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Comment by groovybits | Hacker News Reader

"“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games."

Contradictory sentiments like these are what lead me to believe this grant is mostly for marketing purposes. (tin-foil hat mode)

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Epic Games are infamous for opposing openness in various forms. (Buy these games … only on the Epic Games Store. Install this spyware … no, you can't see the source code. Use any current OS you want … as long as it's from Microsoft.) Supposing that some of the ulterior motives behind this grant are questionable does not seem overly paranoid.

However, I don't see the contradiction in Sweeney's statement. One can appreciate the advantages of open tools, libraries and platforms, and still want to publish a proprietary game on top of that technology.

It's kind of like an omnivore chef joining a forum full of vegans to work on improving seasonings for braised veggies. They might not be pleased when they find out that she wants to make a side dish to be served with steak; but that in itself doesn't mean her goal is exploitation or sabotage, rather than mutually beneficial cooperation.

> Use any current OS you want … as long as it's from Microsoft.

..or Google or Apple. Or Nintendo. Or Sony.

The Epic Games Store only works on Microsoft Windows.

First, that is incorrect. It exists for Mac as well. Second, why on Earth would anyone care about the store as long as they can get the games on their platform?

https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/6/18129978/epic-games-store-...

Who cares?

"I don't give a rip whose money it is, mate" - Steve Irwin, when asked about accepting money from "unethical" groups and using it for conservation. https://youtu.be/-1gVkTFam1w?t=753

If it helps a good goal, what does it matter?

What matters is if the accepting of the money outweighs the good of turning it down. It's not always an easy equation.

But that money is going to exist whether you accept it or not. You not accepting the money doesn't mean the way it was acquired stops happening.

Some philanthropic donations are kinda prestige-for-cash deals. My employer, Oxford University, accepted a large chunk of change from Wafic Saïd to endow their business school. If they hadn't taken it, he'd certainly still have the money. But we wouldn't have lowered our own reputation by associating ourselves with a... not spotless businessman.

If it's done anonymously, then sure: you're quite right. But if it isn't then there is, in fact, a price. And it's not always a great deal.

> But that money is going to exist whether you accept it or not

But by accepting the donation you may be signaling that you're ok with how the donor made their money. By turning it down, you may also have a PR opportunity to spread a positive message.

Source on that quote?

Updated to slightly correct quote and post source

If accepting the money implies or enforces certain favors in return even if that is just silence, then it matters. If making the donation is used as a PR smokescreen to advance or obscure other unethical behavior, then it matters. That doesn't mean the money shouldn't be accepted it just means organizations should not allow donations to change their behavior and if a donation has a detectable nefarious ulterior motive then they should think twice about accepting the cash.

Often when people see others do a good thing, they argue that those people aren't doing all the good things. They think this incentivizes doing all the good things. They are wrong.

I'm sure the Blender community will welcome this grant with open arms, as they should.

I am merely pointing out that Epic's list of bad things outweighs their list of good things, regarding the open source community.

Blender is a complimentary offering. Improving it indirectly boosts business.

Assuming there are tax benefits for donating, it becomes a win-win.

Tim Sweeney thinks Win32 is an open standard.

I think he's operating with a different understanding of the word "open" than the rest of us.

Quote on that?

Also, there's Wine and ReactOS, no? Aren't those two alternative (even if somewhat incomplete) implementations of Win32?

They do share a lot of code, though; so there's really more like 1.2 alternate implementations of win32.

See "The Solution", where he argues for Win32 as a truly open standard, as explicitly opposed to UWP and Android, which he considers to be closed.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft...

He never call Win32 an "open standard." He calls it an open platform, or open experience, which he means anyone can build win32 games and distribute them on their own.

Using the word "standard", which he never does in that article, is quite misleading.

I don't think it's worthwhile to split hairs over standard/platform; I've heard Win32 called both, many times, by respectable sources.

As it is, he argued that Win32 is more open than UWP or Android; regardless of whether you think the API is a standard or a platform.

His statement is definitively true on the software distribution side. Google wants every App installed via play store and now even Microsoft Office is only available there. Classical Windows on the other hand allows Chrome to be installed without MS acting as gatekeeper.

Yes, it's not totally black and white. Android does kinda allow side-loading with shitty usability. MS did start its own store and lets not get into telemetry. Classical windows still gives the user a lot of control, though.

I would not claim that any of Android, UWP, _or_ Win32 are open.

They may be alternative implementations, but they're still no good in this case. See elsewhere in the thread where it's pointed out that Epic's anti-cheat software intentionally fails to run the game if it's running on Wine.

Those are reverse engineer not blessed by Micrsoft's nor it is win32 an open standard

Further if the Oracle v Google suit does not get overturned MS could put an end to both Wine and ReactOS in a heartbeat

There is a future where in the long term Unreal Engine (and maybe Unity3D as well) is FOSS in the same way that browsers are. Epic's business model would have to move away from engine royalties, which currently depends on the success of their store or potentially lasting longevity and growth of Fortnite.

Unreal Engine kind of already is open source, for weak definitions of open source: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/ue4-on-github

That's not Open Source as defined by the OSI. You can't redistribute source code and commercial use requires paying license fees to Epic (5% of revenue). So just don't get the wrong idea about that license, please.

With UE4 they have created an engine that was extensible only via C++ and via their graphical scripting language. With the notorious instability and incompatibilities of ABIs of different C++ compilers, Epic didn't have a lot of options other than releasing the engine source so that their customers could recompile the whole engine with a single compiler version. And with Unity eating away at the indie market at that time, Epic needed a successor to the free, closed source UE3 UDK to keep a foot in that market. I don't think that Epic had a lot of other options at that point.

Unreal is source available, but not FOSS. There are a lot of restrictions in the license, sharing engine source without a (free) Epic login is against TOS for example, although you can fork the engine on GitHub and give other users that are part of the Epic organization access. I'm thinking a MIT (or some other permissive license) licensed UE.

Also considering their behavior regarding platform exclusives. This is at least the second time that Sweeney has said something in contradiction to his company's behavior in the past month.

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