5 ms·

We will eventually monitize this app through in app purchases, but decided to launch it open source. I'm not sure we got the license right, but it seems like we

by embwbam 13y ago

We will eventually monitize this app through in app purchases, but decided to launch it open source. I'm not sure we got the license right, but it seems like we can provide the source as an example to the community without losing too much. Obviously it would be cool if other people got involved in keeping the game content fresh, but that might not be realistic. I think it would be cool if more commercial applications were open source for learning purposes, but I know that might not be feasible for most products.

xfour 13y ago
Yea, that last sentence says it all, for learning there's nothing better than a fully functional application or game in this case. Thank you for doing this!
lucian1900 13y ago
It's probably more feasible on iOS than most platforms, since it forbids the users' freedom to run their own software. Thus, it is unlikely people will compile this themselves for distribution, since distribution would be so useless.
icefox 13y ago
Last I looked (a few years ago) ios forbid open source apps on the store, has that changed?
- embwbam 13y ago
  Hmm. I haven't heard anything about that. How would they even know?
  - lambada 13y ago
    It's specifically to do with GPL licensed things. The GPL (v2 anyway, unsure about the others), forbid placing any restrictions on the rights to modify and use the software. As running modified applications on iOS requires a Developer License from Apple for a fee (and associated additional Terms), some believe that the GPL is fundamentally incompatible with the Apple App Store. Any license that imposes a similar condition (other GPL variations etc) are also likely to be incompatible with the App Store. Disclaimer: IANAL.
    - sovande 13y ago
      Not quite. The main problem with GPL in the AppStore is that the GPL forbid additional terms and conditions to be added to the license, but Apple require that apps are distributed under their standard EULA or at least one that follows at minimum these terms and conditions, http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/minterms/ http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore...
      - lambada 13y ago
        Correct, is that not what I said? >forbid placing any restrictions on the rights to modify and use the software.
  - nonchalance 13y ago
    A while ago there was controversy over the VLC for iOS app and it was taken down due to licensing concerns
    - porsupah 13y ago
      The VLC team undertook a license conversion, turning "libVLC and most modules" LGPL. Consequently, VLC for iOS returned on Sep 9 2013. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.1.0.html http://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.1.0.html
- tjr 13y ago
  I don't know about open source in general, but GPL'd software is in conflict with the Apple license. If you yourself are the copyright holder, then I (not being a lawyer) would imagine you would be free to license your software under both the GPL and Apple's iOS license, but you couldn't take someone else's GPL'd software and publish it on iOS, without their permission. Which is one of the points of the GPL, so no big surprise.
  - embwbam 13y ago
    I went with MIT + a single condition saying no final work could compete directly with my app. I'm not very experienced with open source licensing. Any recommendations?
    - dec0dedab0de 13y ago
      I don't think that would actually count as open source, at least according to http://opensource.org/osd http://opensource.org/osd
    - xj9 13y ago
      That's shared source, not open source. Anyway, I usually use BSD or WTFPL
      - embwbam 13y ago
        What difference does it make practically in this case? Should I switch it?
        lucian1900 13y ago
        MIT vs BSD makes no practical difference. However, the license you have now is not actually MIT, but MIT+your extra restriction. That makes it not open source and a liability for anyone that would use it, since your extra restriction could be interpreted in any number of ways. One way to keep the option of legal offense against clones is with differently-licensed assets. MIT your code, but choose one of the non-commercial or share-alike Creative Commons licenses. There are lots of them and you're bound to find one that fits your purposes.
- yaeger 13y ago
  You must have not been looking too hard as that was never true. Apple has no problem with Open Source. It is just that a few Open Source Licenses have a problem with Apple. A small but important difference. Apple couldn't care less what open source license you use. But some licenses like the GPL forbid you from distributing your work in a place like the appstore.
  - belorn 13y ago
    The license give users the right to copy, and to do modification to GPL software. It also says that users should be allowed to install said modified software on devices which the users has full ownership over. Apple has the opinion that they should still retain control after a device in sold, giving them practical ownership after sale. This method of corrupting property laws for leverage over other peoples property goes directly against what the author of a GPL software wants, and is such written into license. Apple with their appstore has thus a fundamental disagreement with the wishes of the author to GPLv3 licensed software. The author can give apple permission on this issue, allowing distribution on the appstore (if Apple accepted it), but that's a copyright concept. Authors can always give permission to someone else about their copyrighted work, but so long the author believes in property laws and peoples right to be in control of their bought devices, its unlikely they will give Apple that extra permission.
embwbam 13y ago
For those of you that have tried the game: any feedback? Would you pay for an extended single player game, unlockable wizards with a custom special spell, or some kind of supporter program that gives you early access to a forum and betas?
- opnitro 13y ago
  The one feature I would like is the ability to stat over when drawing a spell. I would probably play for an extended single player
- gfosco 13y ago
  In the future, you should avoid committing your Parse application id and client key publicly... You don't want other dev's piggybacking on your account quota, though it's not really a security risk by itself. Considering it's already there, make sure you've implemented Class-level security to protect your data. https://www.parse.com/docs/data#security-classes https://www.parse.com/docs/data#security-classes
  - embwbam 13y ago
    You're only looking at the dev key. I have a separate "secret" branch with the production keys for everything. It hits a different firebase too.
- jamesk_au 13y ago
  This game resembles 'Runic Rumble',[1] which uses the same concept but requires the user to draw different shapes rather than connect elements in a fixed shape. The first thing I did after seeing this thread and looking at the repository was to download the game from the iOS App Store (using an iPhone 5). I would have paid $1 to $4 for the app at that point in time. I 'mastered' the levels up to but not including 'Belgarath the Bold' in the space of about 30-40 minutes, and seem to have unlocked all the spells except for superman, hot dog and teddy bear. That was entertaining - and repetitive. Challenges remain ahead of me in the form of Belgarath and Fionnghal, but unless some exciting new aspect to the gameplay emerges during those challenges, I don't think I would pay for an extension to the single player game. If I'd watched someone else play the game instead of playing it myself, I don't think I would now spend the $1 to $4 I would have otherwise been willing to spend. My disinterest in paying for an extension to the single player game means I don't have any reason to consider paying for unlockable wizards, custom spells, or forums and betas. OK - I wrote the above before trying the multiplayer game. Having now tried the multiplayer game, I found that to be much more fun, and much less predictable. Would I consider paying something now? Maybe. I'd be willing to consider one or two small in-app purchases that add to the gameplay in some non-trivial way without unbalancing the game between those who've purchased and those who haven't. I don't think I'd ever have any interest in forums and betas. The main gripe I have with the game is not something you can easily solve: my finger gets sore after lots of frantic swiping on the glass. (It was even worse with Runic Rumble.) Good luck! [1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/runic-rumble/id581952563 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/runic-rumble/id581952563 Edit: Just discovered 'superman'. Hilarious!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- embwbam 13y ago
  I was planning on porting the engine to Javascript at some point, but maybe Lua would be better. The cool thing about JS is I could shuttle game logic between the server and the client easily.

by embwbam 13y ago

xfour 13y ago

Yea, that last sentence says it all, for learning there's nothing better than a fully functional application or game in this case. Thank you for doing this!

lucian1900 13y ago

It's probably more feasible on iOS than most platforms, since it forbids the users' freedom to run their own software. Thus, it is unlikely people will compile this themselves for distribution, since distribution would be so useless.

icefox 13y ago

Last I looked (a few years ago) ios forbid open source apps on the store, has that changed?

embwbam 13y ago
Hmm. I haven't heard anything about that. How would they even know?
- lambada 13y ago
  It's specifically to do with GPL licensed things. The GPL (v2 anyway, unsure about the others), forbid placing any restrictions on the rights to modify and use the software. As running modified applications on iOS requires a Developer License from Apple for a fee (and associated additional Terms), some believe that the GPL is fundamentally incompatible with the Apple App Store. Any license that imposes a similar condition (other GPL variations etc) are also likely to be incompatible with the App Store. Disclaimer: IANAL.
  - sovande 13y ago
    Not quite. The main problem with GPL in the AppStore is that the GPL forbid additional terms and conditions to be added to the license, but Apple require that apps are distributed under their standard EULA or at least one that follows at minimum these terms and conditions, http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/minterms/ http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore...
    - lambada 13y ago
      Correct, is that not what I said? >forbid placing any restrictions on the rights to modify and use the software.
- nonchalance 13y ago
  A while ago there was controversy over the VLC for iOS app and it was taken down due to licensing concerns
  - porsupah 13y ago
    The VLC team undertook a license conversion, turning "libVLC and most modules" LGPL. Consequently, VLC for iOS returned on Sep 9 2013. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.1.0.html http://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.1.0.html
tjr 13y ago
I don't know about open source in general, but GPL'd software is in conflict with the Apple license. If you yourself are the copyright holder, then I (not being a lawyer) would imagine you would be free to license your software under both the GPL and Apple's iOS license, but you couldn't take someone else's GPL'd software and publish it on iOS, without their permission. Which is one of the points of the GPL, so no big surprise.
- embwbam 13y ago
  I went with MIT + a single condition saying no final work could compete directly with my app. I'm not very experienced with open source licensing. Any recommendations?
  - dec0dedab0de 13y ago
    I don't think that would actually count as open source, at least according to http://opensource.org/osd http://opensource.org/osd
  - xj9 13y ago
    That's shared source, not open source. Anyway, I usually use BSD or WTFPL
    - embwbam 13y ago
      What difference does it make practically in this case? Should I switch it?
      - lucian1900 13y ago
        MIT vs BSD makes no practical difference. However, the license you have now is not actually MIT, but MIT+your extra restriction. That makes it not open source and a liability for anyone that would use it, since your extra restriction could be interpreted in any number of ways. One way to keep the option of legal offense against clones is with differently-licensed assets. MIT your code, but choose one of the non-commercial or share-alike Creative Commons licenses. There are lots of them and you're bound to find one that fits your purposes.
yaeger 13y ago
You must have not been looking too hard as that was never true. Apple has no problem with Open Source. It is just that a few Open Source Licenses have a problem with Apple. A small but important difference. Apple couldn't care less what open source license you use. But some licenses like the GPL forbid you from distributing your work in a place like the appstore.
- belorn 13y ago
  The license give users the right to copy, and to do modification to GPL software. It also says that users should be allowed to install said modified software on devices which the users has full ownership over. Apple has the opinion that they should still retain control after a device in sold, giving them practical ownership after sale. This method of corrupting property laws for leverage over other peoples property goes directly against what the author of a GPL software wants, and is such written into license. Apple with their appstore has thus a fundamental disagreement with the wishes of the author to GPLv3 licensed software. The author can give apple permission on this issue, allowing distribution on the appstore (if Apple accepted it), but that's a copyright concept. Authors can always give permission to someone else about their copyrighted work, but so long the author believes in property laws and peoples right to be in control of their bought devices, its unlikely they will give Apple that extra permission.

embwbam 13y ago

For those of you that have tried the game: any feedback? Would you pay for an extended single player game, unlockable wizards with a custom special spell, or some kind of supporter program that gives you early access to a forum and betas?

opnitro 13y ago
The one feature I would like is the ability to stat over when drawing a spell. I would probably play for an extended single player
gfosco 13y ago
In the future, you should avoid committing your Parse application id and client key publicly... You don't want other dev's piggybacking on your account quota, though it's not really a security risk by itself. Considering it's already there, make sure you've implemented Class-level security to protect your data. https://www.parse.com/docs/data#security-classes https://www.parse.com/docs/data#security-classes
- embwbam 13y ago
  You're only looking at the dev key. I have a separate "secret" branch with the production keys for everything. It hits a different firebase too.
jamesk_au 13y ago
This game resembles 'Runic Rumble',[1] which uses the same concept but requires the user to draw different shapes rather than connect elements in a fixed shape. The first thing I did after seeing this thread and looking at the repository was to download the game from the iOS App Store (using an iPhone 5). I would have paid $1 to $4 for the app at that point in time. I 'mastered' the levels up to but not including 'Belgarath the Bold' in the space of about 30-40 minutes, and seem to have unlocked all the spells except for superman, hot dog and teddy bear. That was entertaining - and repetitive. Challenges remain ahead of me in the form of Belgarath and Fionnghal, but unless some exciting new aspect to the gameplay emerges during those challenges, I don't think I would pay for an extension to the single player game. If I'd watched someone else play the game instead of playing it myself, I don't think I would now spend the $1 to $4 I would have otherwise been willing to spend. My disinterest in paying for an extension to the single player game means I don't have any reason to consider paying for unlockable wizards, custom spells, or forums and betas. OK - I wrote the above before trying the multiplayer game. Having now tried the multiplayer game, I found that to be much more fun, and much less predictable. Would I consider paying something now? Maybe. I'd be willing to consider one or two small in-app purchases that add to the gameplay in some non-trivial way without unbalancing the game between those who've purchased and those who haven't. I don't think I'd ever have any interest in forums and betas. The main gripe I have with the game is not something you can easily solve: my finger gets sore after lots of frantic swiping on the glass. (It was even worse with Runic Rumble.) Good luck! [1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/runic-rumble/id581952563 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/runic-rumble/id581952563 Edit: Just discovered 'superman'. Hilarious!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

embwbam 13y ago
I was planning on porting the engine to Javascript at some point, but maybe Lua would be better. The cool thing about JS is I could shuttle game logic between the server and the client easily.