Why isn't BYOND open-source?

Why should it be :P?

For your safety. From what I've heard, looking at the source code for BYOND can cause, among other things: frustration, headaches, insanity and death.

That's why it SHOULD be? >_> Please learn to reply properly.

But then, giving the player's access to DreamSeeker's source code has got to open up a whole lot of new ways to cheat in games...

Elation wrote:

BUT, that said, some moron could release a cheat version of seeker for free download.

Which pretty much kills the prospects of BYOND adding more client-side functionality if people would only modify it in their open-source version and use that to cheat in games. On the bright side, that would make the idea of creating Telnet games with BYOND much more attractive, and since BYOND would be open source, any Telnet-related bugs could be crushed by the userbase instead of waiting for the preoccupied developers to do it.

<font color="#2222ff">Foomer wrote:

But then, giving the player's access to DreamSeeker's source code has got to open up a whole lot of new ways to cheat in games...

and Atomic babbles:

1. making it open source might allow someone to say its theres

2. someone could make a byond site and make money off dantoms work
3.hackors might include viruses and may do my number 2 point as well</font>

um... no, this is not how open source works. for one, *players* wouldn't know what to do with the source, and if they managed to mangle something then their games would probably stop working. who wants to use a poorly modified custom version of BYOND? i sure don't.

second, open source does not mean 'open chaos'. there is usually a centrally moderated/certified-by-the-developers 'master' copy of the source. when changes are made, all the serious developers check it out for problems, scrutinize it, debug it, review it, etc., before it is merged back into the master copy. this is what prevents true open source projects (like the Linux kernel, PHP, Perl, phpBB, etc.) from being in-undated with showstopping bugs or attempts at putting subversive code within it.

because of the open-ness of the code to the general public, a project becomes inherently safer and likely more stable. the bad things can't hide there (certainly not easily). as long as people use the 'official' master copy, then they have little to worry about. and the true authors/developers know who they are, and so do the people who support them.

third, open source projects are usually not around to 'make money', but to provide solutions/applications that benefit everyone. profits surrounding an open source project often come from support for that project, either from donations for furthering development, or in 'subscriptions/fees' for some sort of professional or certified tech support (and may not even done by the people who authored the project).

while open-sourcing would not be a bad thing, i feel there are not enough capable developers in the BYOND community (I can think of only 3 off the top of my head (not including Dan and Tom) who are professionally capable in c/c++) to pursue it properly. plus it would be nice to see Dan and Tom reclaim some of their lost revenue in the pursuit of BYOND with a commercialized version in the future.

(also, as an FYI, there are currently several trusted developers with access to the source code- this is why we've been seeing numerous fixes over the last 6 months.)

If it's possible to cheat by changing the source of the client, that implies that the client has too much information. The server shouldn't send information to the client until the player is allowed to see it.

If they don't release the source, an alternative will come up. Not trying to force Dantom to release anything.

The emphasis in the quote wasn't on "forced"... in fact, if I wasn't quoting a (somewhat) commonly used phrase in the creators' rights community, I wouldn't have said forced at all. They were talking about choices that artists make.

I'm just curious about the whole knee-jerk pro-open-source attitude, though.

Why is open source the first resort, the better alternative, or the only alternative? Why do you make sharing the source the default assumption and question those who don't?

Quite simply... why are we entitled to the source? Why do we deserve it? Did we work for it? Did we earn it? Did we sweat and suffer for it? To me, this is the same question as that of giving away bandwidth for the pagers... it's -nice- when somebody gives something away, but that doesn't conversely mean it's wrong or rude or selfish when they don't.

I'm not going to complain if BYOND does go open source... only if it becomes less useable... my concern here is making sure creator's rights are addressed. The open source community, IMALTHO, ignores those, which is a dangerous situation for the creative community. If the open source revolution became a true revolution, I think the glorious renaissance would last about six months, a year tops... then it would fizzle out as the genuinely creative either quit in frustration or were drowned out by the merely opportunistic and unfocused.

Anyways, I join others in questioning your logic in saying an alternative will come up. An alternative may come up. An alternative may not come up. The fact that an alternative hasn't yet come up is kind of interesting. As Deadron points out, BYOND seems to be a very unique and specific ocurrence... this implies that it grew out of unique and specific circumstances.

If an alternative comes up, I'll check it out. The more the merrier. It's not like taking away BYOND's "market share" is going to hurt anything... and there would be a lot of interesting cross pollination in terms of ideas spreading between the communities... I'm not naysaying this hypothetical alternative because I'd be against it. I'm just saying, I don't see it coming with the same clarity you do.

Of course, even if nothing does develop "naturally", now that BYOND exists, it can be deliberately emulated.