Indeed. They have a captive audience right now which donates on average more than $4,000/mo for the work of Tarn and Zach.
Take the +12 month release cycles, there will surely be more active open source forks than what the Adams' can compete with, resulting not only in loss of their revenue stream but also loss of control of their vision. Perhaps this would be an altruistic benefit to the community, but probably a solid loss for the creators unless they're willing and succeed in diving in and leading the community of contributors as a whole.
Very risky.
Also from another interview, Tarn spoke about how he sees Dwarf Fortress as his life's work. This is the masterpiece that he would spend the rest of his life perfecting. Imagine a master painter like Picasso working on a piece for nearly a decade, being asked to let the community contribute to it so that it will be completed sooner.
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Indeed. They have a captive audience right now which donates on average more than $4,000/mo for the work of Tarn and Zach.
Take the +12 month release cycles, there will surely be more active open source forks than what the Adams' can compete with, resulting not only in loss of their revenue stream but also loss of control of their vision. Perhaps this would be an altruistic benefit to the community, but probably a solid loss for the creators unless they're willing and succeed in diving in and leading the community of contributors as a whole.
Very risky.
Also from another interview, Tarn spoke about how he sees Dwarf Fortress as his life's work. This is the masterpiece that he would spend the rest of his life perfecting. Imagine a master painter like Picasso working on a piece for nearly a decade, being asked to let the community contribute to it so that it will be completed sooner.
Exactly, we should understand the fact that open sourcing is not always compatiable with a work of art. (Games are art now, right?)