Why Open Source?

From GDWiki

Every time I mention that it would be awesome to open source the engine, I always get asked "Why? Are you crazy?" I don't think many people know exactly how open sourcing projects work. If you've never been part of a big business, just a small-time, personal coder, who doesn't make any program releases, then you've never had any licensing issues to worry about with OSS. Why should I care if some kid is learning how to make video games up in his room, and isn't making any profit from it? Yet, we wouldn't want companies to use our software and make money from it, and it's very easy to do this even with OSS.

Types of Licenses

For this example, I'm going to use MySQL. MySQL is the biggest example of a company to release all their software under the GPL (GNU General Public License). Yet, they still pull in an assload of money. They actually have guidelines in their licenses that state the following:

• MySQL can be used under GPL, as long as the software using it is under GPL
• If you are writing a commercial application that contains a copy of the MySQL distribution, you must purchase a commercial license
• If you are modifying MySQL for a commercial application, you must purchase a commercial license

Yes, folks, it's still very possible to make money. We just want to be making the money from the right places. In theory, we would want to charge the folks making cash on closed source games on our engine, not those furthering the cause of OSS. In effect, those making money would pay royalties.

Commercial Licenses

Curious about the MySQL commercial license? Check this out, the price page on their commercial licenses. The Basic version is $599 per server per year. Another selling point is service. They also sell tutoring services for using their products. This is an example of the right way to go about becoming rich.

So if our target is schools, the students are in fact paying for tuition, therefore the school would be required to pay for the licenses. This is ideal for the engine we're making.

The Open Source Community

The final big advantage of open sourcing this engine is that we will be backed by every single programmer that downloads it for personal use. If they see a bug that needs to be fixed, they can submit a patch. If they want a widget to be implemented, they can create it. This is the most powerful of all, because this is what will keep the engine alive and growing through the years. And they, in turn, will benefit by using the GPL engine to release all their own GPL games.