← Back to context

Comment by gpm

14 hours ago

People refer to games with proprietary assets as open source all the time. The source code is open - the assets are not. For one example: https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason/blob/...

Source as a word has a meaning that doesn't include non-source things.

4 comments

gpm

Reply
SV_BubbleTime  13 hours ago

That’s an open source engine, we already have a word to define what that is.

And we have Open Weights to define what those are.

  • gpm  12 hours ago

    No, an engine is only the code that is shared between games. For instance "urban terror" by frozen sands is a closed source game on top of a (now) open source engine (the Quake3 engine). Quake3 is a (now) open source game (with closed assets) on top of its own open source engine. Quake and it's derivatives are a particularly nice example of the distinction between a game and its engine because the engine includes an interpreter for the game code, leaving a very clear boundary. Meanwhile many games end up intermingling their engine and game code (e.g. see the Eve Online devs write about this - another closed source game on top of a now open source engine).

    BAR is an open source game. All the game source is open.