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0 pointsilariel11mo ago0 comments

At least they mention that it is source-available, but they still mix "open source" into the mix on their site.

It is a really nice and fair source-available license and there should be more of this, but a license like theirs also restricts what kind of software you can make in a rather harsh way.

Since you can't commercialise game engine products and they are defined in a broad way. You could land in legal issues. Game engine products are defined in the license as:

“Game Engine Product” shall mean software used for video game development. This includes both the content authoring software and the software used to show the created content.

IANAL, but map editors, modding tools and many other kind of tools that can be used for developing video games could be in violation of the license.

Since meaning of "commercialise" isn't being defined or narrowed in the license small creators using Patreon or the like while asking donations could be classified as a violation too.

0 comments

PolCPP11mo ago

The only options i see are:

- Give the modding tools for free with the game (like many games do anyway). You're commercializing the game no the modding tools - Make the tools defold-free ? So it reads the game data but its not defold. - Tools for free but charge for support/warranty?, Clause 9 lets you sell support/warranty; you just can’t charge for the software license itself.

bee_rider11mo ago

It could be nice if they had some sort of easy approval process for small Patreon users to commercialize the building of tools for their platform.

mst11mo ago

They seem to be fairly explicit that _they_ believe that extensions aren't covered by those restrictions.

Possibly the license text needs to be tweaked to make that more clear (IANAL too) but I read it as meaning that commercial extensions were fine, just not commercialising a patched version of the core code.

Your concerns do seem entirely reasonable, but if, in practice, they become an issue, it seems like the codified-in-law goals of the foundation (see https://defold.com/foundation/) strongly suggest they _would_ tweak the license text as required.

I dunno, I don't think the harsh restrictions you mention exist, and I'd hope that if any actual lawyers read them as existing then their employers will direct them to help get the license bugfixed.

So colour me "cautiously optimistic" here.

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