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Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

defold.com

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Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#41

Post by cxr »

prophesi wrote: post #40
SXX wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> due to open source licensing issues. It's have nothing to do with licensing. MIT License that Godot licensed under is perfectly fine for keeping console support closed-source or source-available. Problem is that Godot didn't have legal entity that can directly work with platform owners. This is why some of Godot maintaiers founded W4 Games and they're actively working on building console suport for all modern conso…

> It's have nothing to do with licensing. I disagree there. Licensing is still a huge issue with incorporating a console SDK. Each one plays by their own ball game, and it will take a tremendous amount of effort to work through the legal, business, and licensing issues for each platform. And once that's resolved, you'll still need to provide an avenue for end-users to obtain and hook up the SDK to the open source eng…

The fact that Godot Foundation doesn't/can't provide certification or support for console integration is not the same thing as "Godot can't be used for console development", let alone "Godot can't be used for console development[...] due to open source licensing issues". It's not (A)GPLv3.

Godot is MIT licensed. Godot can be used for console development—just like _any_ other piece of MIT-licensed code you want to build your game with. It's just that doing so is (read: remains) an undertaking that you have to deal with on your own, since Godot Foundation doesn't offer anything besides the Godot engine source code under compatible license terms. There's nothing particular about Godot or its license here.

From the documentation you yourself linked to:

> Regardless of the engine used to create the game, the process to publish a game to a console platform is as follows: [painful and/or expensive and/or time-consuming process]

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#42

Post by andersa »

ensignavenger wrote: post #8
hesdeadjim wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the problem with this whole Unity crisis. Every other engine out there is… small. I have a 50+ person team with a big open world game and I’m basically fucked into accepting whatever Unity wants. I can’t just switch engines with four years of tech and team experience. And Unity knows this. It’s so fucking slimy and malicious.

This is why I only use Open Source... if you build on a proprietary platform, the owner of that platform can change the terms at any time and you are stuck with a massive cost to change, or you just pay the ransom.

This can't happen to you if you use Unreal Engine.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#43

Post by pvg »

cxr wrote: post #34
pvg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"has navigation that takes you to open source stuff" is not "claims it's open source". The title is just wrong and they have clearly fixed the thing people were complaining about last time. It's not reading between the lines, it's simply misreading.

> we no longer use the term "Open Source" as to not confuse it with the OSD. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217 > What am I misreading?

They don't use the term "Open Source" to describe their engine. They used to, years ago, and now they don't.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#44

Post by whateveracct »

andersa wrote: post #42
ensignavenger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I only use Open Source... if you build on a proprietary platform, the owner of that platform can change the terms at any time and you are stuck with a massive cost to change, or you just pay the ransom.

This can't happen to you if you use Unreal Engine.

Can't Unreal change their pricing model overnight?

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#46

Post by dronodeath »

cxr wrote: post #25
0xBA5ED wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your objective points were addressed. Any response to your subjective point "Everything about this screams X" would itself be subjective and not conducive to productive conversation.

That the developers have already been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and called out on it and apologized once before (for, in their own words, "misrepresenting the license"), and they stated that they would/did remove the term "Open Source" from their site precisely in order to not confuse the issue... ... was, in fact, not addressed. To the extent that my comment contains speculative claims, the charges ar…

It is very clearly not open source nor is it claimed to be open source. They take great pains to explain their structure.

They are not being willfully mendacious. You are being willfully dickish.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#47

Post by Reubend »

cxr wrote: post #6

Not actually open source. This is yet another instance of a project eager to reap the rewards of being associated with "open source" without committing to it (i.e. with a license that would make it so). Defold is source-available and some flavor of royalty-free with limitations. It's actually worse than that, though, because it goes out of its way to obscure the license terms; in this instance, they're going for asso…

It's close enough. You can use the engine to make whatever games you want, modify the code, rebuild it, etc and profit from the game you create.

You're not allowed to fork and then profit from the engine itself, or the editor. That's a really important distinction, and you're right that it should be highlighted.

But it seems very reasonable to me. Any real game dev won't care about that. Basically, you can't resell the engine, but you can do anything you want with the games created by it.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#48

Post by andersa »

whateveracct wrote: post #44
andersa wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can't happen to you if you use Unreal Engine.

Can't Unreal change their pricing model overnight?

Only for future engine versions - you are able to continue developing and release your project with the one you already have under the previous version of the terms.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#49

Post by cxr »

pvg wrote: post #43
cxr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we no longer use the term "Open Source" as to not confuse it with the OSD. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217 > What am I misreading?

They don't use the term "Open Source" to describe their engine. They used to, years ago, and now they don't.

[flagged]

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#50

Post by prophesi »

cxr wrote: post #41
prophesi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's have nothing to do with licensing. I disagree there. Licensing is still a huge issue with incorporating a console SDK. Each one plays by their own ball game, and it will take a tremendous amount of effort to work through the legal, business, and licensing issues for each platform. And once that's resolved, you'll still need to provide an avenue for end-users to obtain and hook up the SDK to the open source eng…

The fact that Godot Foundation doesn't/can't provide certification or support for console integration is not the same thing as "Godot can't be used for console development", let alone "Godot can't be used for console development[...] due to open source licensing issues ". It's not (A)GPLv3. Godot is MIT licensed. Godot can be used for console development—just like _any_ other piece of MIT-licensed code you want to bu…

I think you're getting worked up that I said Godot can't be used for console development, when I really just meant that it can't be used for console development _currently_. I noted that they were working on this in my original comment, and as your blog post shows, it's going well.

For posterity, here's Godot's post a year or so ago on the struggles they've had with console middleware over the years.

https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-...

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