
Defold game engine source now available and free to use for commercial games - vlaaad
https://defold.com/opensource/
======
minxomat
This is quite good news, to say the least. This is one of the most well-
integrated, sensible engines and development environments I've ever used.

Can't wait to patch more native moonscript support into a fork :evil:

If you want to see an overview of a somewhat typical and polished mobile game
done with Defold, here's a non-King dev showing off his work:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK4pJ8A3YS4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK4pJ8A3YS4)

Also, in relevant news, Corona (the other major Lua game engine[1]) is also
being open-sourced, and renamed to Solar2D:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22326462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22326462)

[1] with dev ecosystem of extensions, build services etc - without that Love2D
might also qualify

~~~
skocznymroczny
Is the name change related with coronavirus in any way? As in it's considered
a negative brand right now?

~~~
barbecue_sauce
Corona and Isis are two common branding gotos that will now be forever out-of-
favor.

Also, you probably can't name anything COVID, but I think that's a less likely
scenario.

~~~
airstrike
I do wonder what will happen to the beer...

~~~
qz_
It's already been renamed to Coronita here in the Netherlands

~~~
freehunter
Are you sure that’s the reason why? I can buy both Corona and Coronita, the
difference is the size of the bottle. -ita in Spanish means “little” so
Coronita bottles are 210ml while a bottle of Corona is 330ml.

~~~
ciceryadam
all while in colder beer drinking climates, the small beers are 330ml, and
regular ones are 500ml :)

------
britzl
We are humbled by the mostly positive reactions to the news we shared earlier
today but also sorry for misrepresenting the license under which we make the
source code available. Defold is a free and open game engine with a permissive
license. The source code is available on GitHub and we invite the community to
contribute.

We have updated the website to reflect this and we no longer use the term
"Open Source" as to not confuse it with the OSD.

The Defold license, complete with a summary of what you can and cannot do, can
be seen on our license page:
[https://defold.com/license/](https://defold.com/license/)

We have also Tweeted this:
[https://twitter.com/defold/status/1262744466311360517](https://twitter.com/defold/status/1262744466311360517)

~~~
ddevault
Hey britzl, I appreciate the attempt to compromise on the terminology here.
But, this falls flat pretty badly. "Free and open" is still trying to
capitalize on the "free and open source" brand, and is going to mislead people
into thinking it uses a FOSS license - seemingly deliberately. Can't you just
call it "source available", which is the term we use for this kind of
licensing model?

It's really not okay to be capitalizing on the FOSS brand without being FOSS.
It's a kick in the groin to the FOSS community when companies do this.

~~~
fluffything
You seem to be confusing whether something is "open source" with "what kind of
license does the code have".

Something being "open source" does not imply anything about its license.

Suggesting that only GPL-like software is allowed to use the term "open
source" is crazy. It doesn't reflect the world we live in at all: there are
thousands of projects on github without a license, or with some "free for non-
military use"-type of license, or MIT/BSD-like licenses...

EDIT: "the obvious meaning for the expression “open source software”—and the
one most people seem to think it means—is “You can look at the source code.”
(Richard Stallman, GNU Philosophy: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-
source-misses-the-point....](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-
misses-the-point.html) ). Not that Stallman did much better with "free
software", which as the article argues, has the obvious meaning that 'the
software is "for free"'.

Having to avoid expressions like "free software" or "open source" because two
organizations decided to appropriate common english expressions to give them a
complicated meaning is nuts.

~~~
mindcrime
_This project does not have a GPLv3 license,_

And? There are a lot of Open Source licenses, and even Free Sofware licenses
besides GPLv3.

 _but neither does LLVM (and many people do not consider LLVM to be free
software_

Note that "Free Software" and "Open Source" are different - albeit related -
things.

 _nor the dozens projects on Github that don 't have a license at all, or that
have a license of the form "Free for non-commercial purposes" or the millions
of flavors of that ("Free for non-military use", etc.)._

And those things are not Open Source. They may be "Source Available", or
"Shared Source" or "Something Else", but "Open Source" has a de facto
definition of "uses a license which is OSD compliant."

~~~
sszz
That there is any significant confusion at all means it is not de facto (and
if something is right and true based on a definition I don’t think you can
call it de facto either...).

The distinction really doesn’t seem that important for most use cases so it’s
not that surprising a weaker, possibly more useful interpretation has become
common...

~~~
mindcrime
_That there is any significant confusion at all means it is not de facto_

There isn't any significant confusion. There is a token amount of confusion,
which is pretty much always clarified every time one of these threads comes
up.

 _(and if something is right and true based on a definition I don’t think you
can call it de facto either...)._

It's de facto, not de jure, because OSI has no authority to enforce their
definition, since they don't have a trademark (at least not a registered
trademark) on the term "Open Source". What makes it the de facto definition is
just usage. By and large, among the people who care about the legal details of
Open Source licensing, the OSD is accepted. Yes, there are a handful of
exceptions, but that's OK. It doesn't change the basic point.

~~~
sszz
I guess in my experience, the phrase is routinely used to refer to code
availability and often the fact that a licensing fee doesn’t need to be
negotiated or paid in order to run the code on our servers (either in an
academic or corporate setting), which is a weaker requirement than the OSI
definition.

Real usage by real people not particularly passionate about adherence to the
OSI definition—to me this is its de facto meaning. I’m not saying it’s correct
usage, but it’s definitely real and frequent.

It’s my impression a non-negligible number of people share the same
understanding, evidence by the fact that this discussion apparently is
recurring? Even those who corrected the Defold release language knew what was
intended, even if they said it was incorrect usage of the phrase.

Your response assumed the number of people who use the phrase with a looser
meaning is small; I just don’t think that is true based on my day to day
experiences.

~~~
mindcrime
_Real usage by real people not particularly passionate about adherence to the
OSI definition—to me this is its de facto meaning._

I'm not talking about "people who are particularly passionate about adherence
to the OSI definition" though. I'm talking about people who are "particularly
interested in the actual technicalities of what OSS is", not all of whom may
agree with the OSD. But I still argue that such a significant majority _do_
that it constitutes the de facto definition.

 _Your response assumed the number of people who use the phrase with a looser
meaning is small;_

Not at all. I am saying that the people using that phrase in the "looser"
sense, as you put it, are using it in a colloquial and not technical sense,
and that such usage has no meaning as far as what the de facto meaning is,
when used in an actual technical context. That's just lack of knowledge, not
any attempt to create a different definition.

I see it more like somebody who doesn't know much about cars referring to an
engine block as a carburetor. Even if a lot of people make that same mistake,
it's still a mistake and the actual definitions of "engine block" and
"carburetor" don't change.

------
fenwick67
King's unsavory handling of trademark disputes (trademarking "Candy" and
"Saga" and voraciously enforcing it against games like The Banner Saga and
CandySwipe [which came out before Candy Crush]) is gonna steer me clear of
this one.

~~~
AGulev
Defold is not King anymore. A quote from the official web site: "game engine,
has been transferred to the Defold Foundation"

~~~
fenwick67
4 of the 5 listed board members work for King today, and King (as a company)
has a seat on the board.

~~~
britzl
Not sure how you are counting. Romain and Sara work for King. Elin is a
consultant. Björn (me) and Mathias have left King to work on behalf of the
foundation.

This makes me realise that I need to update my LinkedIn profile if anyone
bothers to check it!

~~~
fenwick67
I was just looking at
[https://defold.com/foundation/](https://defold.com/foundation/) , it says
Mathias "has spent the last 4 years at King" and that you became a product
owner at King in 2018, I assumed you both still worked there since it doesn't
say you ever left.

------
bjconlan
Wow, this will hopefully ignite a sleuth of creativity. I think their choice
of using lua to script while also having a pretty great user experience (in v2
and v1) should put them on the radar for most indie developers now. Hopefully
this also creates some friendly competition with godot (though I think they
have the momentum) but for 2d prototyping for programming novices, I'll always
recommend defold. Kudos King.

------
britzl
The release of the Defold source code and the transition to the Defold
Foundation was the culmination of many months of preparations. While most
things went smoothly (except an SVG which crashed the Firefox browser!) we
never anticipated the amount of feedback we received on our use of the term
Open Source. We have summarised our thoughts and the actions we have taken
here:

[https://defold.com/2020/05/20/Some-thoughts-on-the-open-
sour...](https://defold.com/2020/05/20/Some-thoughts-on-the-open-source-
discussion/)

------
taneq
For anyone who's used this, how does it compare with popular open source
engines like Godot, and with the commercial industry standards like Unreal
Engine and Unity?

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Neither Defold, nor Unreal Engine, nor Unity, is Open Source.

As discussed elsewhere in this thread, source-available is not the same thing
as Open Source.

 _edit_ Not sure why I'm being downvoted here. This really isn't up for
debate. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23233336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23233336)
,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217)

~~~
tgb
FYI, you were presumably downvoted since the post you replied to had not
claimed that Defold, Unreal, or Unity were Open Source. It claimed that Godot
was open source, which is true.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Thanks, I'd misread it :-P

------
ipsum2
I wonder why they open sourced it. Won't this create more mobile games,
creating competition for them?

~~~
britzl
The question if Defold will be open sourced is one of the most common
questions asked since Defold was launched in 2016.

By open sourcing Defold and handing it to the Defold Foundation we build trust
with the community. It guarantees that Defold will be around regardless of
what happens with King. And by handing over Defold to the Defold Foundation we
believe it gives a lot of credibility to Defold as a strong and independent
open source game engine.

~~~
dwheeler
This fraud is successfully building animus in the community. It is,by
definition, not open source. An open source license MUST allow any use,
including commercial use.

~~~
britzl
Thank you for the feedback. It was never our intention to step on any toes or
misrepresent Defold. Please see this statement:
[https://twitter.com/defold/status/1262744466311360517](https://twitter.com/defold/status/1262744466311360517)

~~~
dwheeler
I'm glad that for the twitter statement. The website is still misleading,
though; I hope that will be corrected soon. I wish you the best!

~~~
britzl
It has been corrected now. [https://defold.com/2020/05/20/Some-thoughts-on-
the-open-sour...](https://defold.com/2020/05/20/Some-thoughts-on-the-open-
source-discussion/)

------
SiempreViernes
A bit surprised there is only one King game in the list of showcases
considering how prominently they are listed as the previous owner.

~~~
n3k5
I'd guess this is because from the perspective of evaluating an engine, when
you've seen one King game, you've seen them all.

~~~
capableweb
Probably also to show that there are more companies than just King using it,
so you'll get less scared of King "owning" the development of the engine and
it's community.

------
sk0v
Why would you use this over say, Unity or Unreal? Seems more niche, less
popular (so less assets/community libraries etc.) and less integrated
into...everything?

~~~
Ponk
Defold is optimized to produce small binaries, and features you don't use can
be turned to to further decrease your bundle size.

It also focuses a lot on providing fast iteration times. You can hot-reload
changed assets onto a device while the game is running. For most asset types,
you'll see the change on device in less than a second. Similarly, a Build and
Run cycle from scratch for a moderately complex game project such as Blossom
Blast typically takes around a minute or so, and subsequent cached builds can
start in a couple of seconds.

(Edit: Full disclosure, I worked on the Defold editor.)

------
greybox
You can accomplish quite a bit with this game engine, check out this narrative
that I started making with Defold a few months ago (playable in browser)

[https://lilrooness.itch.io/control](https://lilrooness.itch.io/control)

~~~
Sevaris
This is pretty cool. Are you still working on it?

~~~
greybox
Yes :) I'm working on the second part of that level, and the next level at the
moment.

------
gfiorav
I'm a newbie to game dev so let me ask this here:

What's the advantage of this vs Godot?

~~~
vanderZwan
_[The editor]_ is written in Clojure, which some people will probably like.
Here's a video from a few years ago explaining how that makes the whole editor
extensible with live-code:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajX09xQ_UEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajX09xQ_UEg)

(I don't know if this is an advantage/disadvantage compared to Godot or how
that extensibility compares)

 _edit: clarification, see Ponk 's comment below_

~~~
Ponk
To clarify, the Defold Editor is written in Clojure, whereas the runtime
component is written in a carefully selected subset of C++ in order to keep
executable sizes small and compile times fast.

You can write game-specific extensions to the runtime in C++ if your game
requires it, but most games are authored in just Lua.

Edit: Typo.

------
ipsum2
Some older discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11352546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11352546)
(2016)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4791284](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4791284)
(2012)

------
bjarneh
I like the second line-comment in the startup file
(com.defold.editor.Start.java); makes it seem familiar with all my projects.

    
    
      // A terrible hack as an attempt to avoid a deadlock when loading native libraries.

------
pojntfx
Not open source. Common clause.

~~~
britzl
It was never our intention to step on any toes or misrepresent Defold. Defold
is a free and open game engine with a permissive license and we invite the
community to contribute on GitHub. Please see this statement:
[https://twitter.com/defold/status/1262744466311360517](https://twitter.com/defold/status/1262744466311360517)

------
billfruit
It is a polished product, and it is a good move. I did try to use it briefly
in a small sample, it was reasonably easy to use as well. However I didn't
like Lua, would have preferred something more flexible/expressive like JS.

Lua has something of the schoolhouse feel about it, too prim and rigid like
Pascal.

So I am presently thinking of moving on to Phaser.io.

~~~
frabert
Weird, I would consider lua to be _more_ expressive than JS, thanks to its
optional syntax for function calls and the metatables which allow stuff like
operator overloading.

------
terrycody
Sadly, this article has no Defold listed, but why?

[https://gist.github.com/raysan5/909dc6cf33ed40223eb0dfe625c0...](https://gist.github.com/raysan5/909dc6cf33ed40223eb0dfe625c0de74)

------
markdog12
Are there any language bindings for the engine, so I don't have to use Lua?

------
Kiro
Hasn't it always been free to use for commercial games?

~~~
AGulev
Yes, it has, but now the source code of the engine itself is available for
everybody to fork, modify, make contributions, and so on.

------
davidjgraph
This is not open source. There is a well established definition of open source
[0].

It includes "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor"

"You can not commercialise original or modified (derivative) versions of the
Defold editor and/or engine" does not meet (6).

I'm not even going to start on the use of the term "free".

[0] [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)

~~~
Intermernet
I'm so tired of companies trying to co-opt the definition of open source.

My (probably flawed) comparison is to the term "fair use". Yes, you can play
all sorts of games to make those 2 words mean almost anything you want, but at
the end of the day that term is defined by law, not by pedantry.

"open source" has an accepted definition, and it's damaging to society to try
to undermine it.

If you think I'm exaggerating, please remember that you can probably thank
open-source software for the growth of the Internet, the availability of
previously restricted secure encryption and thousands of tools that you
probably use to earn a living.

~~~
koonsolo
For my own engine I was looking at my options for the future.

If I would ever release it with restrictions, I would call it "source
available" or something like that.

I think as a community, we should also have a strict term for a project with
source code, but too restrictive to be called open source.

From my search, "Source Available" was the best terminology, unless someone
knows a better one.

~~~
AGulev
But it's not just "Source Available". You can modify source code, fork it and
use your own version of the engine, and so on. The only restriction that you
can't SELL the engine itself. What is the right name for that if not "Open
source"?

~~~
Intermernet
"permissive", "really awesome", "generous", many other things.

Not "open source". That term has a meaning, and it's very important that
meaning doesn't get diluted.

------
cocktailpeanuts
geez, what's up with all these armchair open source experts on HN? Looks like
too many people on this thread thinks this is evil.

A company gave away their app making tool for free, and these people are
sitting in front of their keyboard talking shit about how "this is subverting
the definition of 'open source'", seriously?

Also what's so evil about the clause:

> "You can not commercialise original or modified (derivative) versions of the
> Defold editor and/or engine" does not meet (6).

What's so wrong about businesses trying to give back to the community while
protecting themselves against the likes of Microsoft and Amazon who will
naturally take the code and monetize if there's no clause that restricts anti
competition?

Lastly, who the hell cares what some website called opensource.org says what
open source is? This is all subjective, and from my point of view, if the
source code is open, it is "open" source. There are many reasons people open
source their projects, for transparency, for giving assurance to the
ecosystem, etc. By trying to box the definition down to a single very narrow
minded idea, you're actually hurting the growth of open source instead of
helping.

~~~
dwheeler
I'm not just an armchair expert. I am a literal expert. Involved in it for
decades. Wrote published papers. It's part of my job title.

Excluding commercial use is not helping the growth of OSS, it is falsely
claiming to be OSS.

If you want to say that it is being released as "source available" no one
would complain. It is the falsehoods that bring out the complaints.

~~~
hartator
> Excluding commercial use is not helping the growth of OSS, it is falsely
> claiming to be OSS.

Is anything less than BSD or MIT license not open source then? I am all for
it, but you are publishing some of your work under GNU which mean I can't use
in one of my projects without publishing the source code under GNU. Why these
restrictions are acceptable but not non-commercialisation?

~~~
dwheeler
GPL is well-known to be an open source software license. Many commercial
organizations depend on it.

~~~
hartator
> If you use components that are licensed under GPLv3, then you are required
> to license the complete application the contains the GPL components under
> the GPL as well.

It seems to be more restrictive to me than the OP's license.

------
the_mitsuhiko
Open Source with an asterisk:

> a) You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works
> as a Game Engine Product; and

~~~
trzeci
I think it does mean that I can't fork Deflod, rename it to Refold and sell as
mine.

Just a reflection as non-native English speaker. Game Engine Product is not
the same as 'Product of Game Engine'.

~~~
jstanley
That's right, and such a restriction makes it not fully open source.

~~~
britzl
I will not debate you on that one. According to the Open Source Definition
([https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)) Defold is only 90%
open source. It's a lot better than the 0% it was yesterday.

~~~
SXX
Like seriously according to your comment history you're product owner of
Defold. So if you're care of success of Defold why do you need this false
advertisement?

If your company worried about someone making money off editor you can just
keep this part proprietary while releasing the engine under OSS-compatible
license. There is plenty of "open core" projects out there.

------
philipov
Please change the title to reflect that the engine is merely available
publicly, but not open source.

------
SXX
It's truly unfortunate how some companies try to sell their shared source
products as "open source". I guess HN should change the title.

UPD: Okay title has been changed and it's all good now.

~~~
m0llusk
There was plenty of objection to that point of view here on HN and yet you
think you own the discussion? Wow, now I'm an official HN rebel because I
think sharing means openness and zero cost means free. I hope your efforts to
make the world understand the free and open software development scene is
hostile, mean spirited, defensive, and always ready and anxious to play word
games works out for the best.

------
dwheeler
This needs retitle, e.g. "King claiming its Defold game engine open source
(but isn't)"

------
andrewmcwatters
If you're interested in game engines using Lua, please also consider
Planimeter's Grid Engine ([https://www.planimeter.org/grid-
sdk/](https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/) and
[https://github.com/Planimeter/grid-sdk](https://github.com/Planimeter/grid-
sdk)) which has been in steady development for about a decade, having even
more features than Defold and Solar2D, such as out-of-the-box multiplayer with
client-server prediction, Tiled support, configuration bindings, and much more
that you'd have to roll yourself in both engines! (and it's MIT licensed to
boot.)

No other game engine in Lua is going to provide dedicated server support out
of the box besides Grid.

It's all also built on the latest version of LÖVE, which gives you access to
all of the software in that ecosystem, too. It's the only full fledged game
engine on LÖVE that we know of.

It's less known as we don't do much advertising and have had far fewer
contributors, but our focus has been consistent over the years.

Because we have fewer resources, we also work very closely with those using
the software if you have any questions.

While a collection of game engines using Lua seem to be tapering off in active
development, such as Polycode, Corona, and perhaps now Defold, Planimeter's
Grid engine is actively used by the group for game development projects, and
will continue to be supported into the future, bringing commercial support in
2021.

~~~
elisee
Can you point to some games (or game projects) using Grid Engine?

~~~
andrewmcwatters
No, I'm sorry, most of our users are hobbyists with projects that we're not
aware of the state of for the most part.

We hope to improve the engine to better serve the indie and hobbyist gamedev
community with tools that aren't available elsewhere and if we hear about any
projects one would like to showcase, we'd be happy to feature them!

