One of the big winners of the Unity debacle is the free and open source Godot Engine, which has seen its funding soar to a much more impressive level as Unity basically gave them free advertising.

One of the big winners of the Unity debacle is the free and open source Godot Engine, which has seen its funding soar to a much more impressive level as Unity basically gave them free advertising.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•9 months ago

    When did the term “open source” start including specifics about licensing terms? My understanding from the past few decades was that “open source” meant the source was available for people to look at and compile.

    • @[email protected]English
      15•9 months ago

      Open source has always meant under a free license. Being able to fork and publish your own versions is integral to the open source philosophy.

      • @[email protected]English
        -4•9 months ago

        Being able to fork and publish your own versions is integral to the open source philosophy

        No, that is an enumerated freedom of the free software movement, not open source

        • @[email protected]English
          20•9 months ago

          Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. from Wikipedia

          The same article also talks about the difference between open source and source available:

          Although the OSI definition of “open-source software” is widely accepted, a small number of people and organizations use the term to refer to software where the source is available for viewing, but which may not legally be modified or redistributed. Such software is more often referred to as source-available, or as shared source, a term coined by Microsoft in 2001

          • @[email protected]English
            -12•9 months ago

            Under that strict definition, software under the GNU GPL would not be “open source” because the license stays with the code, and is not truly “for any purpose,” which is the same deal with the Epic license: you may use, study, change, and distribute the Unreal source code, but it stays under Epic’s license.

            If you are talking about the FREEDOM to fork and publish and share and whatever, then you mean Free software.

            • @[email protected]English
              12•9 months ago

              You are not allowed to distribute unreal source. From their FAQ:

              Unreal Engine licensees are permitted to post engine code snippets (up to 30 lines) in a public forum, but only for the purpose of discussing the content of the snippet

              • @[email protected]English
                -3•9 months ago

                But the code is easily visible and you can compile it yourself. If you say “I only run software I 100% knows what it does because I can read it’s source code” then Unreal Engine fits, it’s open source.

                • @[email protected]English
                  4•9 months ago

                  That’s not why people want an open source game engine though, they want it to be open source so that they can’t do a unity

                  I agree the phrase “open source” is a bit confusing

                  • @[email protected]English
                    0•9 months ago

                    they want it to be open source so that they can’t do a unity

                    That has nothing to do with open source, that has to to with licensing, which I’m pretty sure isn’t an issue anyway since I think Unreal versions are tied to specific license versions, i.e. if you download the engine under one term, thats the only one you have to use

    • @[email protected]English
      6•9 months ago

      Ideas started in the 70s, Free Software Movement happened in the 80s, the term Open Source from the 90s as an alternative to “free” to be more clear.

      It always meant this.