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this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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I wasn't aware either, but the devs who use this in their product should have known this could happen. Now the question is: did they just not consider the possibility, or is it a known risk because all the engines require a license? In that case, Unity might just very well be the first one to do this, and others will follow suit in the coming years.
It's normal for a engine to have licensing requirements, but those are laid out up front and will typically be defined based on income. So like a pretty common thing would be something approximately like free for the first $10K earned, then 10% for up to $100K, and then 30% for everything past $100K. Importantly though, that's NOT a subscription, it's the terms of the license you agree to in order to use the software, you aren't paying a fee based on time, but rather based on money earned. You can choose to back out of the license at any time, you just need to stop selling the software, and as long as you keep paying the engine developer their cut you can keep on selling copies. Further the terms of the license are what they are when you download the library/framework, and they can't be retroactively changed. If tomorrow they decide to start charging you based on total downloads, you can choose to keep distributing the previous version under the previous license terms based on profits.
Unity on the other hand, has done two things. First they require an ongoing subscription, so if you stop paying for your subscription, technically you're no long allowed to sell your game. Secondly, and much more controversially, they're defining the license based on installs rather than based on earnings, which is tying your debt to actions of your customers rather than your own, which is a very precarious position to be in.
This whole thing reminds me of the D&D shenanigans a few months back where Hasbro tried to retroactively re-define the terms of their "open source" license, and the TTRPG community collectively told Hasbro where they could stick their new license. There are a LOT of parallels here.
Thanks, very comprehensive. So unity developers could have expected this to happen sooner or later. Not the retroactively charging for installs, of course, but the continuous subscription should have been a huge red flag.
Unreal licensing is explicitly tied to the version you use. So if you use Unreal 5.3, you are bound to the license attached to the code for Unreal 5.3.
If that license changes in Unreal 5.4 and you disagree with the new license, you don't need to follow the terms as long as you never move from Unreal 5.3.
Yeah, that sounds much more sane to me. With the Jetbrains IDE (my tools off the trade), you pay an annual subscription and when you stop paying you still get to use the last version you paid for. Apples to oranges, I know, but I sure did check that up front before I bought in to that ecosystem.