Hacker News Reader

Comment by cogburnd02 | Hacker News Reader

I wish PICO-8 was free (libre) software.

I'm bothered by this comment. PICO-8 is one of the most vibrant communities in existence for beginners making games. Thousands of people have made thousands of games with this software. The price point to purchase is extremely cheap, supports the person that created it, and the licensing allows people who purchase the engine to distribute it in their own games. It is one of the most open, empowering, user-supporting pieces of software in games.

I think this community has a huge problem with thinking that releasing the source code to things automatically makes them accessible and automatically empowers other people, but there are plenty of open-source projects that are actively user-hostile. The reality is that all too often on this site when people say "I wish this was open source" they aren't saying that out of any interest for how that would make the project better or create a better community, but instead are saying it from a standpoint that only considers how it would benefit them personally.

I'm sure there's a lot of people who only say "I wish this were open source" because that would benefit them personally.

I'm sure there's a lot of open-source projects that are the exact opposite of vibrant communities, and the exact opposite of empowering and user-supporting.

However, as a great man once said, "No Taxation Without Representation". People using PICO-8 and writing games for PICO-8 aren't paying taxes as such, but they are investing their time and creative energy, their efforts advertise the PICO-8 platform, and thus they enrich Lexaloffle just as surely as if they'd filled out a 1040 form. Some people want to be reassured that they have some measure of control over a thing before they invest time, money, or energy into it. It doesn't have to be open-source, but for software that's more legally sound and practical than staging an armed insurrection and writing a constitution.

A lot of people probably don't care what Lexaloffle does as long as their existing games keep working, many people probably trust Lexaloffle's reign to remain benevolent and just indefinitely, and I don't know any reason (beyond human frailty) why that wouldn't be true. But some people want a better guarantee of future performance than mere past performance, and that's where (some) calls for open-source come from.

For me, I'm okay with it being closed source and I'm happy to support Lexaloffle because as I see it, PICO-8 doesn't really have a "moat". First, there's no particularly exotic technology in the closed-source run-time, and secondly the fantasy console limits mean that the games are small enough that it wouldn't be hard to port them to a new run-time if needed.

So for me it is sufficient guarantee to know that even if PICO-8 is closed source right now, a compatible open-source clone would doubtlessly spring up (I suspect there some already, but I haven't felt the need to look) and be settled on by the community almost overnight if Lexaloffle ever ceased to be benevolent. Paradoxically, knowing that is why I'm happy to stick with the official PICO-8 and Lexaloffle for now. It might not be open source, but there's still a clear exit strategy.

> The reality is that all too often on this site when people say "I wish this was open source" they aren't saying that out of any interest for how that would make the project better or create a better community, but instead are saying it from a standpoint that only considers how it would benefit them personally.

Or from a philosophical standpoint

> I'm bothered by this comment.

I'm sorry you're bothered by my comment; it's simply an expression of how I feel.

> PICO-8 is one of the most vibrant communities in existence for beginners making games. Thousands of people have made thousands of games with this software....licensing allows people who purchase the engine to distribute it in their own games.

Windows is also very popular, and it is also proprietary software. It enables lots of other people's jobs to exist, but that doesn't mean that it's ethical to deprive its users of the source code to the software that's running on their machine.

>The price point to purchase is extremely cheap, supports the person that created it...

I don't have a problem with donating money to help out a project; I have a problem with the software not respecting the four freedoms (liberties) of free software. (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html)

> It is one of the most open, empowering, user-supporting pieces of software...

It isn't open and it isn't user-supporting or empowering. Users don't have access to the source code, and in that way the developer holds power over the users. Bruce Perens, who really popularized the idea of 'open source' once said "When I say 'Open Source', I mean the same thing that Richard means when he says 'Free Software'."

> there are plenty of open-source projects that are actively user-hostile.

would you like to provide some specific examples?

> aren't saying that out of any interest for how that would make the project better or create a better community, but instead are saying it from a standpoint that only considers how it would benefit them personally.

A better community would be able to improve the software itself with access to the source code. Also, simply because it-being-libre-software would benefit me personally doesn't mean it wouldn't also benefit the rest of the community equally as much.

But why? It’s so cheap and so much love and dedication has gone into it. I bought my copy literally years ago and it’s provided so much joy. I actually kinda wish the opposite that there were more small projects that could have this kind of humble success. Particularly in a world where much more profit motivated enterprises give free software a shitty stick.

Open source would make ports to more platforms substantially easier, there's a pretty good RetroArch core, but it isn't perfect.

But why not? They can still charge for it and have a FOSS dev model. Nobody who wants this without paying for it is going to have trouble getting it.

There is TIC-80[0] and PixelVision8[1] (interesting license) but I agree. It would be awesome for PICO-8 to be free (libre) software.

[0] https://github.com/nesbox/TIC-80

[1] https://github.com/PixelVision8/PixelVision8

Why? It’d be pretty simple to make a clone of, honestly, just SDL2 with some Lua bindings and some neat tools. The special part about it isn’t the code. It’s the concept of it, the execution, and the community that has grown up around it.

Supporting the developer and getting into the smart, welcoming community are well worth the trivial amount being asked for. There is something to be said about a project that is driven by a uniform philosophy to deliver a unique and singular product. I think a lot of projects suffer from a "too many cooks" problem, and lose sight of their guiding philosophy in an attempt to compromise with naysayers. Zep doesn't do that at all... almost to a fault... but I respect his vision and adherance to keeping PICO-8 a pure representation of his vision.

If price is a problem for anyone, you may already own a copy. PICO-8 was (quietly?) included as part of the legendary itch.io mega "Bundle for Racial Justice."

I never said I had a problem donating money to help; what I have a problem with is lack of access to, and lack of share-ability (not sure if that's a word, but I'm going with it anyway) of the source code.

If you are interested, there are a few (incomplete) FLOSS clones: tac08, PX8 and picolove.

I'm maintaining picolove but it's currently more of a pico-8 runtime than a virtual console.

Seems like the sort of beloved project with solo maintainer that could go open source in the future. I wonder if there is a common approach to allow this to happen like open source foundation working with him plus community fundraising. I'd support such an effort with 10x the amount I paid for the product.

A very similar open source project, Tic-80[0], already exists. It has tools for sprite generation and music creation. It also supports Lua, in addition to Fennel (natively), JS, Wren, and Moonscript.

[0] https://tic80.com/

I could not get tic-80 games to work on my phone chrome browser. Does it work with mobile devices?

(micro)Python support is on the way, check their github.

You can get that to some extent: https://github.com/picolove/picolove

Go ahead and do it then

do what?

Create an open source version of Pico-8

Reply on news.ycombinator.com