Of course being careful of licensing is always important. it's good to be cautious.
Thoughts about Godot Engine and W4Games
Godot already supports iOS and macOS, which are far more closed down and antithetical to FOSS than anything Microsoft related. I don't know if you've tried to develop for Apple platforms, but you need to pay money, get approved by Apple, go through a serious security certificate process, to the point where you can't even compile an app and run it on your own computer without Apple's grace. I'm not saying that is good, or what Microsoft does is good, it's not. But there is a certain amount of cooperation that is needed in the real world, and if you look at things in the black and white, then you literally cannot accomplish even the most simple task in your life.
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The fact that W4 Games is founded and governed by Juan Linietsky (Godot's lead developer) and Rémi Verschelde (Godot's project manager) makes it quite shady, given their previous hypocritical decisions and ambiguity regarding Godot's direction itself.
What Godot leadership does undermines its non-profit mission now. You have to realize that Godot is currently governed by Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), where Godot is a member project. All Patreon donations for Godot go through SFC, and Godot PLC (project leadership committee) handles absolutely all funds.
At the same time, Godot PLC is managed by the same people that founded commercial W4 Games company now, namely Juan Linietsky (Godot's lead developer) and Rémi Verschelde (Godot's project manager), etc. Godot's lead developer has the power of veto to block consensus, and many people in Godot community unquestionably trust Juan, which means that Juan has mostly the ultimate power over all decisions, unfortunately.
This will definitely lead to corruption in the future. It's already happening, in fact. See Lone Wolf Technology, a commercial company that ports Godot to consoles. The founder of that company is Godot's co-founder, Ariel Manzur, who's also part of Godot PLC, so he's also able to manage (your) Patreon donations. Having said that, I have no idea why would Juan decide to create W4 Games alongside Lone Wolf Technology which matches W4 Games' claimed mission. Looks like Juan and Ariel had an argument as competitors.
In my opinion, Godot totally betrayed the community and FOSS in general, unfortunately. If you truly believed that Godot has been community-driven all this time, it won't be community-driven from now on.
Remember when Juan Linietsky said that there's no company behind Godot two years ago? Quoting Juan:
- There is no company behind it. It's owned by every single of its contributors.
- We don't compete with Unity, Unreal, etc. In fact they are free to use any of our code.
- We make it because innovating is fun, and out of love for those making games.
Next in his thread:
The concept of customers does not exist for us.
But now, he founded W4 Games, a commercial company specifically tailored for Godot. And here's what Juan said recently on W4 Games, FOSS, and proprietary technologies:
As FOSS advocates, it pains us to see that the growing complexity in hardware is forcing the game industry to restrict their game technology choices to two proprietary vendors
Juan covertly refers to two proprietary vendors. Can you guess what are those vendors exactly? Right, Unity and Unreal. Godot definitely doesn't compete here, right?
Many people don't pay attention or check up Juan's claims and promises, but if you research this yourself, you'll find many contradictions in Godot that leadership ignores or refuses to resolve, which is the literal definition of hypocrisy. Remember that words != actions, when Juan says that he doesn't decide anything, it doesn't make it true.
All in all, the success of this is totally determined by community's trust in Godot leadership. Even then, their success is not necessarily our success as a community who are looking for free and open-source software. I stopped trusting Godot leadership a long time ago. I do not trust Godot leadership. I say this as an ex-member of Godot, being a contributor and even maintainer.
Reminder: Lets not go for ad hominem, let's discuss facts and be on-topic. Thank you.
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cybereality Godot already supports iOS and macOS, which are far more closed down and antithetical to FOSS than anything Microsoft related. I don't know if you've tried to develop for Apple platforms, but you need to pay money, get approved by Apple, go through a serious security certificate process, to the point where you can't even compile an app and run it on your own computer without Apple's grace.
I'll simply never submit to that. The only reason I can imagine for myself is being in a job where this is necessary. Fortunately, I can choose my job :-)
cybereality I'm not saying that is good, or what Microsoft does is good, it's not. But there is a certain amount of cooperation that is needed in the real world, and if you look at things in the black and white, then you literally cannot accomplish even the most simple task in your life.
I look at this specific thing and I see the dangers for my own privacy and financial independence. I accomplished quite a lot during my life, up to now. I studied two times and I never missed an exam. But I am going to miss the rest of this discussion because my time is better spent debugging and refining things :-)
Peace on earth, hopefully.
Edit: @Xrayez : I hear you. I just think the two "proprietary vendors" are amd and nividia, and the technology choices refer to the different apis the two offer, that somewhat work together in some areas, in others not. I yesterday thought about which way to go if forced to abandon an engine. See, there it is, ambiguous babble ready to be interpreted this or that way, driven by the fantasy of the reader
If only there were 3 of me :-) Oh, they'd probably just play a German card-game all day long and get nothing done, proving @cybereality right ... :-)
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Pixophir Yeah, deciphering Juan's ambiguous messages is a tiresome process. Why wouldn't Juan mention those technologies explicitly, right?
In any case, I'd also like to clarify this: Juan oftentimes uses "two major technologies" phrasing to covertly refer to Unity and Unreal for the most part. Look at other Juan's tweet specifically in the context of game engines.
In the same way, the language behind W4 Games' website that describe its mission reads like a corporate press release with vague phrases like "complementary suite of commercial products and services". There's no concreteness to this.
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You know, @Xrayez I think you may be correct on this one. The issue of DirectX 12 is a non-starter, as there are already proprietary APIs used in Godot for years and this never caused an issue before (such as export to Apple platforms). But I agree that this is a big leadership decision, and Juan frequently contradicts himself. Even though I have been using Godot for 2 years (almost 3), I have went back and read blogs posts going back to the beginning, as well as things Juan has said in public (Twitter, GitHub, etc.). And there seems to be some lack of cohesion.
For example, he has frequently been against console support saying it is not possible (when we know it is possible, as other FOSS projects have done) and now he finally concedes and says it is possible. Granted, that is the correct decision (I support W4 and I think it's a good move) but it's a huge 180 and puts into question everything else he's said. I've also seen him make bogus claims on Twitter, I won't call out the specific post, but he implied that shadow mapping was faster than baked lighting (when I brought up the issue of Godot not supporting mixed lighting modes). This may be true in some limited cases, but I'm pretty sure there is a reason almost every AAA game in the last 20 years has had some form of baked lighting. I don't like to call people out on BS, especially not a respected figure, but I feel he was either ignorant of what I was asking, or lying. There's been other times I have seen him comment on some technical issue with inaccurate information, that most people using Godot would not understand, so they believed him. Granted, I don't really care that much, it's just a software I use, and I don't want to start problems. But it does make me question things.
The other issue is competing with Unity and Unreal. First off, there is no chance of ever beating Unreal, so we can leave that off the table. But Unity, as a business, does not look good, and has been mismanaged for many years. So it's entirely possible for Godot to overtake Unity. Honestly, I think Unity's current financial troubles and user backlash may have gave Juan the idea that he could take a shot. And I agree with this. Unity is down on the floor, let's take advantage of the situation. So given everything I said, I still do support W4 and Juan's current goal. I think they line up with mine, and what I have been saying for years. So the argument could be that the market has changed, and the Godot leadership changed their position in response. Which I think is a reasonable theory.
However, since the beginning, Juan has been clear he did not want Godot to compete with the other 2 unnamed technologies (he won't even say their names) and has pushed back every time someone has asked about getting serious and competing. Like when anyone brings up technical issues or things that don't work in Godot, light baking was broken forever, poor mobile performance, significant shadow issues (that are still not 100% fixed in Godot 4.0), art pipeline insufficiency (also not fixed completely), and a ton of other stuff that stops Godot from being a viable alternative to Unity, he just falls back on that Godot is some toy hobby project and doesn't need to work for professionals. Which is a cop out.
That said, any project or company should have a solid mission statement. So it seems instead of changing what Godot is, which would be a poor choice, they made a new company to start a new mission. But the two can work together to achieve a common goal. This seems reasonable to me. So I think things are going to be good, even if I question a leader that changes his position on serious issues and appears to make some statements that are incorrect, or in bad faith. Like I said, it doesn't have to be a black and white. I think Godot is still very promising, and these developments do not change my plans. But it is good to look at the situation clearly.
Pixophir which range from development power being drawn from the engine
How so?
Xrayez Godot is currently governed by Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), where Godot is a member project. All Patreon donations for Godot go through SFC, and Godot PLC (project leadership committee) handles absolutely all funds.
And that's how it will continue to be... W4 has nothing to do with that.
Xrayez Having said that, I have no idea why would Juan decide to create W4 Games alongside Lone Wolf Technology which matches W4 Games' claimed mission.
Different approaches, Lone Wolf takes your game an custom ports it, W4 will provide you with an export template for you to use with a devkit you have licensed from the platform owner.
Xrayez There is no company behind it. It's owned by every single of its contributors.
We don't compete with Unity, Unreal, etc. In fact they are free to use any of our code.
We make it because innovating is fun, and out of love for those making games.
He is clearly speaking about the OSS project here, and all of this is still true.
Xrayez As FOSS advocates, it pains us to see that the growing complexity in hardware is forcing the game industry to restrict their game technology choices to two proprietary vendors
Juan covertly refers to two proprietary vendors. Can you guess what are those vendors exactly? Right, Unity and Unreal. Godot definitely doesn't compete here, right?
No, Radeon & Geforce.
cybereality For example, he has frequently been against console support saying it is not possible (when we know it is possible, as other FOSS projects have done) and now he finally concedes and says it is possible.
No, hes always said it's impossible in a fully OSS manner with all the proprietary bits necessary somehow magically included in the source tree under OSS licenses. The hope originally was that the nindendos and sony's of the world might start supplying their own export templates to their developers. But I guess the patience ran out.
Pixophir I'll simply never submit to that. The only reason I can imagine for myself is being in a job where this is necessary. Fortunately, I can choose my job :-)
Yes, it's easy to say that, but if you have a business you have to make concessions. It's hard to get actual numbers, but most cross-platform mobile games make the vast majority of their money on iOS. The percentage numbers can vary, but I have heard in the 80 - 90% range, in favor of Apple. You can see this developer released the numbers and only made 5% from Android.
There are a lot of reasons for this. Apple products are more expensive, meaning the users are typically more wealthy. Apple is very popular in developed countries, while Android is more popular in developing nations. Android has piracy, as well as alternative app stores with stolen content (Apple does too, but it is much much harder to do and is frequently shut down). Regardless of the reasons, if you want to make a mobile game, and it is your business, you have to be on iOS if you want any sort of revenue.
The issue on desktop is much less. macOS is a small market (slightly bigger than Linux, but not by much). And Macs typically don't have gaming GPUs and a lot of users are on laptops, meaning almost none of them game and couldn't even if they wanted to. So making a Windows only game is usually what developers do (and with Steam you can also target Linux with a Windows binary). However, in the spirit of cross-platform, I will want my game to be native on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Because excluding Mac users because of Apple's shady business practices is also kind of lowering yourself to their level. I would want everyone to play my game, and also as a business to have the most revenue possible. Even if Mac is only 10%, that could still be an extra 10% of whatever, with not too much effort.
Linux is only around 5% overall, however Linux users do game a lot and spend money on native Linux software, so I have seen developers claim that Linux sales were between 20 - 30% of the revenue, despite only being 5% of the desktop market. So for me it is about being inclusive, and not cutting off portions of the market because of my beliefs (this also gets into the thing I was saying about making compromises in the real world). It means more people can enjoy the content, more money for me, and is just generally a positive thing to do (in terms of showing people they can get away from Windows). So I can live with that.
Megalomaniak The hope originally was that the nindendos and sony's of the world might start supplying their own export templates to their developers.
I'm not sure that was ever a realistic ask. Though Microsoft has been open to this somewhat (like with XNA and XBLA, etc.) Sony and especially Nintendo have seemed to be aggressively against it. Even when Sony started to get open, like with allowing Linux on PS3, they quickly reversed course and had to get sued. And consoles, in general, have gotten more locked down (like with removing web browsers and higher security against piracy) so it seems unlikely they will change their stance. Nintendo has even put people in jail. Their entire business model is the locked nature of the hardware. And, in essence, it is a PC. Though they use specialized parts and APIs, it's still just modified PC hardware and OS code. So they are not going to open it up, because their business model is in keeping it locked.
cybereality Sony and especially Nintendo have seemed to be aggressively against it.
We aren't talking about sony and nindendo putting them up for public download like xna was for xbox. Obviously they'd only start developing and offering to their devkit licensees those export templates once godot was so popular as to be impossible to ignore.
What I meant by 'I guess the patience ran out' is that too many would be users keep claiming that this is a show stopper to them and since people with deeper pockets were willing to fund the alternative approach, they ran out of patience having to listen to complaints from userspace and figured 'might as well then'.
Not only that but plenty of us have been complaining about a lack of marketplace too(me included) and this provides an opportunity for them to do something about that too.
Note that for the past 3 or 4 years there's been community polling/questionnaires and I recon a overwhelming majority have been asking for this. First time I don't think there was even a question for it, but enough users were adding it into the other/additional info field as a request so they started asking about it specifically in the following years.
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General reflections on funding. Of course, everyone wants to eat… at least sometimes. I would like to have some left over for strong Belgian beer and black caviar.
The founder of MakeHuman abandoned his product because it was not generating income, set up a new project and abandoned it for the same reason.
But an office like Steam doesn't produce anything — it just sells what others have created and is all silk and gold.
Godot and MakeHuman are developer tools — there are very few of them, relative to players.
The idea of the usual revolutionary is to take money from the rich (players) and give it to the poor (developers).
There is no communication and financial transfer channel between engine developers and players.
I didn't thought the discussion would get so heated. Here goes my POV.
W4Games is a self entity not direct tied to the Godot engine but created by Godot devs. W4Games goal would be to help Godot game devs in port their games to closed platforms.
Godot devs are not slaves to the FOSS community. And I think WE as a community should feel happy for their business endeavour.
In the FOSS community there is a strong reaction to anything non-FOSS but bear in mind that:
Linux just exist because of Unix (then proprietary software);
Richard Stallman used proprietary computers and software to create GNU.
When YOU use your PC guess what? A business company made it.
And the internet (was it a FOSS initiative)? No military.
We just can afford the kind of life we have today cause of capitalism, closed business.
But if every time someone from the community does something business we go against them we are been worst then Unity CEO king of guy.
I have the intention of make games for PROFIT and knowing that people like the Godot devs are behind a company will make me more comfy in trust that company.
I love FOSS but everyone need to live and life cost money and money come from business and on an on...
We (probably) want make money from the games we will do so why the Godot devs can't decide make money from their work too?
I just feel it is weird.
I am grateful for them and wish them the best.
duane Godot will keep been a FOSS project. And people was and will keeping selling their games. So life as usual.
Godot 4 will be just the same.
Pixophir Godot already exports to Windows and have done for a long time. Nothing really changed.
Tomcat Sorry I didn't knew that thread. That's quite wild and cool.
Tomcat Bout the "Free" tag: First post, sorry again.
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Megalomaniak And that's how it will continue to be... W4 has nothing to do with that.
Given W4, there's definitely a chance that they may neglect the open-source work in Godot. I imagine that some Godot proposals may get commercialized and prioritized by commercial entities. If you're not aware, Godot proposals are already prioritized by those who donate via Patreon. It doesn't really matter how many thumb-ups you have on Godot proposal, or how much your proposal received user support. If Patrons don't vote on it, a proposal will be mostly likely left in the Limbo.
In order to back up my claim, see Godot's article called Shedding light on Godot's development process. Quote from that article:
Conservancy asks that Patreon rewards can at much affect the priority of tutorials, demos or features that the project is already intending to do. We can't offer rewards unrelated to Godot's goals. This is why we ask the whole community for proposals, then we later approve them, and only Patrons have voting power in the end. [emphasis mine]
You may say that they cannot prioritize something unrelated to Godot's goals due to SFC's mission. The problem is that Godot leadership has not defined those goals publicly in the first place, so Godot leadership starts to wrongly assume what community really wants, or speak for community. See my proposal to document Godot's development philosophy proposal, which is still unresolved. Godot's lead developer says that there's no development philosophy in Godot, which is bizarre, considering the project of this scale. To quote Juan there:
I would say that Godot development extremely pragmatic, with focus solely on solving problems. Because of this, there is not really a "Development philosophy". There is zero dogmatism here and theoretical or philosophical discussions are generally irrelevant in this context.
So, the Problem -> Solution is what best expresses this mindset.
However, many people would still like to know Godot's goals and vision in general, because they are undefined and/or ambiguous (just read the entire proposal). If Godot is only governed by "Problem → Solution" mindset, then this describes commercial companies quite accurately, and the existence of W4 Games company created by Godot leadership is a testament to this approach.
In my opinion, Godot has always been a "garage" game development and consulting company that happens to use open-source due to economical reasons of Godot founders in the past (they're from Argentina, where corruption is likely commonplace), they don't really know how to handle community-driven open-source projects, so they decided to go back to their old corporate approaches. I think that their mistake is that they overpromised too much to the public. Remember that Godot was closed-source, in-house game engine in the past for quite some time. I say this because they had Codenix company for this purpose up to 2014, and they licensed Godot to various clients in the past. Something like this could happen with W4, like premium Godot support, they could provide additional commercial packages, something like heightmap terrain plugin, etc.
Megalomaniak Different approaches, Lone Wolf takes your game an custom ports it, W4 will provide you with an export template for you to use with a devkit you have licensed from the platform owner.
From what I can tell, Ariel (punto-) said that they don't get involved in the development of games, they just sell the export code. See Ariel's post at Reddit. I think those companies that need to port Godot to consoles would be modifying Godot's source code anyways, so having access to export code would be more beneficial than having access to export templates.
In either case, I think Juan and Ariel could definitely team up in W4. I don't think it's reasonable to create different companies to do the same thing slightly differently, other than achieving financial independence. Perhaps this has something to do with money laundering scheme that we're not yet aware of... Note that W4 Games is registered at Ireland, and it's well known as Europe's tax haven.
Why wouldn't Godot leadership decide to name the new company something like "Godot Foundation", just like Blender with its "Blender Foundation"? Why wouldn't Godot leadership announce the creation of W4 Games via Godot's official website and be open about this move?
Mind you, this is just food for thought. Just think about this.
I'm not happy with godot 4.0 for other reasons. However, the project is out there under a free license at the moment, and that cannot be revoked.* If enough people disapprove of godot's future course, they are free to fork the project and work it themselves. At this point, I see no reason to do so.
* Technically it could if a serious licensing issue came up and someone wanted to spend a large amount of money to crush godot, but I'd be amazed if that actually happened.