4 ms·

The only one restriction: you can't sell the engine itself! You can sell the game made with Defold. You don't understand something or you are misleading people

by AGulev 6y ago

The only one restriction: you can't sell the engine itself! You can sell the game made with Defold. You don't understand something or you are misleading people.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
No, they are correct. 'Open Source' is a term-of-art in the software world. We use the OSI's definition, which is a good deal stricter than just making the source available. The licence used by Defold is not an Open Source licence. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23233336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23233336 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  vertex-four is correct that Defold is not Open Source. This statement, however, is absolutely wrong: > Defold allows you to see the internals, but if something doesn't work the way you want, you can't change it and still get to sell your game.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    I think you're right. Their summary says: > You are free to modify Defold and you are not required to share the changes but also: > You can not commercialise original or modified (derivative) versions of the Defold editor and/or engine I think they mean you cannot start a business selling your fork of their game-engine. I don't think they mean you may not use a modified engine in a commercial product. This seems to fit with the full text of the licence, which says: > You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works as a Game Engine Product
    - nybble41 6y ago
      I think it would be pretty hard to distinguish between commercializing a game with a modified Defold engine which can be heavily modded by the player and commercializing a modified Defold game engine. Quite a few games have been modded into entirely different games sharing only the engine. Just something to think about if you were planning on allowing mods in your game. Do they only care about how you advertise the product, or will they be looking at how it's actually being used?
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
        Interesting point. That's different from typical moddable commercial game/game engine. Typically, people may buy a game in order to play its free mods, but you can't tweak the engine and then sell that modified engine to other game studios. Whatever happens, the end-user has to have a licence for the original game. This is a little different though, as you can modify the engine, then sell your game, and permit payware mods to use your modified version of the engine, perhaps even insisting on taking a cut. All the while the Defold guys don't get a penny.
mindcrime 6y ago
Their license, as currently stated, would probably violate both planks 1 and 6 of the OSD[1]. [1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  It violates #1. I see no violation of #6.
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    Upon further review, I believe you are correct.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    #1 is freedom to redistribute the original software, alone or in aggregate. I don't see how it violates that. #6 is freedom from discrimination regarding field of endeavour. Restrictions on commercial use (including exercise of the other freedoms in a commercial context, e.g. sale of modified versions) violate #6, not #1.
    - mindcrime 6y ago
      I think that's closer to the way I was reading it at first, but then I realized that #6 refers to use and not distribution. So I think (although, IANAL) that #6 is not about dealing with the commercial sales aspect. I think this is more for the kind of things like "You can use this software for anything except developing military weapons" or that sort of clause that you sometimes see. #1 OTOH deals with "selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources." This would seem to be the clause that would be violated by a "you can't sell this commercially" clause. Although, looking at it, I just realized that somebody could argue that due to the use of the phrase "component of an aggregate software distribution", that this actually isn't violated by a restriction on selling the software alone! I'm pretty sure that's not the way that was ever intended to be interpreted though, and that an aggregate can include as few as 1 components. Otherwise it would be silly, because you could always then in turn create an "aggregate" by adding some arbitrary files of your own.

by AGulev 6y ago

The only one restriction: you can't sell the engine itself! You can sell the game made with Defold. You don't understand something or you are misleading people.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

No, they are correct. 'Open Source' is a term-of-art in the software world. We use the OSI's definition, which is a good deal stricter than just making the source available. The licence used by Defold is not an Open Source licence. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23233336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23233336 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217

vonmoltke 6y ago
vertex-four is correct that Defold is not Open Source. This statement, however, is absolutely wrong: > Defold allows you to see the internals, but if something doesn't work the way you want, you can't change it and still get to sell your game.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  I think you're right. Their summary says: > You are free to modify Defold and you are not required to share the changes but also: > You can not commercialise original or modified (derivative) versions of the Defold editor and/or engine I think they mean you cannot start a business selling your fork of their game-engine. I don't think they mean you may not use a modified engine in a commercial product. This seems to fit with the full text of the licence, which says: > You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works as a Game Engine Product
  - nybble41 6y ago
    I think it would be pretty hard to distinguish between commercializing a game with a modified Defold engine which can be heavily modded by the player and commercializing a modified Defold game engine. Quite a few games have been modded into entirely different games sharing only the engine. Just something to think about if you were planning on allowing mods in your game. Do they only care about how you advertise the product, or will they be looking at how it's actually being used?
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      Interesting point. That's different from typical moddable commercial game/game engine. Typically, people may buy a game in order to play its free mods, but you can't tweak the engine and then sell that modified engine to other game studios. Whatever happens, the end-user has to have a licence for the original game. This is a little different though, as you can modify the engine, then sell your game, and permit payware mods to use your modified version of the engine, perhaps even insisting on taking a cut. All the while the Defold guys don't get a penny.

mindcrime 6y ago

Their license, as currently stated, would probably violate both planks 1 and 6 of the OSD[1]. [1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

vonmoltke 6y ago
It violates #1. I see no violation of #6.
- mindcrime 6y ago
  Upon further review, I believe you are correct.
- nybble41 6y ago
  #1 is freedom to redistribute the original software, alone or in aggregate. I don't see how it violates that. #6 is freedom from discrimination regarding field of endeavour. Restrictions on commercial use (including exercise of the other freedoms in a commercial context, e.g. sale of modified versions) violate #6, not #1.
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    I think that's closer to the way I was reading it at first, but then I realized that #6 refers to use and not distribution. So I think (although, IANAL) that #6 is not about dealing with the commercial sales aspect. I think this is more for the kind of things like "You can use this software for anything except developing military weapons" or that sort of clause that you sometimes see. #1 OTOH deals with "selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources." This would seem to be the clause that would be violated by a "you can't sell this commercially" clause. Although, looking at it, I just realized that somebody could argue that due to the use of the phrase "component of an aggregate software distribution", that this actually isn't violated by a restriction on selling the software alone! I'm pretty sure that's not the way that was ever intended to be interpreted though, and that an aggregate can include as few as 1 components. Otherwise it would be silly, because you could always then in turn create an "aggregate" by adding some arbitrary files of your own.