3 ms·

Yes, but can you redistribute those modifications? Under what terms? Having access to the source code is, like, 10% of the battle.

sanderjd 2y ago
Why do you need to redistribute them if your goal is merely to solve your own problem? (That's the specific context of the quote in the parent comment.)
- yodon 2y ago
  >Why do you need to redistribute them if your goal is merely to solve your own problem? Because "you" in this case is typically a game studio. "Solving your own problem" means shipping your game.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    Gotcha!
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    Huh. I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Virtually everyone modifies Unreal C++ code. Some indie projects are blueprint only. But modifying the engine C++ source code is practically an expectation. Can those source code modifications be easily shared with other developers? Well they can't be publicly dumped on GitHub. Can they be shipped to consume in a compiled binary? Absolutely.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Do you think it would make any sense for epic to forbid studios from shipping games that contain a modified engine?
justin66 2y ago
> Yes, but can you redistribute those modifications? Under what terms? They have a marketplace for selling or sharing stuff like that. If it's a huge chunk of code that's mostly original Unreal code, there are probably some license issues (I have no idea) with just sticking it in your github, but I actually have seen stuff like that on github, so, maybe not.
jncfhnb 2y ago
Yes you can redistribute modified versions of the engine to other parties. Public offerings need to be done through an epic marketplace but that can be for free. The modified engine is still beholden to the original license terms.
jwitthuhn 2y ago
As I understand it the sanctioned way of sharing code added to UE is to fork it on github and publish changes to your fork. Being a fork it will only be available to other people in the Epic Games github org which is only people who have agreed to Epic's licensing terms, and your modified engine remains under that same license.

sanderjd 2y ago

Why do you need to redistribute them if your goal is merely to solve your own problem? (That's the specific context of the quote in the parent comment.)

yodon 2y ago
>Why do you need to redistribute them if your goal is merely to solve your own problem? Because "you" in this case is typically a game studio. "Solving your own problem" means shipping your game.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  Gotcha!
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  Huh. I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Virtually everyone modifies Unreal C++ code. Some indie projects are blueprint only. But modifying the engine C++ source code is practically an expectation. Can those source code modifications be easily shared with other developers? Well they can't be publicly dumped on GitHub. Can they be shipped to consume in a compiled binary? Absolutely.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Do you think it would make any sense for epic to forbid studios from shipping games that contain a modified engine?

justin66 2y ago

> Yes, but can you redistribute those modifications? Under what terms? They have a marketplace for selling or sharing stuff like that. If it's a huge chunk of code that's mostly original Unreal code, there are probably some license issues (I have no idea) with just sticking it in your github, but I actually have seen stuff like that on github, so, maybe not.

jncfhnb 2y ago

Yes you can redistribute modified versions of the engine to other parties. Public offerings need to be done through an epic marketplace but that can be for free. The modified engine is still beholden to the original license terms.

jwitthuhn 2y ago

As I understand it the sanctioned way of sharing code added to UE is to fork it on github and publish changes to your fork. Being a fork it will only be available to other people in the Epic Games github org which is only people who have agreed to Epic's licensing terms, and your modified engine remains under that same license.