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What is distasteful about it? Unity is not open source. If Unity were open source, it could use Mono under LGPL, no problem.

by sanxiyn 13y ago

shadowmint 13y ago
It's the 'I want a piece of your pie' thing, that I also find troubling with patents. Person A: Invents something, fails to capitalize on it. Person B: does marketing work, sells all the Monies! Person A: -__- Oh that was clever. Actually, I want some of your money please. Person B: Fuck off. <--- The correct response. If you make something and want to sell it, sell it. If you make something and give it away for free, don't come crying when someone else sells it. The 'dual license GPL' approach to software which is 'kind of free unless you sell it, in which case we'll negotiate some nice on going licensing fees' seems disingenuous to the spirit of open source (and specifically the GPL) to me.
- knocte 13y ago
  You clearly don't understand open source. Go do some reading and later come back here. Some tips: free doesn't mean "gratis", it comes from "freedom". Therefore it is normal that the GPL uses a strategy to avoid that derived works become proprietary ('proprietary' means: essentially "non-free" for the end-user, and "free" for the developer). From your comment it seems that you confuse the fact that opensource is not something that benefits the developer; it is something that benefits the end user! Don't forget that.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Does LGPL require just the release of source code for games infected with it, or do developers have to release their assets also (like art, sound, level designs, anything needed for the code to be meaningful)? If the assets aren't covered, I think Unity could go LGPL in some way.
cwyers 13y ago
That's not true. The LGPL explicitly allows closed-source programs to incorporate it (that's why it's the LGPL and not the GPL). The problem is that the LGPL is incompatible with certain use cases (embedded systems, I think the App Store, possibly the various consoles) so Unity can't distribute LGPL code to those platforms.

What is distasteful about it? Unity is not open source. If Unity were open source, it could use Mono under LGPL, no problem.

by sanxiyn 13y ago

What is distasteful about it? Unity is not open source. If Unity were open source, it could use Mono under LGPL, no problem.

shadowmint 13y ago

It's the 'I want a piece of your pie' thing, that I also find troubling with patents. Person A: Invents something, fails to capitalize on it. Person B: does marketing work, sells all the Monies! Person A: -__- Oh that was clever. Actually, I want some of your money please. Person B: Fuck off. <--- The correct response. If you make something and want to sell it, sell it. If you make something and give it away for free, don't come crying when someone else sells it. The 'dual license GPL' approach to software which is 'kind of free unless you sell it, in which case we'll negotiate some nice on going licensing fees' seems disingenuous to the spirit of open source (and specifically the GPL) to me.

knocte 13y ago
You clearly don't understand open source. Go do some reading and later come back here. Some tips: free doesn't mean "gratis", it comes from "freedom". Therefore it is normal that the GPL uses a strategy to avoid that derived works become proprietary ('proprietary' means: essentially "non-free" for the end-user, and "free" for the developer). From your comment it seems that you confuse the fact that opensource is not something that benefits the developer; it is something that benefits the end user! Don't forget that.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

Does LGPL require just the release of source code for games infected with it, or do developers have to release their assets also (like art, sound, level designs, anything needed for the code to be meaningful)? If the assets aren't covered, I think Unity could go LGPL in some way.

cwyers 13y ago

That's not true. The LGPL explicitly allows closed-source programs to incorporate it (that's why it's the LGPL and not the GPL). The problem is that the LGPL is incompatible with certain use cases (embedded systems, I think the App Store, possibly the various consoles) so Unity can't distribute LGPL code to those platforms.