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Battle for Wesnoth might be a counterexample to your argument about games: http://wesnoth.org http://wesnoth.org It's an open source video game that's of high q

by wcarey 6y ago

Battle for Wesnoth might be a counterexample to your argument about games: http://wesnoth.org http://wesnoth.org It's an open source video game that's of high quality with good user experience, developed by lots of folks over a long period of time and available on many platforms.

LanternLight83 6y ago
See also some rougelikes, such as Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead or (IIRC?) Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, which are often strong examples of open-source development, though perhaps as many are one-man teams.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
I think it depends on the type of game. It’s hard for me to imagine something like Celeste, Cave Story, or Journey coming about through the open source process. These games had very specific artistic visions, and I’m not sure how you’d execute that. (A small team could perhaps release a game under an OSS license, but it wouldn’t be what we generally think of as open source development.) ...here’s the thing though: I don’t really games to be software. I mean, of course they are software in a literal sense, but then an Encyclopedia and Harry Potter are both books.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  > A small team could perhaps release a game under an OSS license, but it wouldn’t be what we generally think of as open source development. This is... definitely what I think of when I generally think of open source development? The vast majority of open source projects seem to be by one person. How many zero-star projects are there on GitHub? Half the libraries I use on a regular basis are authored by one person. I think you are conflating contribution with direction. I'd argue most successful OSS projects have strong direction led by a small team. Postgres core. Python's BDFL, while it lasted. Even projects like Git have people like Junio, who are wonderful and knowledgeable and without which the project wouldn't even be remotely the same. > These games had very specific artistic visions, and I’m not sure how you’d execute that. There is no requirement for consensus-driven democratic decision making for a project, so I really don't get why you feel this way. One of the first projects I contributed to was BZFlag, a game. What about Colossal Cave Adventure? Rogue? Nethack? Hell I spent probably a few dozen hours playing Tux Racer since it's release.

by wcarey 6y ago

LanternLight83 6y ago

See also some rougelikes, such as Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead or (IIRC?) Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, which are often strong examples of open-source development, though perhaps as many are one-man teams.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

I think it depends on the type of game. It’s hard for me to imagine something like Celeste, Cave Story, or Journey coming about through the open source process. These games had very specific artistic visions, and I’m not sure how you’d execute that. (A small team could perhaps release a game under an OSS license, but it wouldn’t be what we generally think of as open source development.) ...here’s the thing though: I don’t really games to be software. I mean, of course they are software in a literal sense, but then an Encyclopedia and Harry Potter are both books.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
> A small team could perhaps release a game under an OSS license, but it wouldn’t be what we generally think of as open source development. This is... definitely what I think of when I generally think of open source development? The vast majority of open source projects seem to be by one person. How many zero-star projects are there on GitHub? Half the libraries I use on a regular basis are authored by one person. I think you are conflating contribution with direction. I'd argue most successful OSS projects have strong direction led by a small team. Postgres core. Python's BDFL, while it lasted. Even projects like Git have people like Junio, who are wonderful and knowledgeable and without which the project wouldn't even be remotely the same. > These games had very specific artistic visions, and I’m not sure how you’d execute that. There is no requirement for consensus-driven democratic decision making for a project, so I really don't get why you feel this way. One of the first projects I contributed to was BZFlag, a game. What about Colossal Cave Adventure? Rogue? Nethack? Hell I spent probably a few dozen hours playing Tux Racer since it's release.