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by simondotau 1361 days ago
> You're confusing free with libre.

I'm not confusing them. The fact that they are not libre is precisely the point I was making. They are both proprietary intellectual property and encumber the person using them with financial obligations under some conditions.

> Apple's software and Unreal are free as in "free beer".

No, they are not. They're free as in "free beer when consumed on our premises, max five per customer, and if you sell our free beer to someone else we'll take some of that revenue thank you very much".
1 comments
dmitriid 1361 days ago
The comment you were replying to wasn't talking about free as in speech. They were talking about free as in beer. And the whole thread talks about money and cost. Not their source code availability.
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simondotau 1361 days ago
> They were talking about free as in beer.

Right, and my point is that it's not free as in beer.

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dmitriid 1361 days ago
> Right, and my point is that it's not free as in beer.

But it is. Being free as in "free beer" has nothing to do with being or not being public domain or copyleft.

Public domain or copyleft refer to free as in "free speech".

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simondotau 1361 days ago
> But it is.

Tell that to Epic Games' department of license revenue.

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dmitriid 1361 days ago
"Free as in beer" only concerns itself with the price of the distributed software.

Edit:

In Epic's case the tools remain free as in beer. There's no additional cost to using them.

Epic applies a fee to what you produce with them, and even then:

> A 5% royalty is due only if you are distributing an off-the-shelf product that incorporates Unreal Engine code (such as a game) and the lifetime gross revenue from that product exceeds $1 million USD; in this case, the first $1 million remains royalty-exempt.

If you were to distribute your product for free (as you want), you wouldn't pay Epic a single cent.

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simondotau 1359 days ago
Yes, I know what Epic's business model is. As with many software libraries, it's free as in “first sign this contract, do some stuff with our stuff, then later we shall decide how much you owe us”.

If you want to lump that in with free as in beer because Epic isn't taking money from people who haven't made something particularly profitable, okay, but I don’t think many people would agree with you.

(It's also free-as-in-you're-part-of-their-marketing-strategy. Widespread "free" use of Unreal Engine helps build developer experience with Unreal Engine, increasing the availability of relevant skills in the job market, and making its use more attractive when it comes time to start a big, highly profitable project.)

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