development (different beast I know, but there's no reason gaming can't be more componentized). Web development is so simple these days because I spend most of my time glu…

Perhaps you're thinking of a particular kind of game-dev as being monolithic? Many top-grossing studios/titles do not use the engines you've listed.

What do you mean by monolithic?

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#319

Post by aaarrm »

RugnirViking wrote: post #133
Ekaros wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems quite a lot. Compared to game development teams with their own engines which they have kept modern while releasing games...

How many such game development companies actually are there? I see a lot of aging engines out there, and companies that jumped to unreal, but I have by no means broad knowledge

I know the devs of Hades have a custom engine and they are by no means a large studio

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#320

Post by dcow »

Zambyte wrote: post #175
worble wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This means if Epic ever abandons unreal, you could theoretically also just make the changes you need to support whatever your project required - as long as you didn't distribute those changes No it doesn't, you still don't own the code so you can't just modify it and use it to develop games.

IANAL but I am fairly certain you are legally allowed to modify the source code of proprietary software and use that modified version, so long as you do not distribute it (as you couldn't distribute the unmodified version either). The key difference between proprietary and Free Software is not actually that you can or cannot modify the source, it's that you are guaranteed access to the source in order to modify it or…

It all depends on the license. There’s no umbrella ability to modify the source code of a software binary, open-source or proprietary, unless explicitly allowed.
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