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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

#71

Post by dang »

dronodeath wrote: post #46
cxr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please don't cross into personal attack or call names in arguments. We're trying for something different here, and you can make your substantive points without that.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#72

Post by cxr »

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.

I don't care about the title. As you know, the mods have changed it. And it has nothing to do with the discussion, besides; the cooperative principle means that it's not enough to say something true—you need to say something true and relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grice's_maxims>

This is the issue: you are in the untenable position where...

- those you are defending had a charge leveled against them

- they have acknowledged that they were doing it—there is no cloak of plausible deniability here, and yet

- you are defending them on grounds of plausible deniability, anyway

So square the circle—and stop mentioning the submission title. (I'm not interested in the title. Nobody is.)

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#73

Post by pvg »

cxr wrote: post #72
pvg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't care about the title. As you know, the mods have changed it. And it has nothing to do with the discussion, besides; the cooperative principle means that it's not enough to say something true—you need to say something true and relevant . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grice's_maxims > This is the issue: you are in the untenable position where... - those you are defending had a charge leveled against them - they…

the untenable position

I have received your letter of this date containing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Tangentia, as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#74

Post by kibbi »

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 goes out of its way to obscure the license terms"

They make the license terms very clear. Their license page highlights the differences to the text of the Apache 2.0 license. The only change is that you can't sell the engine itself. https://defold.com/license/

"intentionally deceptive" "there's a big fat nav item at the top of the site"

The Defold guys have released multiple components on Github with the MIT license. The fact that a navigation item is named "Open Source" does not say that all or most of the software from this company is Open Source. For example, the fact that the Apple developer site has a navigation item named "Open Source" similarly doesn't mean that all or most of Apple's software is Open Source.

"Everything about this screams"

You're attributing unverifiable negative intentions to the Defold developers.

This, the last HN thread about this, and other similar negative feedback create an incentive to avoid the term "Open Source" in order to steer clear of potential negative publicity for innocent misunderstandings and different opinions.

But they also have an incentive to keep the words "open source" in a sufficiently prominent position on their website to ensure that search engines list their page in the results for the search term "open source game engine", since it's a relevant result for almost all people who search for that term.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#75

Post by cxr »

pvg wrote: post #73
cxr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about the title. As you know, the mods have changed it. And it has nothing to do with the discussion, besides; the cooperative principle means that it's not enough to say something true—you need to say something true and relevant . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grice's_maxims > This is the issue: you are in the untenable position where... - those you are defending had a charge leveled against them - they…

the untenable position I have received your letter of this date containing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Tangentia, as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.

I know what I'll do is, I'll capitulate to the fact that there is nothing by way of relevance favoring my side and I have exhausted all attempts at misdirection, but I'll simply tell them that they are the ones capitulating. That should work.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#76

Post by cxr »

kibbi wrote: post #74
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 goes out of its way to obscure the license terms" They make the license terms very clear. Their license page highlights the differences to the text of the Apache 2.0 license. The only change is that you can't sell the engine itself. https://defold.com/license/ "intentionally deceptive" "there's a big fat nav item at the top of the site" The Defold guys have released multiple components on Github with the MIT lice…

> You're attributing unverifiable negative intentions to the Defold developers.

I'm attributing motives to them based on their own admission—that they were misrepresenting their project. There's nothing unverifiable about it. They posted on HN and tweeted about it—their own words. It's not reaching on my part. (Why are you, like other commenters here, so attached to the plausible deniability angle? It's not available anymore. It's gone.)

> they also have an incentive to keep the words "open source" in a sufficiently prominent position on their website to ensure that search engines list their page in the results for the search term "open source game engine"

Uh...? Giving an accounting of the incentives isn't exculpatory.

Thieves have an incentive to take things that aren't theirs. Liars have an incentive to tell people things that aren't true. Cheaters have an incentive to have sex with someone who isn't their partner. We already know _why_ they want to do it. That wasn't ever in dispute.

> This, the last HN thread about this, and other similar negative feedback create an incentive to avoid the term "Open Source"

This is as baffling of a remark as the earlier one.

By "avoid the term" you mean "avoid misrepresenting the license under which they're really making the source code available".

Prosecuting murder is a form of negative feedback that discourages people from carrying out murder. This is known. It's not an unfortunate consequence. It's rather the whole point.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#77

Post by whateveracct »

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.

My goal is to make some really good games in my 40s - a decade from now. So I might as well learn skills and build up on open source now. That fits that timescale.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#78

Post by ensignavenger »

andersa wrote: post #69
ensignavenger wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 G…

If every company that currently pays Unreal licensing fees instead donated half of those fees to Godot or O3DE, I think we would rapidly see the gap close.

That is obviously wishful thinking and probably not a good bet for a game dev company dependent on cutting edge Unreal features to make. However, not all game developers are in need of cutting edge, for many, Godot 4 will offer them what they need already. O3DE looks interesting, but seems only really currently usable by a company which plans to do a lot of custom engine work themselves already.

I am currently trying to learn Godot 4 in my spare time (which unfortunately I don't have enough of), and if I ever start to make money off it, I will be donating a percentage back to Godot development. I certainly don't begrudge a developer going with Unreal, but I encourage them to look at alternatives and what they really need to plan for the future and not be tied into the present situation.

Re: Defold: Lua game engine for web and mobile

#79

Post by cdumler »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #4
Orothrim wrote: post #2

I really like Defold, have used it for a number of small games I've developed for a side hustle.

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.

_"Today is the first day you have make changes."_

Unless your team's business model is to _be a Unity team_, it is a matter of determine your goals, evaluate options, get buy-in then start making changes every day to generate that outcome. Don't sell it as a "I hate Unity." Sell it as "it is time to consider how we maintain our future by diversify our skills."

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