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In September and January of last year Unity raised a considerable amount of cash [0]. It seems like VCs want their growth number up and Unity has a very clear

by asien 8y ago

In September and January of last year Unity raised a considerable amount of cash [0]. It seems like VCs want their growth number up and Unity has a very clear plan to run their engine in the cloud to create artificial growth by being the sole vendor of Unity Multiplayer Hosting. This is the shadiest move I’ve seen in the Industry, even worst than MongoDB. [0]https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unity-technologies https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unity-technologies

ivraatiems 8y ago
What did MongoDB do?
- aboutruby 8y ago
  Probably the licensing change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoDB#Licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoDB#Licensing
  - nothis 8y ago
    What’s the problem here?
    - ac29 8y ago
      It "requires that those making the software publicly available as a service must make the service's source code available under this license".
      - DATACOMMANDER 8y ago
        That change seems to be in line with the FOSS ethos. I imagine that from the perspective of the FOSS community, using FOSS software in a SaaS product without releasing the code that drives the service is just a loophole.
        stordoff 8y ago
        IIRC, the uproar was less about the principle, and more about how it is defined: > If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge [...] Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version If I make a generic website that uses Mongo as a database, does that constitute making Mongo available as a service? It's clearly interacting with the functionality through a computer network, and could be said to derive its value primarily from the value of Mongo. That's clearly not the intention[1], but I would not be confident making that claim solely based on the licence text (and the FAQ is not incorporated as part of the licence). There's also some debate about whether it meets Section 9 of the Open Source Definition ("License Must Not Restrict Other Software"). [1] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license/faq https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        Well. No reasonable person would ever say that your website derives its value primarily from the database engine. But lawsuits aren't forced to be reasonable.
        stordoff 8y ago
        Exactly - I don't think it's reasonable, but I also don't think it's clear enough to make a business decision based on it. I would also find it difficult to argue that it's _not_ "enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network" (given how broad it is), which is the first example given.
- radicalbyte 8y ago
  Their product wasn't fit for purpose for the first five years or so*. Of which their marketing mentioned nothing and they were extremely misleading when questioned. It's a shame really because they did the whole onboarding really well, you could literally get it up and running in a couple of minutes and it was extremely easy to use for developers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jasonlotito 8y ago
This is not about multiplayer hosting. It's about streaming. Basically, primarily running the engine on a cloud provider and streaming the game to a local client. They even list authorized partners: https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software/authorized-streaming https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software/authoriz...
- zrobotics 8y ago
  SpatialOS is not a streaming service, it is a multi-player hosting service that runs the unity engine on multiple servers to support MMO worlds. Unity allows streaming for approved partners with the correct liscences, but apparently negotiations with spatial broke down. Since unity didn't comment on why, all we can do is speculate.

by asien 8y ago

ivraatiems 8y ago

What did MongoDB do?

aboutruby 8y ago
Probably the licensing change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoDB#Licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoDB#Licensing
- nothis 8y ago
  What’s the problem here?
  - ac29 8y ago
    It "requires that those making the software publicly available as a service must make the service's source code available under this license".
    - DATACOMMANDER 8y ago
      That change seems to be in line with the FOSS ethos. I imagine that from the perspective of the FOSS community, using FOSS software in a SaaS product without releasing the code that drives the service is just a loophole.
      - stordoff 8y ago
        IIRC, the uproar was less about the principle, and more about how it is defined: > If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge [...] Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version If I make a generic website that uses Mongo as a database, does that constitute making Mongo available as a service? It's clearly interacting with the functionality through a computer network, and could be said to derive its value primarily from the value of Mongo. That's clearly not the intention[1], but I would not be confident making that claim solely based on the licence text (and the FAQ is not incorporated as part of the licence). There's also some debate about whether it meets Section 9 of the Open Source Definition ("License Must Not Restrict Other Software"). [1] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license/faq https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        Well. No reasonable person would ever say that your website derives its value primarily from the database engine. But lawsuits aren't forced to be reasonable.
        stordoff 8y ago
        Exactly - I don't think it's reasonable, but I also don't think it's clear enough to make a business decision based on it. I would also find it difficult to argue that it's _not_ "enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network" (given how broad it is), which is the first example given.
radicalbyte 8y ago
Their product wasn't fit for purpose for the first five years or so*. Of which their marketing mentioned nothing and they were extremely misleading when questioned. It's a shame really because they did the whole onboarding really well, you could literally get it up and running in a couple of minutes and it was extremely easy to use for developers.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jasonlotito 8y ago

This is not about multiplayer hosting. It's about streaming. Basically, primarily running the engine on a cloud provider and streaming the game to a local client. They even list authorized partners: https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software/authorized-streaming https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software/authoriz...

zrobotics 8y ago
SpatialOS is not a streaming service, it is a multi-player hosting service that runs the unity engine on multiple servers to support MMO worlds. Unity allows streaming for approved partners with the correct liscences, but apparently negotiations with spatial broke down. Since unity didn't comment on why, all we can do is speculate.