Reading Linux

Open source is better, because :
-> you can earn cash on tech support for your product
-> open source projects are very often updated = lots of work for programmers.
-> you can be amazed how many people can donate to your project out of their good will. if your project is good enough.
-> you get in touch with the customer instead of stupid PR companies :d

OSS is a great model for games. This is for one simple reason: you can release the source code for the game under an open-source license, but that doesn't mean you have to give the art / levels / characters / etc. away for free.

so the game actually is not fully OSS.

actually OSS is not really good model for a game. it's not fun to see a game slowly gain quality and lose bugs. people expect some decent functionality at the very start from trying a game. it's supposed to entertain, right?

"Life is a queue. You come in, hang around for a bit, get some service, then depart."

-> you can be amazed how many people can donate to your project out of their good will. if your project is good enough.

The definition of 'good' is purely speculative. You can have a good project and there could be a whole group of people that don't think it has any importance at all. I'd bet that there are few people getting real donations that have more modest size projects. Now I'm sure the top 10 projects on sourceforge are getting plenty of donations.

This post was edited by majic on May 24, 2005.

so the game actually is not fully OSS.

This is not my understanding of "Open Source." Open Source refers to the program source code, not to the data files that are (in the case of games) required to run the software. After all, many consider older games (like Quake, Quake 2) to have been open-sourced by their original designers (under the GPL, no less), but they do not include the data files for the game. You must obtain those yourself, presumably by having a copy of the original game. And I'd bet that id still holds copyrights on their data files (e.g., maps, models, etc.), and wouldn't take kindly to someone putting them out on the Internet for free.

actually OSS is not really good model for a game. it's not fun to see a game slowly gain quality and lose bugs. people expect some decent functionality at the very start from trying a game. it's supposed to entertain, right?

I can see your point in this regard. However, I was thinking more along the lines of a game development company working in standard fashion, except they release the code when (or sometime after) they release the game. Most game companies would not release their code to the public before the game is complete, I wouldn't think. They aren't trying to get additional programmers or help from the community; they are trying to develop a game and sell it. I just think it might be beneficial to the community if they would release the source code at some point, as id did with Quake / Quake 2. Doing so breathed new life into the games, and id had nothing to lose by releasing the source code.

Aside: OSS should not really be regarded as a way to obtain cheap or large amounts of labor. I "administrate" an OSS game project myself. The administration part is easy, because I am the only one working on the project. I am releasing it open-source (LGPL), not because I want people to work for me for free, but because I am using the project to learn different aspects of game development. For me, it's a learning project. Thus, it's not something I'm developing to sell (at least not at this point). Thus, since I'm not planning on selling it, I figure there's no reason for me NOT to release the source code.

[Shameless advertising: That said, if anybody's interested in working on the project, let me know. :)]

-> open source projects are very often updated = lots of work for programmers

Two words: Mine's not... ;)

Seriously, though, open source projects are often done in developers' spare time. Thus, if they have more important things (e.g., school, work, family, etc.), they don't always have time to work on their projects and release updates. Other things take priority, as they well should. For me, it's school. I just recently updated my project website and source code; it had been two months since my last update. I just had to take care of my schoolwork and other things that came up in my personal life. Granted, large projects (e.g., Crystal Space, Apache, etc.) that have numerous developers working simultaneously will likely be quite actively developed. However, I would think that it's rare, especially for smaller projects, to have frequent updates.

-> you can earn cash on tech support for your product

My response: Maybe. That certainly works, and many companies (esp. Linux distro companies, like Red Hat, Novell, etc.) make money that way. That philosophy works when the intended audience / customer is corporations that don't want to hire IT staff and such to make sure their servers are working.

However, I still do not see how such a business plan works for the individual, Joe Customer. With rare exceptions, I do not see how many of them are going to be interested in purchasing tech support for their software. If the software doesn't work, then they'll try something else (and likely post bad reviews to websites about the software they used to use). Most cases, unless it's something mission-critical to them (which is rare for the individual), they wouldn't usually buy tech support for the product, simply because they don't need it and won't use it very often, if at all. I certainly wouldn't. I use the Dr. Google method of tech support... ;)

-> you can be amazed how many people can donate to your project out of their good will. if your project is good enough.

This can be true. I agree with majic, how do you define a "good project"? And I can assure you that there are numerous "good" projects out there that do their jobs and such, but aren't as well-known as a Samba or Apache, so they don't get many donators.

Furthermore, I don't see how you can particularly make a business plan based on donations. If you're planning on using OSS for your livelyhood, you have to be able to roughly predict how much money you're going to make from your software. Relying solely on donations makes that difficult, IMO - you might get a lot of donations from people the month your project gets labeled Sourceforge Project of the Month, and bupkis the rest of the year. Difficult way to make a living, let alone run a business.

A primary difficulty with donation-based funding lies in the answer to a question. The question I pose to you, Mr. Yoshi (and anyone else who's made it this far into the post), is if you were running a software company, which would you rather have: 1000 corporations buying a copy of your software for $1000 apiece, or 100,000 individuals buying a copy of your software for $10 apiece? And, the obligatory "why?" :)

Now after this, you and others may think that I am anti-OSS. I assure you I am not, but I don't consider OSS the end-all, be-all in software development, licensing, and promotion / selling, either. Like most things, it has areas where it really shines (e.g., as many said a while back, making custom solutions for customers based on open-source software), and it has its shortcomings in other areas. But companies are figuring out how to make it work to their advantage, even to where they are profiting. And more power to them, I say, as well as to those of you who are managing your own small OSS projects. You never know whether yours could become the next Samba or Apache.

I'll see your two cents, and raise you a dollar... :)

I can see your point in this regard. However, I was thinking more along the lines of a game development company working in standard fashion, except they release the code when (or sometime after) they release the game. Most game companies would not release their code to the public before the game is complete, I wouldn't think. They aren't trying to get additional programmers or help from the community; they are trying to develop a game and sell it. I just think it might be beneficial to the community if they would release the source code at some point, as id did with Quake / Quake 2. Doing so breathed new life into the games, and id had nothing to lose by releasing the source code.

yeah i agree with that model.

Aside: OSS should not really be regarded as a way to obtain cheap or large amounts of labor.

well that's what netscape thought in the 90's :] go OSS to have more developers and save the freedom of standards.

-> open source projects are very often updated = lots of work for programmers

Two words: Mine's not... ;)

i thought of comparison described in Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar". Commercial product is developed by small group of programmers, they have a set of goals to achieve, they work for a long time before they release something. and time between releases is relatively long. (like with cathedrals, right?)
Open Source is rapidly developed, releases can happen even daily, and feedback is usually very good.

A primary difficulty with donation-based funding lies in the answer to a question. The question I pose to you, Mr. Yoshi (and anyone else who's made it this far into the post), is if you were running a software company, which would you rather have: 1000 corporations buying a copy of your software for $1000 apiece, or 100,000 individuals buying a copy of your software for $10 apiece? And, the obligatory "why?" :)

mr.yoshi :]
if i would sell software i would rather go for individuals. big companies cannot be trusted, you know. they might steal your code and stuff. and then sue you to death.

it also depends on what i would sell. if it was some enterprise software i would propably have no choice but to sell it to comapnies. i think trolltech has a nice solution to this problem (developers of Qt library, e.g. opera browser uses it) - they give source code to people who make OSS projects, and they sell licenses to companies that develop commercial products. i guess that's what i would do. make money and promote open source at the same time. if i had such a useful product like trolltech does :]

"Life is a queue. You come in, hang around for a bit, get some service, then depart."