4 ms·

Some posts are questioning why the OP of the Godot complaint post is saying money raised for W4 should be used for Godot. I believe that may be because the Godo

Some posts are questioning why the OP of the Godot complaint post is saying money raised for W4 should be used for Godot. I believe that may be because the Godot ecosystem was used as a justification and evidence for that funding? I am not aware of the issues here, but at least reading just the mission statment from W4 website "W4 Games is a new company created by Godot Engine veterans Juan Linietsky, Rémi Verschelde and Fabio Alessandrelli, and veteran entrepreneur Nicola Farronato. Our mission is to strengthen the open source Godot ecosystem by providing companies with the commercial products and services they need." Godot is also literally mentioned on their webpage "We pledge that all the improvements made to Godot as part of the company’s activities will be donated back (whenever legally possible) to the community as pull requests to be reviewed and considered for inclusion." Also this: "Additionally, W4 Games pledges to support Godot financially with no-strings-attached donations to the project." https://w4games.com/ https://w4games.com/ I am not saying W4 folks did this, but a troubling trend for FOSS is building something on free labor (volunteer work by a community) and using that for funding other projects without investing back into the project that got you there.

mort96 3y ago
I don't see the problem. W4, whose mission statement is to build commercial products and services around Godot, got seed funding from venture capitalists in order to get off the ground and build those products and services. Unrelatedly, the Godot Foundation, whose purpose is to fund and develop the Godot project, needs more funding to keep up the current pace of Godot development. There is nothing weird or shady about those two things being true at the same time. It's all good and well that W4 has made a pledge to support Godot financially, but there's surely no expectation that they'll do that before they have a revenue stream? If W4's investors wanted the money to go to Godot, they would've just donated to Godot instead of investing in W4, right? We can't expect W4 to just take the money they got from their investors and spend it on donations to Godot instead of what was promised, right?
djur 3y ago
None of those quotes should be understood as a promise to donate their _seed funds_ (the $8 million) to Godot, though. W4's FAQ also says: "The Godot project is fully independent from W4 and will continue to raise funds to pay contributors as it always has."

mort96 3y ago

I don't see the problem. W4, whose mission statement is to build commercial products and services around Godot, got seed funding from venture capitalists in order to get off the ground and build those products and services. Unrelatedly, the Godot Foundation, whose purpose is to fund and develop the Godot project, needs more funding to keep up the current pace of Godot development. There is nothing weird or shady about those two things being true at the same time. It's all good and well that W4 has made a pledge to support Godot financially, but there's surely no expectation that they'll do that before they have a revenue stream? If W4's investors wanted the money to go to Godot, they would've just donated to Godot instead of investing in W4, right? We can't expect W4 to just take the money they got from their investors and spend it on donations to Godot instead of what was promised, right?

djur 3y ago

None of those quotes should be understood as a promise to donate their _seed funds_ (the $8 million) to Godot, though. W4's FAQ also says: "The Godot project is fully independent from W4 and will continue to raise funds to pay contributors as it always has."