A New Open-Source Game Engine Being Released

[GreatEmerald]

I personally enjoy making technology, but enjoy making games even more. If I want to use contributions made by other people into a game of mine that I later want to publish on say, a console or another restricted platform, it will not work if contributions were made under GPL or LGPL. I'd have to start asking for shared copyright for all contributions, like Digia does with Qt and that's certainly a hassle.

If it's just the app stores when it comes to Apple and Microsoft, then I don't think this should be much of a worry (for now) ? if they enforce restrictions on all applications, then their app stores can be ignored and the games be delivered as regular installers. But yea, I see the problem with consoles, so pure GPL is out of the question, then. But why is LGPL not fitting this scenario? You can have the engine as LGPL and the console modules can stay proprietary, as far as I can see.

[IanS]

* for example this. With that, my mobile provider payment explodes as ads become platinum in price, as well as throttled on bandwidth due to absence of true flatrate. I also loose the ability to decide which content I appreciate and add to whitelist. Currently I use firefox, ditching Chrome/Google internal browser and this works. But if somehow expands, I will sell my Android tablet.

Ya, that stuff with Google is messed up, but also falls into what I meant by any licenses working for apps as long as the license choice work for the devs and their customers/users. Google's policies and activities are at odds with my privacy and beliefs so I choose to use their services and products as little as possible. A lot of people just don't care so they get away with it, and that is their choice just as it is my choice to avoid the mobile space and use Firefox as you do so I can use the extensions I both want and need. If Google are fine with shooting themselves in the foot and their customers keep allowing their rights to be eroded away, I am fine with that as long as I have viable alternatives. Most of my software choices tend to be open source, but I don't automatically discount a package just because it is closed source (even if I do turn most of it down, most of the time). Games are one of the main exceptions, where most of the games I have are purchased close source products.

[dee.]

If it's just the app stores when it comes to Apple and Microsoft, then I don't think this should be much of a worry (for now) ? if they enforce restrictions on all applications, then their app stores can be ignored and the games be delivered as regular installers.

Except, that on iOS devices, you cannot install any apps from any external sources, only via the appstore. (Unless you jailbreak, but expecting your customers to jailbreak their iPhablets isn't really a viable business model for most.)

The same applies to mobile Win8 devices, and on them, jailbreaking is not even an option (AFAIK, probably just no one has bothered to figure out a way to do this, since pretty much no one wants the damn things in the first place...)

In any case, some kind of dual-licensing scheme might be the best option, IMO. LGPL for most, and special permissively licensed versions for restricted platforms (how ironic).

[curaga]

I don't see any problems here, can you please elaborate?

In the comments there it was mentioned that Windows Store limits installs to five PCs. This is an additional restriction, not allowed by GPL.

[IanS]

In the comments there it was mentioned that Windows Store limits installs to five PCs. This is an additional restriction, not allowed by GPL.

No, it says that you must allow a minimum of 5 installs; there is no upper limit. MS are actually making sure that their customers can have their purchased apps on a reasonable minimum number of devices without facing extra charges or penalties. Not that I care for MS or have any plans of using any of their products, but that agreement is actually rather decent over all, even going as far as making special exceptions from some of the rules for FOSS software.

[GreatEmerald]

Except, that on iOS devices, you cannot install any apps from any external sources, only via the appstore. (Unless you jailbreak, but expecting your customers to jailbreak their iPhablets isn't really a viable business model for most.)

The same applies to mobile Win8 devices, and on them, jailbreaking is not even an option (AFAIK, probably just no one has bothered to figure out a way to do this, since pretty much no one wants the damn things in the first place...)

Huh. That's pretty horrible. Now I have even more reasons to never touch anything with iOS or Windows Phone.

[Vim_User]

For real, guys? Someone releases a high class game engine under a perfectly fine open source engine and all some here have to do is to complain about it not being (L)GPL?
It is really simple: If you have a problem with the MIT license then don't use this engine, in the same way that GPL proponents always say: "Hey, if you don't want your code to be forced to be GPL don't use GPLed code in it!".
In the meantime you are of course entitled to release your own code under whatever license you want, in the same way as Juan Linietsky can choose the license he wants to use.

Deal with it, can this go back to a discussion about thsi game engine and not become another pointless thread about which license some here prefer?

Juan Linietsky: Thanks for your work and thanks for making it open source, I hope we will see some great games made with it.

[mrugiero]

For real, guys? Someone releases a high class game engine under a perfectly fine open source engine and all some here have to do is to complain about it not being (L)GPL?
It is really simple: If you have a problem with the MIT license then don't use this engine, in the same way that GPL proponents always say: "Hey, if you don't want your code to be forced to be GPL don't use GPLed code in it!".
In the meantime you are of course entitled to release your own code under whatever license you want, in the same way as Juan Linietsky can choose the license he wants to use.

Deal with it, can this go back to a discussion about thsi game engine and not become another pointless thread about which license some here prefer?

I haven't seen any actual complains. I've seen suggestions only.

Juan Linietsky: Thanks for your work and thanks for making it open source, I hope we will see some great games made with it.

This part, I have to add, on their page there is one that is currently in production but looks really interesting, Dog Mendonca (actually, it's not Mendonca, but I don't find the key on my keyboard, it's a character commonly used in portuguese instead of the c I used) and Pizza Boy.
I second on the thanks.

[dee.]

For real, guys?

Fo shizzle dizzle, dawg!

This is Phoronix, what did you expect? Nitpicking on licenses etc. is pretty much the whole deal with this forum.

Anyway, it's not like anyone here has suggested boycotting the software because it isn't GPL. Probably most people commenting here wouldn't use the game engine anyway, no matter what license it was licensed under, so the comments are pretty much irrelevant.

[justmy2cents]

One of Unity's strengths is its huge community and many readily available assets(asset store) and tutorials for beginners.
There's a lot of good material already available, just no communities for them.

if it is opensource, ppl could hook it up with steamworks and there is abundance of assets