RFC: Moving the Godot Card Game Framework to an MIT License

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.

lutindiscret,
@lutindiscret@mastodon.libre-entreprise.com avatar

@db0 thanks for you work

@godot

tabular,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

MIT may attract more people… but why would that be people who would contribute back in the direct you want? I’ve seen many MIT extentions for Godot, maybe they would have some insight.

Most indie devs make their MIT Godot games proprietary and I doubt peer pressure has ever stopped companies from taking MIT work and making it proprietary before. If software freedom of your users is important then the copyleft aspect is an important way to protect their freedom. Imo, not worth losing that on the off-chance it all goes well.

anlumo,

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.

db0,
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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

Dunstabzugshaubitze,

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

db0,
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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.

Lmaydev,

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.

db0,
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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.

xananax, (edited )
@xananax@poto.cafe avatar

@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...

anlumo,

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.

xananax,
@xananax@poto.cafe avatar

@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.

Thann,
@Thann@lemmy.ml avatar

But my shadersssss

anlumo,

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.

AProfessional,

No they cannot, they have no license to your assets or trademarks. Just code.

RobotToaster,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

I’m not a gamedev, but have you considered LGPL? My understanding is it allows the use of the library in proprietary software, but still requires improvements to the library itself to be released (although without the network requirement)

db0,
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

The problem is that the CGF is not an external library, it’s becomes core part of the game. Also for people who care about this stuff, so long as the “GPL” part is there, they don’t touch it either.

anlumo,

The LGPL is inherently incompatible with anything on Apple’s App Store, so if there’s a chance that I might want to publish it there I can’t touch anything-GPL.

tabular, (edited )
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

I get what you mean but at face value that sounds like LGPL is the issue, rather than Apple.

anlumo,

Depends on your point of view. Legally it definitely is, because the LGPL stipulates that nobody is allowed to attach any restrictions on to the code above the things the LGPL restricts itself. This makes it impossible to combine with the App Store, because that store adds additional restrictions.

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