5 ms·

Why would you expect a viable open source company to be a "megacap" anyway? The whole point of the open source development model is that, properly applied, it's

Why would you expect a viable open source company to be a "megacap" anyway? The whole point of the open source development model is that, properly applied, it's more efficient and less costly than its closed-source alternative, while delivering significantly more value to its userbase. By contrast, the complementary services that an OSS-focused company actively sells (such as support) are in fact quite expensive. You wouldn't expect a support business to be "megacap", unless it actually manages to reach IBM- or RedHat-scale, which by definition very few businesses ever will. The real competition is not Unreal vs. Unity, but both Unreal and Unity vs. e.g. Blender. (Which was actually funded as an open source project by its users, back in the day. But at a relatively low 'valuation', compared to Unity!)

KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
> more efficient and less costly than its closed-source alternative This is just not true in reality. Open source projects cost generally the same as closed source projects. Companies like mongo and unity employs about the same amount of engineers to work on it and the idea of high cost savings due to thousands of randos contributing code is vastly exaggerated. Same cost + no profit + having to develop a secondary core competency in a competitive commodity business like support and hosting = dangerous and non-scalable model. Also never heard of a game using the Blender game engine...
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > Open source projects cost generally the same as closed source projects. https://www.linux.com/publications/estimating-total-cost-linux-distribution https://www.linux.com/publications/estimating-total-cost-lin... (mind you, that's 2008 data. I couldn't find more recent estimates) Mongo is quite unrepresentative here - not least, because they're selling the very same software (MongoDB) under both OSS and proprietary licensing! A better comparison in the database space would be e.g. PostgresSQL - the latest versions of which, BTW, are including "NoSQL"-focused features that make it quite competitive with the likes of MongoDB.
vnorilo 8y ago
I don't know if blender is comparable at all. There's a lot more to a game engine than rendering, and AFAIK blender is not even intended for real time animation. Ogre is an open source 3d engine, although I don't know about its funding: https://www.ogre3d.org/ https://www.ogre3d.org/
- KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
  Maybe Godot engine is more comparable?
  - homarp 8y ago
    Yes, Godot is more comparable. And indeed https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1083476975312949250 https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/108347697531294925... does mention Godot
- awirth 8y ago
  Blender has a full game engine included in it, although it looks like it's getting cut with the next release: https://www.blender.org/features/game-creation/ https://www.blender.org/features/game-creation/
  - brylie 8y ago
    Blender 2.8 has removed the game engine. https://www.blender.org/2-8/ https://www.blender.org/2-8/
- evanweaver 8y ago
  Blender started as a closed source, venture-backed startup and was purchased and released to the community by a foundation set up by one of the founders when the startup failed. So it too was subsidized by corporate interests that ultimately saw no return on their investment.

KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago

> more efficient and less costly than its closed-source alternative This is just not true in reality. Open source projects cost generally the same as closed source projects. Companies like mongo and unity employs about the same amount of engineers to work on it and the idea of high cost savings due to thousands of randos contributing code is vastly exaggerated. Same cost + no profit + having to develop a secondary core competency in a competitive commodity business like support and hosting = dangerous and non-scalable model. Also never heard of a game using the Blender game engine...

zozbot123 8y ago
> Open source projects cost generally the same as closed source projects. https://www.linux.com/publications/estimating-total-cost-linux-distribution https://www.linux.com/publications/estimating-total-cost-lin... (mind you, that's 2008 data. I couldn't find more recent estimates) Mongo is quite unrepresentative here - not least, because they're selling the very same software (MongoDB) under both OSS and proprietary licensing! A better comparison in the database space would be e.g. PostgresSQL - the latest versions of which, BTW, are including "NoSQL"-focused features that make it quite competitive with the likes of MongoDB.

vnorilo 8y ago

I don't know if blender is comparable at all. There's a lot more to a game engine than rendering, and AFAIK blender is not even intended for real time animation. Ogre is an open source 3d engine, although I don't know about its funding: https://www.ogre3d.org/ https://www.ogre3d.org/

KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
Maybe Godot engine is more comparable?
- homarp 8y ago
  Yes, Godot is more comparable. And indeed https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1083476975312949250 https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/108347697531294925... does mention Godot
awirth 8y ago
Blender has a full game engine included in it, although it looks like it's getting cut with the next release: https://www.blender.org/features/game-creation/ https://www.blender.org/features/game-creation/
- brylie 8y ago
  Blender 2.8 has removed the game engine. https://www.blender.org/2-8/ https://www.blender.org/2-8/
evanweaver 8y ago
Blender started as a closed source, venture-backed startup and was purchased and released to the community by a foundation set up by one of the founders when the startup failed. So it too was subsidized by corporate interests that ultimately saw no return on their investment.