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Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

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Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#61

Post by cxr »

LanceH wrote: post #27
cxr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything about this screams, "We know exactly what we're doing, but we're going about it in such a way that we can claim plausible deniability." (Feel free to address literally any of the pre-emptive points I made in my post, rather than responding as if I didn't already make them.)

You could cut to the chase and point out what isn't open source. Also, if that source is available, you could point out which definition of open source you are going by. Oh, and please don't say "the standard definition", because that is definitely contested, even after all these years.

> You could cut to the chase and point out what isn't open source.

That's easy: Defold (the project linked here).

> Also, if that source is available, you could point out which definition of open source you are going by.

That's easy, too: I'm using the same definition that the Defold developers are using.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#63

Post by pvg »

cxr wrote: post #59
pvg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> We have updated the website to reflect this and we no longer use the term "Open Source" They didn't say they were going to "no longer use the term (with respect to the Defold engine)". They said weren't using it. Why? Precisely so "as to not confuse it with the OSD". Let's recap: They used to use the term "open source" (one part of an overall effort to misrepresent themselves and their work). Then they said they to…

'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago and a response to the wrong title. . They didn't write the title and have a nav bar that mentions open source. Lots of companies with closed source products have open source navbars, entire open source-titled sites. It's a boring high-dudgeon tangent.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#64

Post by prophesi »

cxr wrote: post #60
prophesi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://godoteng…

Making the point that Godot-the-toolchain-and/or-organization can't be put to direct use to get a release-ready binary for consoles saying "Godot can't be used for console development[...] due to open source licensing issues" is, in a word, reckless. It sows uncertainty and doubt about the suitability of the project for use on consoles. Getting a game released to consoles that was developed with Godot is no more diff…

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. There are a lot more hoops you have to jump through if you're keeping your engine actually open source.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#65

Post by cxr »

pvg wrote: post #63
cxr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have updated the website to reflect this and we no longer use the term "Open Source" They didn't say they were going to "no longer use the term (with respect to the Defold engine)". They said weren't using it. Why? Precisely so "as to not confuse it with the OSD". Let's recap: They used to use the term "open source" (one part of an overall effort to misrepresent themselves and their work). Then they said they to…

'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago and a response to the wrong title. . They didn't write the title and have a nav bar that mentions open source. Lots of companies with closed source products have open source navbars, entire open source-titled sites. It's a boring high-dudgeon tangent.

> 'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago

My "gloss" of something they themselves acknowledged—how are you not getting this?

It's like if someone gets charged with something, briefly attempts to maintain some dubious and not-terribly-convincing story that they didn't do the thing, but then does eventually cop to doing the thing, gets a light sentence for having acknowledged that they did the thing (maybe even cheered on for their humility in doing so), and then three years later upon having some new sketch called out, defenders leap up saying, "oh, well that's just your take; prove they'd ever done that". They already acknowledged it themselves; that's not a "move" that's available to you anymore, bud. These are total motte-and-bailey shenanigans.

> and a response to the wrong title. . They didn't write the title

I flag comments that complain about titles. Between the two of us, you are the only one to have mentioned the title of the submission—which isn't even the title anymore. (Repeatedly. Why?)

You can continue to try to get me to direct my attention to the title, and I will continue to ignore it and limit my comments to what's actually at issue. Go ahead and keep strawmanning the shit out of me, though. Maybe it'll stick.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#66

Post by ensignavenger »

andersa wrote: post #48
whateveracct wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is nice and all... but you still have to invest significant resources into building and training your team to use Unreal, and then if they change the terms for future versions, you are stuck on an old version if you don't accept those terms, until you retrain everyone.

Of course, open source projects regrettably become closed source projects sometimes too (see Hashicorps recent moves), locking you into the previous version of the project.... but, with Open Source, you can fork the project and continue- or ally with other members of the community to fork- often at a lower cost than re-training and re-tooling. An option that does not exist in the proprietary world.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#67

Post by [deleted] »

prophesi wrote: post #64
cxr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making the point that Godot-the-toolchain-and/or-organization can't be put to direct use to get a release-ready binary for consoles saying "Godot can't be used for console development[...] due to open source licensing issues" is, in a word, reckless. It sows uncertainty and doubt about the suitability of the project for use on consoles. Getting a game released to consoles that was developed with Godot is no more diff…

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. There are a lot more hoops you have to jump through if you're keeping your engine actually open source.

[deleted]

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#68

Post by pvg »

cxr wrote: post #65
pvg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago and a response to the wrong title. . They didn't write the title and have a nav bar that mentions open source. Lots of companies with closed source products have open source navbars, entire open source-titled sites. It's a boring high-dudgeon tangent.

> 'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago My "gloss" of something they themselves acknowledged —how are you not getting this? It's like if someone gets charged with something, briefly attempts to maintain some dubious and not-terribly-convincing story that they didn't do the thing, but then does eventually cop to doing the thing, gets a light sentence for h…

The issue is that there is no issue other than the title being wrong in a triggery way - as you personally know, people care about this sort of thing a lot but in this case it was a simple mistake by the poster. I emailed the mods and they fixed it. The other thing was fixed by the makers of this thing three years ago.

Let's make it stick by wrapping up here.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#69

Post by andersa »

ensignavenger wrote: post #66
andersa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is nice and all... but you still have to invest significant resources into building and training your team to use Unreal, and then if they change the terms for future versions, you are stuck on an old version if you don't accept those terms, until you retrain everyone. Of course, open source projects regrettably become closed source projects sometimes too (see Hashicorps recent moves), locking you into the previ…

The thing is though, there is no open source project even close to what Unreal Engine currently offers. It's just lightyears ahead in everything kinda? Editor tooling, asset pipelines, advanced rendering features, ... While you could build on open source tech and implement all the missing pieces yourself, that is just not going to be a sensible investment for most studios.

You'd be hard pressed to compete with Epic Games' investment in the engine for their own games and others, too. I don't think this situation is comparable with Hashicorp. Epic has more than a hundred engineers continuously improving the engine, doing research on new technologies like Nanite and similar, and all their improvements are available to you immediately. You have full source code available and are able to modify it as needed, you can also fork it under the current terms. As far as I know there were never any forks with significant traction, only to implement random features people needed in their game.

This is just a guess, but I truly don't believe we are going to see Epic Games turn evil like Unity has as long as Tim Sweeney holds more than 50% of the shares. Going public was Unity's death sentence - the tech no longer mattered, now it was all about extracting the maximum value possible before the company is run into the ground.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#70

Post by [deleted] »

pvg wrote: post #68
cxr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago My "gloss" of something they themselves acknowledged —how are you not getting this? It's like if someone gets charged with something, briefly attempts to maintain some dubious and not-terribly-convincing story that they didn't do the thing, but then does eventually cop to doing the thing, gets a light sentence for h…

The issue is that there is no issue other than the title being wrong in a triggery way - as you personally know, people care about this sort of thing a lot but in this case it was a simple mistake by the poster. I emailed the mods and they fixed it. The other thing was fixed by the makers of this thing three years ago. Let's make it stick by wrapping up here.

[deleted]
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