Open Source Game Development

This is a reply I wrote on a mailing list about open source game development.

This is actually something i'm thinking about quite a lot: open source game development. is it feasible/possible for the mainstream, since it's heavily product based?

i would say, yes. the gpl is based to source code and focused on maintenance. it doesn't apply to content, which usually constitutes 90% of a mainstream game.

we've seen id software open sourcing - although a bit later, because of engine licensing. possible licensing of your engine is of course a reason not to open source your game - then again, game developers need to cut on the cost in the future, and entrepreneurs will have to resort to using open source engines like ogre and others (this is happening already! look at e.g. ankh). there are also other reasons. a friend of mine open sourced his code so he could switch companies and still keep using his codebase.

so i can see that open source game development will surely get a major market share in the future, with freely available sources but non-free content that has to be bought. if the content was free i.e. creative commons licensed, it would be quite pointless to package and sell it.

it might however be possible, that on top of open source development there will grow an open content development, with a vast and rich set of 2d, 3d and musical "clip art". content generation algorithms might also improve, thus artists might only be needed to aggregate works and direct
content development.