Is open sourcing a good idea?

Hi all,

I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my first)!
Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder on it, it
feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.

I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.

Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
software?
--

Best wishes,
Allen

Allen wrote:

> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
> that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
> open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
> just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
> to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
> people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.

Is it throwing it away to open source or to keep it closed? Are you
going to try and sell it? Could you? Is it just going to sit there and
do nothing until you accidentally delete it?

I personally get a kick out of seeing my download ratio rise. This
means that some of those people are actually using what I made, possibly
some are actually enjoying it (I have had feedback that says so). This
is my reward besides just the joy of coding and of using the product I
created. Eventually I do plan on selling my program, and I know that I
will be able to even though it is free online...some people like to buy
the package or don't want to be bothered to compile, especially if you
are targeting something niche.
>
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
> software?

Ownership yes, control - depends on your definition, credit the same.

Most of the time you will always get credit where due. People will be
willing to work with you and allow you to maintain control of your own
project but sometimes someone will decide to change it in a way you
disagree with and they will fork. This isn't a bad thing, you maintain
control over your own version and someone else takes it another way -
99% of the people out there are reasonable enough not to use your name
except to credit the origional.

You will always own your code. I am not sure what the legalese is when
someone contributes to your tree and you accept it, is it yours or
theirs. I would think it is yours even though they wrote it because it
is a derivative and is being given to you, but you may have to have them
do so explicitly. If you use an agreement like MIT or BSD it doesn't
even matter but with GPL you could get into trouble if you decided to
close source future versions - you might have to weed out all outside
contributions!

Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a name
that should have been reserved to said project without my permission or
even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me with
a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings. Such cases are very
dissapointing. Their project is not even on par with the popularity
mine gets though so I guess I "win" in the end; I did have to publicly
disavow their fork though because of repeated support requests for their
program comming to me - all because of the damn name issue...and of
course the fact that they advertized their program on my support forums!

I guess I am still upset :P

Most of the time this kind of crap doesn't take place but when it does
there is nothing you can legaly do about it if you have open sourced
your software. In my mind it is worth the risk because the alternative
is to not share and I don't feel that a few assholes should stop me from
doing that. I only mention the above because you shouldn't get the
wrong idea and think that the OSS world is all happy cooperating
programmers or that just because you are nice and give stuff away nobody
will try to bend you over. Most people are nice, most programmers are
cool especially in OSS, but you can't escape the jerks because they are
everywhere.

--
Noah Roberts
- "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."

> Is it throwing it away to open source or to keep it closed? Are you
> going to try and sell it? Could you? Is it just going to sit there and
> do nothing until you accidentally delete it?

Hmm.. Good response! Especially this line, but everything in general.

I think that sharing your code can be truly benefitial to yourself and
others, especially if you're not planning on making any profit of it
anyways.
Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure invention,
so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.

Roy

Roy Klein wrote:
> Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure invention,
> so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
> available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
> completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.

At one time I started writing a paper on this, the ethical reasoning to
"Intelectual Property". I never finished it though. But the gist is
similar to what you are saying. Without input from culture, previous
works, and other external public influences there is no creativity at
all. In fact, actual individual creation is a very small amount of what
goes into a new invention/song/program/whatever. So actually since you
contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you claim
ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society that
/gave/ you that idea?

In reality, the idea of intelectual "property" is a misnomer created by
the people who want to engrain into society as a whole the conclusion
that they don't have a true ethical right to these ideas/"properties".
The process of copyright/patent is a grant, from the society that
actually owns the thing, the temporarily exclusive ownership of an idea,
sort of payment for the small amount of yourself that went into it. In
a society based on trade, which we are, this sort of thing is necissary.
But society is getting robbed and brainwashed into not only giving
away its own rights to its own culture, but also into the belief that
those rights do not in fact exist.

--
Noah Roberts
- "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."

Noah Roberts wrote:
>
> Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
> inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a
> name
> that should have been reserved to said project without my permission
> or
> even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
> because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
> project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me
> with a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings.

Well let's face it, one of the main benefits of Open Source is not having to
wait on people who want to control what you can do with the code. If you
license stuff as open source, you can't reasonably expect people to march to
your timeframe. They have their business deadlines to meet that you don't
have....

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Taking risk where others will not.

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
>> So actually since
>>you contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you
>>claim ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society
>>that /gave/ you that idea?
>
>
> Because society doesn't sit around giving you ideas. Society sits around
> ripping you off for having spent a lot of your own time and money coming up
> with working solutions.

Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?


--
Noah Roberts
- "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."

Noah Roberts wrote:
> So actually since
> you contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you
> claim ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society
> that /gave/ you that idea?

Because society doesn't sit around giving you ideas. Society sits around
ripping you off for having spent a lot of your own time and money coming up
with working solutions.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Taking risk where others will not.

Allen wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my
> first)! Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder
> on it, it feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
>
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite
> certain that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm
> hesitant to open source my engine or even to share it online. It
> feels too much like just throwing away all my hard work. At the same
> time though, it's tempting to see how much improvement could be done
> to my engine with a lot more people (and with some real skills ;-)
> working on it.
>
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining
> credit/control/ownership of software?

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

Taking risk where others will not.

In article <iUolb.188905$0v4.14600513@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, "Allen" <allen-terri-ng!@#att.net> wrote:
>Hi all,
>
> I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my first)!
>Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder on it, it
>feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
>
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
>projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
>that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
>open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
>just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
>to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
>people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.

Presumably you have something that people want, or something that they
don't. If they don't, they will hardly work for free on it, but
throwing it open costs you nothing. If they do, you might get help but
it hardly seems like a good way to get paid for your work, at least in
most spheres.

> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
>software?

Credit, probably. Ownership (in the legal sense), completely. Control
- you do the math.

- Gerry Quinn

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
>>Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
>>inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a
>>name
>>that should have been reserved to said project without my permission
>>or
>>even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
>>because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
>>project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me
>>with a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings.
>
>
> Well let's face it, one of the main benefits of Open Source is not having to
> wait on people who want to control what you can do with the code. If you
> license stuff as open source, you can't reasonably expect people to march to
> your timeframe. They have their business deadlines to meet that you don't
> have....
>

1) Who said this had anything to do with business deadlines, or anything
to do with businesses in the first place? However, you point is correct
- you can't expect that people won't be in such a hurry that they can't
wait and need to come up with it on their own. But you can reasonably
expect some courtesy.

2) When you are writing something on a voulanteer basis in the time not
speant trying to eat, some things get placed on a back burner. Had this
person come to me before hiring someone to implement something I was
going to anyway, I may have altered my priorities. This seems like
common decency to me, you at least offer - then if they don't want to
put a rush on hire some outsider to do it.

I think you are making a lot of assumptions about something you know
next to nothing about.

--
Noah Roberts
- "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."