Godot Engine now has its own dedicated Foundation for funding

The free and open source game engine Godot Engine continues to grow, and now the team behind it has formed a Godot Foundation to continue funding it.

Previously they teamed up with the Software Freedom Conservancy charity, who handled the donations and ensured it was used correctly but as they've constantly grown, they feel the need to run it themselves now. In a blog post from founder Juan Linietsky, they noted having their own organization gives them the "opportunity to explore broader funding sources" while mentioning crowdfunding like Blender and Krita do.

On top of that, a "highly requested" ability for users to be able to sell assets through some sort of asset library, with a share going to the new Godot Foundation. Having merchandise is also an option and other miscellaneous extra forms of funding.

Linietsky also believes that doing all this will "project a stronger image of the Godot Project, which will allow us to have stronger footing when negotiating big donations with donors". Additionally "we want the Foundation to serve as a home for community initiatives, by allowing it to have its own funding lines (this means, so they can raise funding on their own for a specific goal, but the Foundation receives and uses it according to what was agreed), such as initiatives to promote education, communication and diversity".

All sounds reasonable and just goes to show how popular Godot has become that they can now do this. This is all on top of the formation of W4 Games, which is their company to commercially support Godot that raised quite a lot of money recently.