this post was submitted on 10 May 2024

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RFC: Moving the Godot Card Game Framework to an MIT License (github.com)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've started the CGF some years ago to learn Godot and to provide something to the community. I even made a few FOSS games with it.

Sadly my work with my other FOSS projects and the fediverse doesn't give me enough time to keep it up to date and to migrate it to Godot 4 and since the engine is picking up a ton of speed, I think it's a shame people have to keep rediscovering the card game wheel.

I know a lot of people avoid it due to the AGPL3 license, so I am thinking of switching to an MIT license instead in the hopes that others will help carry the torch until I find time to circle back to it. There's always pitfalls with MIT of course, such as some company trying to enclose it and sell it as a service, but perhaps peer pressure would be enough of a deterrent at this time.

Anyway. Just opening this up for discussion.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I can tell you that I wouldn’t invest my time in developing a game if there’s no chance of selling it in the first place due to the license requirements of a third party package.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Well AGPL doesn't prevent selling, but most people think it will steal their sales, which I don't think it's true.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (2 children)

agpl does not "steal" sales, but i have to give my users the source code under a gpl compatible license, that includes that they redistirbute the code however they see fit.

that scares many people, but i guess they forget that your game is more than code and the license does not cover assets

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Correct. Plus I think most people want to support indies, and those who would download forks, would just pirate anyway. Such fears are overblown I think which is why it was AGPL from the start. If I was still actively developing it I would keep it like this, but if MIT helps it get more traction, it might be worth it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I don't think end users are the problem.

Anyone looking to make an easy buck can steal your source, flip some assets and sell it as their own.

That is a big vulnerability. Especially to indie Devs who potentially work on razor thin margins already.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

@Lmaydev @db0 the source is typically the least important part of any game. Games with any amount of success get copied overnight by game farms; no need for code access.
Even more: if I need to copy a game, observing it is enough, I don't need to deal with the certainly messy original code that I don't understand well. Rewriting from scratch will certainly be faster than deciphering a 3rd party codebase.

The hard part is almost never the code, it's design, gameplay, graphics, theming...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Game design and gameplay is part of the source. All the balancing etc. to make it a fun experience. Most of the numbers don’t show up in the UI, so they'd either have reverse engineer it or reconstruct it somehow through months of game testing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

@Lmaydev @db0

For games where the code _is_ the difficult part (Dwarf Fortress, etc), its probably so complicated that having the code helps nothing, unless you want an exact copy (at which point, just pirate the game).

The number of applications or games where having access to the code helps even somewhat to do anything is vanishingly small.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

While that's true, a lot of those places do the same thing already, even without available source. Copycat apps are a thing already, but with AGPL3, they would also have to share their source at least.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

But my shadersssss

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah in theory people could buy your GPL/AGPL app from you, but they could also get it legally for free from anybody else who has bought it. Guess which way will dominate.