Thread by @Xrayez

Godot is #OpenSource, but it doesn't mean that the mentality of Godot is open. They use their corporate IT consulting processes to drive Godot's development. It's not community-driven. They see volunteers as a service (VaaS) to companies.

#GodotEngine #CancelGodotEngine

In order to understand why Godot is not community-driven, take a look here first and foremost:

Godot founders, Juan and Ariel, created a company called Codenix, a game development and technology consulting company. Godot as an in-house engine used to be developed and licensed to various companies up until 2014.
web.archive.org/web/2014062509…

According to web archive, Codenix was founded in 2002. They also provided their consultancy services at that time:
web.archive.org/web/2002082311…

Godot was open-sourced in 2014. This happened exactly at the time when they apparently decided to shut down the Codenix website:

Interestingly, Godot's godotengine.org domain existed back in 2011, even before Godot got open-sourced in 2014:

The above raises some questions, but there's nothing inherently wrong with having such a history. The problem starts when they project their old experience onto open-source community, and present Godot as community-driven to people.

If you go to Godot's "Contact us" page, you'll see their notice that they provide commercial support of some kind. Godot is handled by @Conservancy, so commercial statements like these don't go in alignment with the "non-profit" status:

Godot also acts like recruitment agency here, as if Godot contributors have expressed explicit consent to this, which is certainly not the case. Most Godot developers work on voluntary basis, and most people work on their own projects using Godot Engine.

The situation becomes even more bizarre when Juan proposes an idea to certificate Godot contributors! It's sort of like providing volunteers-as-a-service (VaaS) to any interested corporate customer:

If they cannot do this themselves, they will do this via so-called "third-party" companies. The problem is that even those "third-party" commercial companies still remain "first-party", since Godot founders could still manage those companies, and they manage (your) donations!

You can read what other people talked about Godot when it just got open-sourced in 2014, and a story of so-called "third-party" company, "Lone Wolf Technology", founded by Ariel, a co-founder of Codenix and Godot:

Conclusion: the success of @GodotEngine is alarming. They "inspire" contributors to work for free, in an allegedly community-driven project. The words vs actions of Godot leadership are inconsistent, because they are hypocritical or stupid. But that's anything but leadership.