You can help fund the Unreal Engine Editor development specifically for Linux compatibility

Name me one person who has made a living on code they gave to a GPL project?

Ever heard of Linus Torvalds? And he's not the only one getting paid to work on GPL licensed software. Several software companies have built their businesses around open source software and pay their employees or other companies to work on them.


Last edited by tuubi on 13 September 2016 at 9:07 am UTC

Well he now gets $183 a month from 36 people, that's already pretty impressive.

We can all hope and dream that Epic had a more open license, but they were originally much more closed off and something like this would never have even been remotely possible.

The fact is this all directly benefits us. We are the gamers who benefit from UE4 having better Linux support, it's win-win right now.

We are the gamers who benefit from UE4 having better Linux support, it's win-win right now.

The discussions here mostly miss the point that this is about fixing the shortcomings of the UE4 Editor under Linux (compared to the Windows version). Better UE4 (Runtime/Games) Linux support is just a not-explicitly excluded possibility ( "might even" ).
Probably means if a lot more devs use the Linux editor, fixing bugs in the UE4 Linux runtime could gain a higher priority than it has currently.
So the Article headline is quite misleading.

work more on the GNUX side to enhance the Editor to get closer to the same user experience as on Windows. This will make the Unreal Engine 4 better as developer platform and might even beneficial for the games.

Update: What I said above could be seen as negative towards the funding, which I'm not, just precising what this is all about.

At least everybody who is annoyed about Bugs in the Linux editor (or even can not use it because of bugs), should probably help fund this guy.


Last edited by Stebs on 13 September 2016 at 11:35 am UTC

The discussions here mostly miss the point that this is about fixing the shortcomings of the UE4 Editor under Linux (compared to the Windows version).
<...>
At least everybody who is annoyed about Bugs in the Linux editor (or even can not use it because of bugs), should probably help fund this guy.

Good point. I've pledged and hope the editor becomes usable. Not that I'm into gamedev (at least for now), but I wanted to play with UE4 and it was totally unstable and crashing after simple editing of a default project. Just imagine if some time in the future it would be good enough to develop on Linux full time!

Unity is fine and I heard its editor is already working on Linux. But the problem is that it's closed source and behind the paywall. Paying to the Unity devs just isn't good enough, they spend money for what they consider important. And for me personally better Linux performance, stability and properly working shaders is the priority. But I can't do much except from whining on the forums where developers don't even answer or care (looking at you, Dreamfall Chapters).

UE4 is opensource, though not free software, and it allows us, Linux gamers, to vote with our wallets by sponsoring or hiring devs that do what WE need, not THEM Epics. The best part is that the result is available for everyone, not just Epic or some specific game developer (if they patched the engine for their own game only). I always try to invest into software improvement for everyone, not for myself only. That way the greater good in the world hugely increases and I just feel good.


Last edited by rkfg on 13 September 2016 at 1:40 pm UTC

So the Article headline is quite misleading.

I disagree, since the editor is a massive part of the engine itself.

The editor is what people use to build games, the editor is the engine essentially. I get what you mean though, it's not misleading but it could have been a little more clear. I have updated it to make sure this is the case.

Edit: To be even clearer, this community developer got the Vulkan renderer to work on Linux, that is the engine itself directly. Which is part of my point.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 13 September 2016 at 2:11 pm UTC

I'm kinda torn on this one. On the one hand I would love to support all efforts to improve the engine for GNUX (that is catchy), on the other hand this is a commercial product with a commercial licence so donating feels like throwing money at Epic for nothing. If they released it under a free licence (MIT/GPL/etc., not too picky) I would not hesitate.

You really just said a closed source engine is better then an engine you have code access to?

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion. It is the exact opposite of what I meant.

Might wanna highlight the part saying this is an independent dev in the article.

As in, this is not Epic Games who are asking for money (unless it's a front, but y'know).

I mean, seriously:

I am one of the community developer that contributed to the Unreal Engine 4

Learn to read, people.

I think most of us here can read just fine. But this is what I (and probably many others) see happening here:

1. Epic sells product
2. Developer spends time improving said product that neither he/she nor the community owns
3. Community spends money supporting dev from 2
4. Product improves
5. Epic can now do any of the following:
- raise prices - product is better now
- start tracking users and selling their data
- sell out to Microsoft, stop supporting GNUX
- make source code unavailable
- discontinue development
- go bankrupt - product is lost
- absolutely anything at all

Now you may not think any of the potential points are very likely (I don't think many of them are likely either) but that's not the point.

The point is: This is a commercial product that belongs to Epic. They have all the power, they make the choices on what happens and they are strengthened through the community's money. All positive side effects for the community depend entirely on the good will of Epic and will only last as long as that lasts.

This is what I meant when I said "throwing money at Epic for nothing".

This seems to be another one of those "free software vs. open source", "DRM-free vs. DRM", "offline vs. always-on" style debates and judging by the responses I've seen so far, it seems to be quite a polarising issue for the community here.

Tim Sweeney is crying like a little bitch about Windows store, he should put a money where his mouth is and add first class citizen Linux support into UE4.

Whoever donate money to this guy is a traitor!

Tim Sweeney is crying like a little bitch about Windows store, he should put a money where his mouth is and add first class citizen Linux support into UE4.

Whoever donate money to this guy is a traitor!

Why traitor?

Might wanna highlight the part saying this is an independent dev in the article.

As in, this is not Epic Games who are asking for money (unless it's a front, but y'know).

I mean, seriously:

I am one of the community developer that contributed to the Unreal Engine 4

Learn to read, people.

In the very first sentence I say they are a community contributor.

Linux, as always, has come a very long way. There have never been a lack of people saying that it was going to die and it still keeps gaining share. I don't know about anyone else, but as a home user of Linux, I'd like to eventually see it gain a larger share of that market. We're far from it, but not as far as we once were. A whole lot of sacrifices were made and a whole lot of risks were taken getting to this point, and a whole lot more will get us further. It's not impossible. In fact, the hegemony of Windows is destined to break down at some point. They got to where they are by exploiting ignorance, but people are becoming less and less ignorant about technology. (I'm not saying that Windows will completely go away, either. That's not the point. It can continue to have overall market dominance, yet have to share more of that market with larger shares for other viable platforms, which for now is down to two.)

Speaking of those sacrifices and risks, I've seen quite a few of them come from commercial developers. For many of them, the risk taken did not pay off (I miss you, Lokigames), but there are always more wanting to take that risk. Some of it might be personal affinity for Linux, but I think at least some of it comes from smart people hoping that their effort will help to push Linux into being a more viable alternative where, down the road (knock on wood and keep your fingers crossed), it could not only be a viable alternative, but it could be one without 'gatekeepers' like Microsoft and even Apple making unreasonable demands and limitations on them, which could even force Microsoft and Apple to act better.

But how to do it? Some companies want to take the chance, but they look for ways that they can be met partway. Well, Linux is fairly well populated by a large number of "I'll do it myself" individuals who are even eager for the chance to help the situation. An example of this is the individual mentioned in the article. Like it or not, Unreal is one of the biggest engines out there and the better it works on and with Linux, the better it is for all of us... if, of course, we want to reach the point where this kind of thing will no longer be necessary/expected. For those who have been Linux users and gamers for a while, think of all those nifty games made with Unreal Engine 3 that we didn't have a HOPE of getting. (I know there were a few examples to the contrary, but those engines were heavily modified by the developers who used it and there was ultimately little monetary gain for the amount of work put in.)

Basically, when I can budget for it, I'll see about tossing a few bucks this guy's way. He's cool. I want to thank him. (Man, that's two Patreons I gotta budget for now.) If in ten years Linux ports have become a standard thing, I'll think back to this and remember that he was one of the folk who got us there.

I just found out about this and have added my support, the guy is now up to $565 per month of his target $1k, and good luck to him. As Silas above said the potential impact of his contributions is HUGE, if it becomes simple and cost effective for a games developer to add support for Linux/Vulkan in Unreal 4, and some of the bigger games get native support, or easily ported, we get more games, more people will then take Linux seriously as a PC gaming platform, which will make it more profitable for developers, which in turn will attract more people to try Linux.

All the major engines are getting Vulkan support built into them, the next step then is Linux platform support and that could have an enormous impact on the number of games we get.

Obviously it would be better if Epic themselves were adding support, but allowing community contributions is a bit unusual, and it makes sense I think in todays risk-averse gaming industry, there is a crowd funding community that are happy to sponsor these less profitable endeavours and it can only benefit the community if it is successful.