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Comment by promiseofbeans | Hacker News Reader

They seem to be linking to gambling sponsors - I've notived most open source projects don't. Why is this?

Great Question! They link to their exactly 1 Gambling Sponsor Gamblify because they are a sponsor who've chosen to utilize the benefit of their sponsorship to link to their website.

The reason why other OSS projects you've looked at don't link to Gamblify is because they don't sponsor them, thanks for your question.

I have a question, what motivated you into asking a misleading question?

Genuine curiosity - I didn't mean for the question to be misleading (and I'm still jot quite sure how it is).

I know that historically gambling sites have paid to have oss projects link to them in order to make them look more reputable to search engines, but search engines use different heuristics now I know.

I've also read of projects actively rejecting gambling sponsors or taking their money but refuse to publicly acknowledge the sponsorship. Taking the money without linking to the gambling site kinda makes sense to the gambling site if they use Godot and want to support it, but then why would Godot still link to them in that case?

I'm just curious why Godot is willing to tarnish their reputation, and also what yhe gambling company stands to gain from being linked to by Godot.

> I'm just curious why Godot is willing to tarnish their reputation

A non-profit accepting sponsorship from legal corporations to pay for its developer resources to improve their free product to the benefit of all its users wont tarnish their reputation.

Obvious questions phrased to imply misleading statements is what would attempt to tarnish their reputation, thankfully it's a fairly transparent attempt so I expect it will be mostly ignored.

> why would Godot still link to them in that case?

Answered by TFA "Displaying your name or company is opt-in. You control it being public or private."

Whenever I see such links, I assume the website has been hacked, its always weird to see open source projects accept such dubious sponsors.

I don't get your point... you would rather they hide the fact by not linking ???

I much prefer the transparency.

How is it misleading? No one is forcing Godot to accept a sponsor and showcase them. Where do you draw a line? Would they also accept and showcase an adult website? A piracy website?

I sure hope so. I like piracy, porn, and gambling and would be extremely pleased to be directed to any business in those categories that chose to sponsor an open source game engine.

They've implied there are many Gambling sponsors, that most other OSS projects are either refusing to accept sponsorship from Gambling companies or refusing to link to them after receiving their sponsorship, that collectively all OSS projects are actively doing this, when it's simply the "most open source projects " being referred to simply aren't receiving logo-tier sponsorship from Gamblify.

IOTW It's making a misleading statement, phrased as an innocent question.

Are there OSS projects that have gambling based business sponsors that don't link them?

Game engines usually charge a far higher license amount for using their tech in the gambling industry and because Godot doesn't charge anything and its programming model is pretty in tune for what gambling games need they get a lot more gambling sponsors then other open source projects.

I think you should frame your questions a little less loaded in the future, but I do think you're also making a good point. Ethical sponsorship management isn't easy, and certainly not a set of trade skills I would expect to find in software development by default, because why would you? I think the main reason you see less "unethical" sponsorships in OSS projects in general is because a lot of OSS developers are rebels who have an innate hatred for corporate and evil.

I certainly get why gambling could make its way into game engine sponsorships since it's not exactly easy to gather money through sponsorships. It is a little like having a big game hunting company sponsor your national park though. I'm not even sure if I think it's wrong, but it's certainly a risk in terms of it potentially causing some PR issues down the line.

Maybe those gambling sponsors didn't fund other open source projects?

The higher tiers allow you to link to a domain of your choosing. Would you expect the Godot team to ban links to gambling companies?

Because gambling is a funnel that converts exposure into raw, unrefined, money, and sponsoring Godot has incredible value-to-money: naïve game developers generally have poor financial sense!

Does Godot make enough money to be picky about sponsors?

I’ve actually seen several OSS projects that look like gambling link-farms. This is tame in comparison.

They have 1 from what I could see, Gamblify, what are the others?

It is sponsor platinum, so they are paying much more than that.

So what?

You imply something, but what do you mean? You're asking this in an innocent fashion, but presumably there is judgement against linking to what is a legal activity. Just say it.

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