[Blink]

So, I've been wanting to do some game development, and I came across this program for sprite design: https://www.aseprite.org/

It seemed to be a cool program, but the problem was, it costed money...

Then I found out that it's open source and the cost is all bullshit.
You read that correctly, IIRC it's under GPL. They sell the software, but distribute the source for free.

AFAIK this is similar to what RedHat does, but I found the business model to be interesting. Unreal also gives out their game engine's (Unreal Engine) source, but under a custom license.

My guess is that at most, 10% of users will actually find and compile the source, and they seem to be making money. RedHat makes A LOT more money, and they also use a similar business model (because of support).

This got me thinking, someone might be able to provide software and it can be considered 'open source' even if it asks for a license key on startup. (you can go and find the code for that and remove it, but even less people will spend the time to do that)

Here's the source if anyone wants it: https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/
Here's RedHat: https://www.redhat.com/en

EDIT: Anyone know of other things that follow this model? Know how much they make?

[Bish0pQ]

That acesprite tool can actually be quite usefull for me when I'm getting back in 2D gamedesign.

Somewhat confusing that it's open-source since it's not really somewhere shown on their website.

[Esoterith]

Could it be an old version of their software and dedicated that they didn't want it to be open source?

[S3xySmurf]

I've seen this model before with Prey Anti Theft https://github.com/prey/ & https://www.preyproject.com/

Their project is fully open source but to use their dedicated server and pre-compiled software it costs money, most people would prefer to pay to use than build something themselves.

[Blink]

Could it be an old version of their software and dedicated that they didn't want it to be open source?

Seems to be actively developed.

[S3xySmurf]

Could it be an old version of their software and dedicated that they didn't want it to be open source?

Seems to be actively developed.

I believe you would be allowed to use the software for free and you may sell it if you make some heavy modifications to the source code, I'm not fully sure how the law works around open source code apart you may freely modify, distribute the software not sure about selling it as a service.