Flax Engine 1.2 Brings Many Big Improvements For This Open-Source Commercial Game Engine

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Flax Engine 1.2 Brings Many Big Improvements For This Open-Source Commercial Game Engine

Flax Engine 1.2.6222 is out today as the first v1.2 update for this cross-platform, open-source but commercial game engine...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Flax-Engine-1.2.6222

[tildearrow]

"Open-source but commercial".

An example of a bad license (a very restrictive one).

[fwyzard]

An example of a bad license (a very restrictive one).

"bad" is an absolute term - while whether the license is good or bad depends on the goal of the project.
It's a commercial product (the license reflect this), which is also available as open source.
Sure, it's not free software, but neither it is a closed source binary blob.

By using GitHub they lose a lot of control as anyone could easily clone and host the code somewhere else
Couldn't they use a different method to distribute the source code?

The same comment would hold for any method of distributing the source code. How would they know or prevent it from being re-uploaded anywhere ?
Why do you single out GitHub as being the problem ?

[Kristian Joensen]

It is NOT open source: https://opensource.org/osd

[fwyzard]

Blame on OSI the confusion between "Open Source™" with "open source".
The source code is open for everyone to look at, modify and use. What one is not allowed to do is to redistribute it.

[ALRBP]

It's a commercial product (the license reflect this), which is also available as open source.
Sure, it's not free software, but neither it is a closed source binary blob.

No, it is not Open Source. The definition of Open Source is given by the OSI and Flex does not respect it:
-"The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."
-"The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."

The definition of Free Software if given by the FSF and is mostly equivalent. Even though there are a few licenses which are approved by only one of the two mentioned organizations, the main difference between these organizations is that FSF is focuses on community while OSI focuses on companies.

Flex has nothing to do with that, it is source available, as is Unreal Engine.

[OneTimeShot]

It’s basically Open Source that cannot be charged for…. Seems like a valid license option that should be more common.

The license is ok if you are building a free (as in beer) game.

[kpedersen]

The source access is also still great for digital preservation compared to completely closed source products like Unity3D.

[Powermanga]

Be careful not to confuse the availability of sources with open source. Flax Engine is not released under an OSI approved open source license. To understand the difference, read the Source-available software page on Wikipedia. The Flax Engine license is considered a non-free and non-open source license because it has limitations that prevent it from being open-source according to the Open Source Initiative and free to the Free Software Foundation.

[emblemparade]

By using GitHub they lose a lot of control as anyone could easily clone and host the code somewhere else (how would they know when it happens?).
Couldn't they use a different method to distribute the source code?

Unreal Engine is also on GitHub, and it does not have an open source license. (It's a hidden repository, you need to agree to their terms before accessing it.)

My point is: GitHub != open source. Access to source != open source. It's all about the license. You can absolutely host proprietary code on GitHub.