Thread by @reduzio

I will also take the time today to clarify something many seem to misunderstand. I hear often the question "Can company X come and purchase Godot?" "Can Godot developers decide to make it commercial and charge for it?" "Can it go closed or paid?"

Some facts:

1. Godot legally exists as part of the Software Freedom Conservancy. As a not-for profit charity, they receive donations and, based on their mission statement, use them for the benefit of the project. As no company is behind Godot, it can't be sold or purchased.

2. Godot license is MIT, which means you can do pretty much everything as long as you don't misrepresent the origin of the software (you can't claim you wrote it, you must give proper credit). Even with that, in practice, you can do anything you want as if you wrote it yourself.

3. Closed derivatives can be created (companies often have private forks), but what is open will remain open forever. No legal way exists to cease your right to use Godot. It's as if it was your own property, nobody can take it from you.

4. Godot is made by thousands of skilled contributors who donate their free time (a bunch paid from donations). Even if some suddenly decided to push new versions as proprietary, they would never be able to be compete or be as productive as the rest. Its just not sustainable.

Godot is a true community effort, created and owned by everyone. It will never be "purchased" or "closed" because, besides being legally impossible, it's also impractical as open development can't be stopped. Rest assured your investment on it is safe, as this will never change.

Here are some links if you want to read more:
sfconservancy.org
tldrlegal.com/license/mit-li…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Licen…
github.com/godotengine/go…