Can FOSS Games Use Unity ?

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PublicLewdness
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Joined: 03/15/2020

I saw something today that I had never seen before: a "FOSS" game that used Unity. It is licensed with the GPL V3 for the code and the Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal for the assets. The source code has been released. Yet it used a closed source engine. Is this still FOSS ?

https://squinky.itch.io/yutbs

calher

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Joined: 06/19/2015

If Unity is proprietary, then game programs built upon it are what is
called a "Trapped Program".

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/when-free-depends-on-nonfree.en.html

koszkonutek
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Joined: 03/19/2020

calher is right - such game is not *practically* free as long as Unity is nonfree.

Additionally, someone who chooses to put a copyleft license like the GPL on their trapped program might accidently make it impossible to legally distribute the binaries. Unless they add an exception to the GPL for the problematic dependency.

Is this is the case here? Idk - depends how the game's code interacts with Unity's code

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

"Unless they add an exception to the GPL for the problematic dependency."

In order to work, the proprietary license will itself also need to allow this to happen. Depending on what specifically the proprietary license says, even an exception may not work. Note that I have not read the Unity license so I don't know if an exception is even possible or not; I only wanted to point out that an exception isn't a solution to all such problems.

commodore256
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Joined: 01/10/2013

Here you go, I generated a Meme:

TrapCard.jpg
calher

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Joined: 06/19/2015

נכתב על ידי name at domain, ב־21.3.2021 בשעה 19:37:
> Here you go, I generated a Meme:
>
>
i cant see it

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commodore256
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Joined: 01/10/2013

It's in the attachment

soysys
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Joined: 02/23/2021

Hi, Maybe you can promote Godot Game Engine to the dev it's a free software alternative to Unity :).

https://godotengine.org/

koszkonutek
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Joined: 03/19/2020

It's more than an alternative - it's a replacement :)