Matt Chat - Kickstarting Free Software

On his blog, Matt Burton discusses free software and game development and if an open source game can be kickstarted.

First, a bit of history. As some long-time followers know, I used to be something of a cheerleader for the free software movement, doing cover features for Free Software Magazine and writing articles on it for Armchair Arcade. At the time, I was convinced that GNU/Linux was the future I wanted to fight for, and that anything other than 100% free software was unethical. To put it short, I had drunk the Kool-Aid.

My views started to shift partly in response to an email exchange I had with FSF founder Richard Stallman. Stallman told me that even he didn’t think games ought to be free; just their code. Creative assets (music, graphics, etc.) could and should still be protected. The impression I got was that his fight for free software didn’t include entertainment; just utilities, instructional material, or other “useful” wares.

These views shifted further when I began learning more about how real-life game development worked. In particular, I learned that most games aren’t written from scratch; rather, they rely heavily on proprietary packages, libraries, or entire engines they license. In short, they aren’t in a legal position to make their code free. Arguably, you could insist that developers avoid doing so, but that seems to be imposing an unfair burden on them in my opinion.