Cross-platform game engine Defold has announced that the source code is now available under a reasonably generous license, along with the formation of a Defold Foundation.
It's interesting as the owner was King, a popular mobile game developer (Candy Crush amongst others) who also acquired the Defold engine from others before them. It was already free to use and cross-platform but the next step was announced today.
"We are immensely proud to be able to open source Defold and we’re eager to start the journey as an open source game engine together with our great community of game developers building games using Defold. We would also wish to thank King for believing in our open source vision and entrusting Defold to the Defold Foundation." says Björn Ritzl, Product Owner, the Defold Foundation.
"We’re hugely impressed by the Defold team, and look forward to seeing many great gaming experiences come to life. We’ve seen millions of players already playing the King games run on the Defold engine and we’re excited to see the community come together even more, with the support of the Defold Foundation." says Tjodolf Sommestad, Chief Development Officer, King.
Note: their license is derived from the official Apache 2.0 License. The Apache 2.0 License itself is approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), although I'm unsure on how any of their tweaks to it would affect the official use of the "Open Source" term. Likely not properly correct to actually call it open source but it's close. This is likely another "Source Available" type of situation. It's still fantastic news regardless.
This new Defold development team and Foundation sounds good. Developers from King will be working on Defold full-time, with the Foundation board headed by Sara Cederberg from King and other industry people like Elin Eriksson (Women in Tech Sweden).
Excellent news really. I'm looking forward to seeing Defold continue to be a good free and open game engine. Not only does it support cross-platform building to Linux but the editor is also available on Linux to make games with. It's also getting Vulkan API support this year!
Find out more about Defold on the official site and now GitHub too.
As an example of a recent (and awesome) game made with Defold, check out Fates of Ort.
Update: the Defold team have since quite quickly acted on feedback, and no longer say it's open source but that it's "Free & Open" instead.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
You are free to commercialise any software created using Defold... but:
You can not commercialise original or modified (derivative) versions of the Defold editor and/or engine
Therefore I don't think it qualifies according to OSI definition due to rule 3:
3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
So in other words: it's not Free (as in freedom), it's free (as in beer), with source released license which is pretty permissive and close to Open Source definition.
I bet it will be a good choice for many developers despite of this.
You are free to distribute original or modified (derivative) versions of DefoldSo they adhere to rule 3 ;)
a) You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works as a
Game Engine Product; and
Any software that has the dreaded "NC" (Non-Commercial) restriction is by definition not open source. I must add that people that try to prevent the huge benefit of using the code for profit do not understand the very idea of open source. Commercial gain is the most important incentive for people to work on the code and the best leverage for it to be popular.
This is a peculiar one. They don't allow you to make a derived game engine a commercial product, but they do allow you to make a commercial product using a derived game engine. Is this really a problem for free software?
Is it allowed to make a fork of GCC and sell the resulting product?
Is it allowed to make a fork of GCC and sell the resulting product?Yes. That's why it is called Free software.
They do not adhere to rule 3, because forks can be distributed only under non-commercial license (unlike Defold itself).Rule 3 doesn't state it has to allow commercial works though, it's simply about allowing the same license, which it does. Don't mix that up with other OSI rules about commercial works, which would go under point number 1 i believe.
No, rule 6 is about what it's used for, not the redistribution of it.Actually, they're pretty clear on it:But not to rule 6, which says "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" -- in this case, commercialising the derived software. It is NOT open source.
You are free to distribute original or modified (derivative) versions of DefoldSo they adhere to rule 3 ;)
It seems like the only rule they don't fit in with is rule 1, because as a whole they don't allow you to sell it on. In this case, they're like 99% close to the OSI definition bar that 1 thing. Close enough?
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 19 May 2020 at 10:48 am UTC
No, rule 6 is about what it's used for, not the redistribution of it.
It's iffy, if I make a painting program in it, I may not be able to sell it, since it can be used for game development.
Last edited by ignaloidas on 19 May 2020 at 11:06 am UTC
Their license is clear on things made with it, they're yours.No, rule 6 is about what it's used for, not the redistribution of it.
It's iffy, if I make a painting program in it, I may not be able to sell it, since it can be used for game development.
You are free to commercialise any software created using DefoldI don't think you can be any clearer on that, for software made using it.
Edit: Digging further, they do need to clarify the actual license text, you're right on that as Remi from Godot pointed out on Twitter.
I've updated the article title and text to be a bit clearer.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 19 May 2020 at 11:21 am UTC
They give you the sources to run that locally, but who wants to add "manage a docker instance" to their game development workflow?
Otherwise, the engine looks really interesting, with plenty of tutorials and seemingly quite thorough documentation :) Seems like a great option for people who want to use it for its primary use-case (developing 2D games).
On the plus side, when I saw the headline I thought "It's probably some dying thing and the owners said 'What can we get out of this any more?' and concluded 'About all it's good for is a bit of community good will if we open source it'". But it doesn't seem to be that kind of abandonware at all.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 19 May 2020 at 6:38 pm UTC
Makes me think you should have a legal advisor on GOL staff Liam.Maybe he'll find a legal professional willing to work for exposure?
Makes me think you should have a legal advisor on GOL staff Liam.Maybe he'll find a legal professional willing to work for exposure?
Made me make a sound of amusement irl.
Update: the Defold team have since quite quickly acted on feedback, and no longer say it's open source but that it's "Free & Open" instead.
Arguably that sounds worse. It muddies the waters. When "free" and "open" get used together, "free" usually means freedom. And "open" in software context means open-source or open data or open-hardware. This is neither. It is either a form of source-available or a form of open-source (the debate here seems to lean towards the former).
But alas, marketing and proper names of things cannot exist together... :(
Our use of the term open source has certainly sparked *a lot* of negative feedback. We used open source in a colloquial sense (if there is such as thing!), and not according to the criteria set up by the OSD. There was no ill-intent and we are truly sorry if we upset people. We have made multiple changes to the site and to how we label Defold, we have tweeted about it and we have been in touch with the president of the OSI to discuss the controversy. You can read about the changes we made here: https://defold.com/2020/05/20/Some-thoughts-on-the-open-source-discussion/
If you have any questions regarding Defold I'm happy to answer them here!
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me