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.

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.

        https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/creating-a-hit-mobile-game-and-reaching-1-on-the-app-store-45ea61e1c4

        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.

          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.

          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.

              Xrayez Given W4, there's definitely a chance that they may neglect the open-source work in Godot.

              So what, the community will keep steamrolling on. Even if the original developers quit the OSS project and go full time with W4 it won't be an issue at all. In fact, it rather sounds like that might be your ideal outcome

              Xrayez imagine that some Godot proposals may get commercialized and prioritized by commercial entities.

              They'd be free to try and do so irregardless, this still has nothing to do with W4. And anybody in the OSS community is still free to create a competing OSS solution. So this is a nothing burger.

              Xrayez If Patrons don't vote on it, a proposal will be mostly likely left in the Limbo.

              By the developers that the patreon support pays for? Of course, so what? Any community developer is still free to tackle whatever issue they want and provide a pull request however.

              Xrayez Remember that Godot was closed-source, in-house game engine in the past for quite some time.

              So was blender, your point?

              Xrayez Something like this could happen with W4, like premium Godot support, they could provide additional commercial packages, something like heightmap terrain plugin, etc.

              Yeah, so? They can't stop others from developing competing ones(this applies to both: support and plugins), whether OSS or commercial/proprietary. And that's all that matters.

              Xrayez 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.

              Then maybe in due time they will. But competition even in this area is not actually a bad thing. Might keep both more honest too. 😉

              Xrayez Why wouldn't Godot leadership decide to name the new company something like "Godot Foundation", just like Blender with its "Blender Foundation"?

              Because this is not the equivalent of the Blender Foundation, the Software Freedom Concervacy already fulfills that purpose for the godot project. W4 is closer in purpose to the Blender Institute/Blender Animation Studio. Closer, but not the same just as blender and godot are obviously not the same type of thing either.

                duane I'm not happy with godot 4.0 for other reasons.

                I'd be curious to hear what those are. I mean, if there are genuine issues I don't think they are going to get addressed unless they are actually discussed openly.

                  Megalomaniak So what, the community will keep steamrolling on. Even if the original developers quit the OSS project and go full time with W4 it won't be an issue at all. In fact, it rather sounds like that might be your ideal outcome

                  Hopefully, yes. But I'm realistic about this.

                  Megalomaniak They'd be free to try and do so irregardless, this still has nothing to do with W4. And anybody in the OSS community is still free to create a competing OSS solution. So this is a nothing burger.

                  Which may lead to community division. Do you see division as a bad or good thing? You can already find Godot forks out there, I won't mention them here to avoid advertisement. And with W4, I forecast that we'll see even more Godot forks out there. I think division is inevitable regardless, see the many Linux distributions.

                  Megalomaniak By the developers that the patreon support pays for? Of course, so what? Any community developer is still free to tackle whatever issue they want and provide a pull request however.

                  This is not an issue per-se if Godot is community-informed. But Godot gives out an impression that it's community-driven, which is not the case, which is a big difference, according to my experience and research, both as an ex-contributor and an ex-member of Godot project. So we're talking about not meeting expectations of what constitutes community power over decision making.

                  Even if someone creates a pull request for a popularly requested feature, it may not be merged, and not necessarily because of quality, but due to other reasons, like maintenance. However, Godot leadership could delegate maintenance of a feature to someone who created it, yet they don't delegate such privileges for the most part. And maintenance equals to decision-making power, which Godot leadership won't give up. There's a reason why Akien is the only person who's generally allowed to merge pull requests. In truly community-driven projects, we'd see several people managing and merging pull requests, but even after 8 years of development, we don't see it happening as a common practice in Godot. Even money is not required for this. Just have more trust in developer community to fulfill Godot's vision, whatever it is. Let community define it. That's my vision.

                  But yeah, nowadays, you can go to Godot's governance page and see it for yourself, but it was added like a year ago. That means Godot has been potentially confusing many users and contributors to think that Godot is community-driven for whopping 7 years since it got open-sourced. Even with Godot's governance documented, many people won't actually read it, unfortunately. Even then, they're still not completely honest about their governance.

                  If you read the Advisors section there, this exactly what describes community-informed development approaches. Community-driven approaches don't require advisory groups, because community-driven approaches are governed using "bottom-up" principles, but with Godot it's more like "top-down". Godot Contributors Chat has a private advisors channel, by the way.

                  Again, you may not see this yourself if you haven't closely interacted within Godot's development community. I'm not the only one who thinks this way, you can read, for instance, LillyByte's feedback on hypocritical leadership in Godot.

                  Megalomaniak So was blender, your point?

                  My point is that while Godot is open-source, the mentality behind it is not necessarily open. Unlike Blender and other healthy open-source projects, the discrepancy between words vs actions vs expectations vs reality is quite severe in Godot, that's my core point.

                  I don't have an issue with commercial companies, and I don't have an issue with open-source either. I just expect to participate in an honest project, where most discussions are open, with little to no hypocrisy and ambiguities. Godot does not inspire confidence in this regard. I've seen some people who got fed up by Godot's decisions in the past, and they left the community without a single word expressing their stance on this, which is sad. More people should talk about this.

                  I don't see success merely from the perspective of technology. The success is largely determined by human factor.

                  This is what Godot leadership says (rhetoric):

                  • To users: "Community is in charge, everything is transparent and democratic"
                  • To contributors: "Development is solely based on trust, not meritocracy nor democracy"

                  If Godot's decisions are going to create disappointment by overpromising features, or keep telling that community is in charge, then it will definitely backfire.

                  If the creation of W4 Games company is going to improve Godot, I don't mind that. But it's equally important to be honest and open about these kind of decisions.

                  To summarize my thoughts about Godot leadership using popular idioms:

                  • If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.
                  • You can't have your cake and eat it.

                    Xrayez Which may lead to community division.

                    The community is already highly fractured, so par for the course I suppose. But also, I don't think it's the kind of issue you seem to be making it out to be..?

                    Xrayez You can already find Godot forks out there, I won't mention them here to avoid advertisement.

                    The thing is these are more like custom builds rather than truly divergent forks. So, no, I do not perceive these to be an issue.

                    Xrayez But yeah, nowadays, you can go to Godot's governance page and see it for yourself, but it was added like a year ago. That means Godot has been potentially confusing many users and contributors to think that Godot is community-driven for whopping 7 years since it got open-sourced.

                    I suspect it's more so the case that they intended for godot to become a community driven project(and it still might yet) but so far the community hasn't yet developed into a driving force, something the developers could never really make forcefully happen anyways. Either the community that develops around a project goes on to take it and run with it or it won't. This isn't really on the original developers.

                    The source is very liberally licensed, anybody can take it and fork it into whatever kind of project they want. If you want it to become a GPL/"free software"/ideological project then you can go and do so. Just don't expect me to use it., cause that wouldn't serve any positive purpose for me. But you are free to do so and all the power and success to you in it.

                    Xrayez I'm not the only one who thinks this way, you can read, for instance, LillyByte's feedback on hypocritical leadership in Godot.

                    While I'm not technical enough to make engine PRs myself, many in voice chat were; and they would make PRs to Godot... and we would tell them how to do it, and look hopefully at the fixes that "would be coming in the future"....
                    Except those PRs never ever got merged... PRs sat for years, untouched. When people coming in wanting to add feature PRs to Godot asked us how long it takes for things to get merged... we were honest. It could be years, because it could be.

                    I know I keep bringing up blender as a comparison point a lot, but that's because I've been following it since 2004...and this is no different there either. There's probably more patches that have never made it in than those that have. A common problem even for moderately complex OSS projects.

                    Remember, every patch/PR need a reviewer. And every potential reviewer is themselves likely a developer with their own ongoing projects. Given that their time is limited and the amount of developers able to review patches/PR's is itself limited too, it's in practical terms, very unreasonable to expect most PRs to get looked at in short order. If you are serious about your PR being worth the effort then you as it's developer will keep it maintained and from going stale until it does get looked at. S' the simple truth of it.

                    Does it stink that so many PR's go stale? Sure. But unless more developers become reviewers it just can't be helped. And on-boarding developers as new reviewers itself also is a huge time and resource drain. Better funding for the necessary infrastructure as well as some full time managerial positions to actually tackle this problem might very well stem precisely from this new effort involving W4.

                    Blender also had to go through this growing pain, and it did so, btw, with an Epic Games Megagrant. Something I suspect many godot users wouldn't want to trust, so maybe, just maybe...W4 is actually a better solution, yeah?

                    Or will you magically pull out the back pocket of your trousers the funds for all of this?


                    TBH my own assessment of your views on this is that you are perhaps a little too idealistic and ideological for your own good. Those things are not strictly speaking bad things, but as with anything, too much of something, even good or just plain well intended, can become a bad thing. And you might well benefit from perhaps tempering your ideals with a bit of rational pragmatism to counter balance it. But also, taking a step back and a break from godot from time to time might also do you some good, perhaps lower stress a bit? Since a part of it might also be that you've simply gotten a bit too emotionally invested in a software project.

                    Same might also apply to LillyByte, I sense some burnout which if my assumption about emotional over investment is correct, is of course perfectly understandable. Can't at all blame her for feeling the way she does.


                    All of this is to say, as an OSS project godot has had a very tumultuous growth, especially in users and their expectations. It's half the age of blender, half the size if even that of blender and it's already hitting similar growth driven issues requiring similar resources to solve them as blender. It's a tough spot to be in, to be sure.

                      Megalomaniak TBH my own assessment of your views on this is that you are perhaps a little too idealistic and ideological for your own good. Those things are not strictly speaking bad things, but as with anything, too much of something, even good or just plain well intended, can become a bad thing. And you might well benefit from perhaps tempering your ideals with a bit of rational pragmatism to counter balance it. But also, taking a step back and a break from godot from time to time might also do you some good, perhaps lower stress a bit? Since a part of it might also be that you've simply gotten a bit too emotionally invested in a software project.

                      Same might also apply to LillyByte, I sense some burnout which if my assumption about emotional over investment is correct, is of course perfectly understandable. Can't at all blame her for feeling the way she does.

                      I'm sorry but looks like you haven't managed to keep the discussion without going for ad hominem, namely appeal to emotion, insinuating that both me and Lilly have some kind of problems in this regard. I'd like to think that you have good intentions here, I explicitly asked not to go this route, therefore I end this discussion, but honestly I provided my point with external sources anyways, so lets agree to disagree, at least. 🙂

                      If this was meant as an advice, then don't worry, I no longer use Godot and left the community months ago, I just cannot stay silent, given Godot's decisions in the past and my previous involvement with Godot development team in the past, it's my ethical duty to say those things. But again, I don't want this thread to become about me specifically, lets stay on topic.