If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled?

I don't make games, I have nothing at stake in this fight, but this just feels like PR damage control and to be completely honest, I don't think most software engineers are so absolutely dependent on (proper noun) Unity to risk this company doing shady stuff again, and I suspect this entire ordeal will work as great marketing for engines like Unreal.

A part of me thinks that the CEO (and all the other executive morons who decided to make the installation fee) was sitting there thinking "what are they going to do? Move to Godot?", but if that was their line of thinking, and if they seriously did not think they were competing with Unreal, then I really do not see what business they have being multimillionaires in charge of any kind of decision-making process.

> If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled?

I haven't seen any evidence they did that, it's mostly been FUD from Godot supporters. The initial communication was messy, but where are actual TOS changes that are being touted so loudly?

https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service

https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service-legacy

I have no skin in this game, but I read this article: https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/09/14/unity-license-terms...

ETA:

You updated your post with the TOS, but from what I read the concern was that the new TOS said it applied to any new distribution of the Unity Runtime, without specifying versions and the like.

I have never seen a Unity TOS that specified versions as seen in the screenshot of the link you shared. Where did they get that screenshot from? They need to share their source. For all we know this is a change from 2020 (latest version referred to in their screenshot).

In which case I think you will agree that is plenty of notice and most likely unrelated to be maliciously related to what's being announced now. They've even walked back the applicability to old versions as seen in GP.

Well Unity is being accused of some dishonesty with updating things and not disclosing it [1]. If that's true, then it's possible that it's been somewhat purged to make themselves look better.

That said, that's a big "if", I'm just regurgitating what I read in news articles.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37615183

Jan '22 TOS does not have such a clause either (from archive.org):

https://web.archive.org/web/20220716041837/https://unity.com...

At this point I'm pretty sure this is a dishonest attempt to dig up a 2020 change (if this clause even ever existed, which I've seen zero proof of) and correlate it to a 2023 announcement as if these things were done in tandem.

Downvote me all you want. I don't think Godot et al will survive with these scummy tactics.

I seriously doubt this is some conspiracy from the Godot team, even if it's dishonest. I think people are probably drawing some correlations as a response to an announcement that they don't like, and then saying "Godot doesn't have this bullshit because it's open source". I don't think the Godot team is engaging in "scummy tactics" explicitly.

ETA:

Also, if you're going to edit your responses after you post them, I recommend using the `delay` feature in your HN settings, or adding an addendum section like I'm doing here, as it's a little unfair to people responding to you to make undisclosed changes so it looks like people responding to you aren't responding to all your points. I'm not saying you're being dishonest, I'm just saying that it feels a little unfair to responders.

Thanks, I'll use the delay feature. I accept that this has nothing to do with Godot.

I did find the TOS in question, as expected, it's very old (from 2019):

https://web.archive.org/web/20201111183311/https://github.co...

So people saying "who's to say they won't do this again," if four years isn't enough for you to catch up, I don't know what to tell you.

Edit: They have also brought the repo back, which was likely another unrelated change:

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService