5 ms·

Unfortunately, a lot of people (including myself) value true freedom, which neither Unreal nor Unity provide; on the other hand, you are guaranteed that both of

Unfortunately, a lot of people (including myself) value true freedom, which neither Unreal nor Unity provide; on the other hand, you are guaranteed that both of these projects will not die soon, which is something that open source projects suffer.

eropple 12y ago
> a lot of people (including myself) value true freedom By all indications, the people who value this particular flavor of no-true-Scotsman'd "true freedom" is tiny and shrinking. The Apache License and MIT/X11 licenses have more or less supplanted the GPL and other hard-copyleft licenses in modern development communities. When I started writing open source, the GPL was almost the default largely because Linux used it as such; I don't remember the last time I saw a GPL project, or even LGPL, that I cared to use. This is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned; I'd rather grant the freedom to do great things with the stuff I write regardless of whether somebody wants to hand it back to me. It doesn't hurt me, so, whatever.
- farresito 12y ago
  I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. I never mentioned GPL or any license.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  You're presenting a diversion here. Both permissive and copyleft licenses are free software licenses (that is to say, the "true freedom" that you sardonically hold in contempt) as recognized by the FSF. UE4 is neither free, nor open source by any definition. It is source-available and gratis, instead.
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    It is not free, but I would very much dispute that it is not open source - the source is open.
    - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
      That's not enough to be open source: http://opensource.org/osd-annotated http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
    - Mikeb85 12y ago
      Can you use the Unreal source to create a non-Unreal project? Say, your own engine? I haven't read the whole EULA but I'd guess the answer is 'no'.
    - Retra 12y ago
      Just because you are allowed to read the source doesn't mean you have any rights to it.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Since the early days of home computing I used a mixture of free and commercial software. Back in the days we had program listings, public domain, freeware, shareware, .... Then GPL came along and many adopted. Personally I had a phase where I was 100% GPL and writing stuff like M$. That is all gone for me now and I am even typing this on a Windows 8.1 system, but I do acknowledge that most likely Linux wouldn't ever happened if it wasn't for GNU and the whole (L)GPL eco-system. Many of the open source advocates that are anti-GPL forget that without it, probably the choice today would have been between commercial UNIX systems and Windows NT. Android extensions outside AOSP, LLVM derivatives for embedded systems, GPGPUs and most recently Swift are good examples of what happens when you join commercial interests with free code.
  - TylerE 12y ago
    > Many of the open source advocates that are anti-GPL forget that without it, probably the choice today would have been between commercial UNIX systems and Windows NT. Like Mac OS X and Windows 8?
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      Almost, imagine not having GNU/Linux on the server side or for IoT projects.
      - TylerE 12y ago
        I honestly wouldn't much care. Prefer FreeBSD for servers anyway.
        pjmlp 12y ago
        Because AT&T lost its case.
namuol 12y ago
And here's why we never talk about the source code licensing model Epic Games has implemented, or any other non OSD-compliant models. UE4 is possibly the most powerful creative software suite ever built, shackles and all. You really are missing out.
- farresito 12y ago
  I certainly am not complaining about Unreal. The amount of resources needed to create and maintain such beast is quite high, so the chances of having something similar being open source are minimal. I'm fine with that license. It's already more open that a lot of the stuff out there. Sure I wish we had Linux-like software for everything.

eropple 12y ago

> a lot of people (including myself) value true freedom By all indications, the people who value this particular flavor of no-true-Scotsman'd "true freedom" is tiny and shrinking. The Apache License and MIT/X11 licenses have more or less supplanted the GPL and other hard-copyleft licenses in modern development communities. When I started writing open source, the GPL was almost the default largely because Linux used it as such; I don't remember the last time I saw a GPL project, or even LGPL, that I cared to use. This is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned; I'd rather grant the freedom to do great things with the stuff I write regardless of whether somebody wants to hand it back to me. It doesn't hurt me, so, whatever.

farresito 12y ago
I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. I never mentioned GPL or any license.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
You're presenting a diversion here. Both permissive and copyleft licenses are free software licenses (that is to say, the "true freedom" that you sardonically hold in contempt) as recognized by the FSF. UE4 is neither free, nor open source by any definition. It is source-available and gratis, instead.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  It is not free, but I would very much dispute that it is not open source - the source is open.
  - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
    That's not enough to be open source: http://opensource.org/osd-annotated http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
  - Mikeb85 12y ago
    Can you use the Unreal source to create a non-Unreal project? Say, your own engine? I haven't read the whole EULA but I'd guess the answer is 'no'.
  - Retra 12y ago
    Just because you are allowed to read the source doesn't mean you have any rights to it.
pjmlp 12y ago
Since the early days of home computing I used a mixture of free and commercial software. Back in the days we had program listings, public domain, freeware, shareware, .... Then GPL came along and many adopted. Personally I had a phase where I was 100% GPL and writing stuff like M$. That is all gone for me now and I am even typing this on a Windows 8.1 system, but I do acknowledge that most likely Linux wouldn't ever happened if it wasn't for GNU and the whole (L)GPL eco-system. Many of the open source advocates that are anti-GPL forget that without it, probably the choice today would have been between commercial UNIX systems and Windows NT. Android extensions outside AOSP, LLVM derivatives for embedded systems, GPGPUs and most recently Swift are good examples of what happens when you join commercial interests with free code.
- TylerE 12y ago
  > Many of the open source advocates that are anti-GPL forget that without it, probably the choice today would have been between commercial UNIX systems and Windows NT. Like Mac OS X and Windows 8?
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    Almost, imagine not having GNU/Linux on the server side or for IoT projects.
    - TylerE 12y ago
      I honestly wouldn't much care. Prefer FreeBSD for servers anyway.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        Because AT&T lost its case.

namuol 12y ago

And here's why we never talk about the source code licensing model Epic Games has implemented, or any other non OSD-compliant models. UE4 is possibly the most powerful creative software suite ever built, shackles and all. You really are missing out.

farresito 12y ago
I certainly am not complaining about Unreal. The amount of resources needed to create and maintain such beast is quite high, so the chances of having something similar being open source are minimal. I'm fine with that license. It's already more open that a lot of the stuff out there. Sure I wish we had Linux-like software for everything.