The magic of sharing: Why you should open source

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#26

I would point out that the reason most of the projects you stated remain proprietary are for another reason then reuse of code. Windows is closed source because it is a paid product. Mac OS X is designed to only be used on Apple approved products, IE just theirs. I don’t think, either, that is compatible to compare these products to an open source Roblox game.

A calculator may seem small, but have you used VSCode? How about TypeScript? Or the windows command line? They pretty big. And let’s not forget the big player here: Linux. In my opinion, Linux is very revolutionary, especially the way it went public. If an open source project powering half the web isn’t revolutionary, I don’t understand what is.

By default, Roblox games are free to play, with what are essentially micro transactions. Open sourcing something like that is a lot different to open sourcing a proprietary, paid use operating system. Paid products and open source do not fit well together, without a lot of legal effort and a good community. In the end, what would be the point if you stop people from exercising the freedoms they want. Why write a book if you don’t allow people to read it?

Sadly, if you see no benefit, I have lost you. Your opinion is your opinion, and that’s fine. I am of the opinion that there are huge benefits to open sourcing part, if not all, of your code. I believe in open source, certain others, like yourself, do not. That leads to a healthy discussion and is what makes the world go round (obviously not literally).

@Scriptos

I completely agree, I’m not entirely sure why the title included uncopylocking, when I spent most of the article (and my replies) talking about better methods. To avoid more replies and controversy about uncopylocking, I am considering removing “The magic of uncopylocking” entirely. It was meant to be a catchy title that drew people to the thread, but instead backfired on me, causing quite a bit of confusion. I suppose clear is better than catchy.

To be clear to anybody else reading, this article is about what open source as a method of collaboration and development can do to benefit you, not why you should uncopylock and entire place. Asset stealing and allowing reuse of assets is a different issue, one of which I could get into a lot, but won’t to keep this relatively brief.

Also, I’ve seen some replies saying they agree with scripts, but not game assets. Again, this is meant to be about scripts and other related “infrastructure”. I do not think you should suddenly start sharing all your buildings as free models. They are reused unfairly, without credit and violating the original creator’s rights. Be selective, as said many times before, and make the decision for yourself. Is open source for you? I simply aim to point out why it might be.

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#27

I’d argue that you can write a book and allow people to read it, but they may not know the thought process behind the creation of the book.

If we have no intentions of open sourcing a game, so that people can aid in “bug fixes” like what would be useful in development tools like mentioned above, I still see no point. If I want help with something, I’d ask, not send the entire game.

Yes, I use VSCode. The reason it is open source, I believe, is to make it easier for people to create plugins and support different types of debuggers. I completely understand this decision, and think it’s great.

Another reason why I don’t support open source for these types of things, and it seems like we agree. I have created many legitimate services on Roblox before, and I have sold them to users. Do you think it would be a good idea to expose my source code? Not at all.

Still don’t see a point of “Why you should open source.” In many specific cases, yes, it is good to open source. But not always, and you yourself have pointed this out. And it applies to some cases on Roblox as well.

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#28

Uncopylocking a place will in no way stop people from stealing it.

Let’s imagine Phantom Forces got officially uncopylocked. The first thing that would happen is an emergence of a multitude of up-to-date clones.

Dealing with law when it comes to digital property theft is already difficult and time consuming, but open-sourcing your project will completelly remove all your chances to take a copy down within a reasonable period as the thief will have complete rights to use the code.

Also, a new developer can easily be shadowed by a better known place thief.

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#30

I would like to open source everything I create because I believe in the open source mindset, but in some cases like:

because I would only want ethical uses of my code, not to harm me or other developers. I really only believe in open sourcing because its how I started coding. I pulled things from the toolbox and looked at them and tried to figure out how they work. If it wasn’t for the sharing / open sourcing mindset, I most likely wouldn’t be here making this message right now. I try to open source anyway because in my opinion, if your looking for an open source, your trying to learn something and not be malicious with it, so I give people the benefit of the doubt.

Also:

For anyone who needs more proof, there are tons of projects that are open source:
https://www.chromium.org/

Last thing:

LOL “part”! Android is fully open source:

#31

Android is fully open source because it was licensed as such before google took it over. There is also the fact that it is just a linux distribution at its core (at least it used to be), meaning that its base is already available to everyone. There is also the ability to modify pretty much anything.

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#32

I feel like open sourcing is a risky choice, a lot of people can find exploits in your games code (like what @Intended_Pun said) but any contributors who also find those exploits can create a pull request and fix any of these exploits. It’s definitely a double edged sword.

#33

I partly agree, you don’t ever have to open source your entire project; such as Google Chrome may be entirely open source but it doesn’t mean the backend API on Google’s website is open source and etc.

The point of this thread was to share why you should open source things that would not affect you or your game’s security.

I believe if you find a new discovery and it would not affect you or your game (or project) in any way then it’s worth sharing with others so they can learn.

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#35

I love it when devs open source their games, or make a kit to help you make something similar, it allows you to be creative, and think of ways to redo some of it, or add on to what is there, take in for instance how Berezaa open sourced both Miners Haven and his infinite mining game kit, this can lead many younger devs, and people like me getting into this, finally, to understand this complex world of code in a simple view, ive learned tons from these, and wish to see more follow.

#36

For me, I really want to start being an open source developer once I finish learning scripting, I find that it will help the community a lot. However, I do have one question. Is there a way to get the open source initiative license for Roblox?

#37

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 1 hour unless flagged)

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#38

First and foremost I want to thank you for this post.
I want you to know at the time I read this I was not even able to post on these forums.
As a developer, I struggled with knowing which way I wanted to go with my games and what role I wanted to play in Roblox’s development.

Your post inspired me and I later created the group “Open Source Revival Project” which I devote to bettering the open-source community. I’ve been a part of open-source projects and I’ve seen the wonderful things that can come of it. So now, many months later as I am able to post on these forums and have happened across this post again I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you.

Now as I am fairly confident I get your meaning, though I’m not sure everyone reading and replying did I want to share my take from this and what I turned it into.

  • Open-sourcing is not about developing a game that’s also uncopylocked.
    Examples of healthy open-sourcing:

  1. If you have a game that is dead, you’d like to see someone do something with all or part of it, you can share that with the community and allow it as a learning resource. As you’ve left that game behind you are losing nothing by this but you are giving back and allowing your work to continue on in other aspiring developers or possibly even your fans who want to keep the game going.

  2. Sometimes we all build stuff we never put to good use. Maybe it was something on a wild whim one day we needed and didn’t have but then decided not to follow that through. Maybe it was a beautiful model we made but never put it in any game. There are probably enough trash projects in abandoned folders on developer’s computers right now to make hundreds or thousands of amazing games.

I don’t imagine many games that are built for profit running as open-source during their profitable development lifetime. Personally, I would not open source a full game in development simply because of how easy that would make for hackers to exploit it.

However, I do know that open source can be powerful in many ways. You give developers the resources needed that will improve the overall quality of games. You can learn and teach other developers new perspectives and ways to achieve various tasks and empower your community to improve and grow.

How many developers spent vast amounts of time trying to figure out trade vs. looking at an open-source trade system, figuring out what works for you and what doesn’t and maybe even improving on it applying what you’ve learned to someone else’s code.

I have taken open-source code and improved it as well as shared code with others. I hope to build a successful community for sharing. This is not only a noble concept and it’s not dependant on some perfect world scenario to thrive. Sharing ideas, code, and resources so the entire community can grow and improve is not just some novel concept for daydreaming and I’m fairly certain that encouragement for sharing and open source is the direction Builderman intended.

Anyway to the OP I would like to once again say thank you and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I have changed my direction from closed source branded content to one of sharing and I hope there are others who follow suite.

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