Dear Gideros team!
I can't help wondering, and I suppose I'm not the only one, if Gideros is slowly dying or maybe is dead already. Since the announcement that it's going open source more than a month ago (27th of June), nothing has been communicated anymore by Atilim, Gorkem or any of the stuff members. Ok ok, ar2rsawseen has tried to calm down our souls and give some time estimations, but they were already passed long ago. No news about releasing of the code or maybe a new Gideros version, or perhaps just a small update of what is really going on, which is a bit worrying. For these reasons, I think many developers (including myself) started to wonder if Gideros is still a reliable option for the future and maybe began to investigate the possibility to switch to other platforms. I mean, shall we go back to the beer SDK? This is not what Gideros developers want, since many of them ran away from that alcoholic mixture.
That being said, can someone from the stuff please give us an update, an estimation, something, so that we know if we should get drunk again or stay with Gideros? I really hope that Gideros is not dead. Either paid or open source, it is a pity to die. Either paid or open source, but at least alive.
Gideronians, hands up who wants an update from the Gideros team!
Comments
Developers who are familiar with Gideros may stick around for a while and continue to use it but with so many good, free and *well supported* SDKs out there my advice would be to not waste your time waiting for announcements because you will be waiting forever.
Choose a different SDK and go make something today
What i agree is it is a painfull and not easy process to opensource a SDK. But i believe that when this step will completed everything will be back to normal again.
Likes: hgvyas123, bali001, SinisterSoft
I dearly love Gideros and have invested years (ok a long time!) learning it and working on my game.
A little concerned at the moment but lets remain positive. This is easily the best tool for making 2D games for mobile.
But yes, would love to hear from the team. And thank you for your hard work!
Likes: bali001, Disciple
- Should current PAID USERS assume from now on that product updates and support that are supposed to be part of the subscription are dropped?
- Did the team remove itself from any kind of obligation towards paid users?
Having this clarified is important.
I believe that an official statement has to be made about that, paid users seem to have accepted the situation very quietly but it could have been different.
I have the feeling that moving to free is a way to say : Or am I misunderstanding what was part of the subscription?
If product updates and support was not part of it, then my mistake.
A quick message from the team would have prevented us from making that kind of assumptions.
Talking to paid users should have been a top priority. By not doing it, you aren't giving any consideration to your best supporters. This is also killing any opportunity for the open source version to become well supported and then successful.
And anyways.. is anyone reading this actually?
Damn, why the silence?
Yes, Gideros is great.
Yes, it will probably be open sourced "some day" and will still be developed internally by the team. If Atilim said so, no reason to believe this won't happen. But by the time it happens, who knows if anyone will still be listening.
About the community : look at the Top Posters' list. Scan the list of user names and see how many are still active in the forums.
Look at those who contributed with libraries, third party tools, tutorials, and see how many are still active in the forums.
That gives you an idea of the resources you can count on when it is open sourced.
PS : if anything more serious happened to the team and I hope it did NOT (disease, or worse...) please tell us so users stop complaining (the team would have bigger priorities which is more important than anything else) and users can move definitely to the next tool.
Likes: talis, GregBUG, SinisterSoft, Tom2012
- this summarizes my experience with gideros team during the last year, except for ar2rsawseen, but i'm talking about roadmap/plans/changes/etc. almost never being communicated. and investing a lot of time into making my app in gideros believing that i will be able to export it to win in a reasonable time (at least sometime).
Likes: SinisterSoft
Fragmenter - animated loop machine and IKONOMIKON - the memory game
Likes: Tom2012, SinisterSoft, Disciple, hgvyas123
Fragmenter - animated loop machine and IKONOMIKON - the memory game
Ive paid for a licence, and now feel that was a waste of my money.
Likes: SinisterSoft
http://artleeapps.com/
Bubble Adventure - Colors
[ Right now i'm planning for a kickstarter (still a maybe), and it would use Gideros. And with the current situation, it indeed seems weird... :-\" ]
Started developing project with Gideros. Should I finish it or start from scratch in another framework.
1) If your project is about 60-70% finished, try to make it through with Gideros
2) If your project is less finished, then if all current Gideros features satisfy your project needs, definitely continue.
3) If your project misses some functionality, which you think can be extended via plugin, then you need to estimate, what would be harder or take more time, port your project to other framework or create a plugin for Gideros for your functionality (Of course I'm not saying you are alone there, we, community members, are here too, to help, but for the worst case scenario, imagine you would have to create plugin alone from information that is available).
4) If it is easier to port project to other framework, then do so, why not? Even when I was working for Gideros, I often played with other frameworks, like testing the waters, getting new ideas, experience, etc
Same applies to new projects
If Gideros is enough and you have enough skills, I don't see a reason to spend time elsewhere.
I'm myself on the quest to finish all my started games and create some ideas I have and get them out as fast as possible to try out these ideas (currently working at about 1 game a week speed), and I don't see a better alternative for this job than Gideros.
About paid memberships, paid members still have access to the Labs. Even if the labs will turn out to be payed afterwards, most probably paid members will still have an access to it, without additional payments. I am also supporting labs for now, as you see rolling out some updates on interfaces etc.
About open sourcing, for now I really don't know what is taking @atilim so long to release the code. Tried contacting him over the weekend, but for now did not have any response. If I will know anything, I'll let you all know too
Likes: Tom2012, SinisterSoft, MobAmuse
thanks for stepping in.
If it was an official answer from a member of the team it would have been different, but when you wear your User's hat, I agree with your 1) to 4).
I still feel that a clarification is needed from the team about paying users : wasn't support supposed to be part of it, for instance. The lack of communication definitely made it a bigger concern than it should have been.
Going to finish current game in Gideros and see what has happened in a month or so before starting a new one with it. Cocos and Corona are both interesting but the fast on device testing with Gideros is just invaluable IMO!
I'd hate to have to switch to another SDK.
http://www.nightspade.com
As for me I don't see a reason to switch to another platform, at least for now. Gideros does what I need and it's a great tool.
A statement wouldn't hurt, though, I'm waiting to know how the labs will go.
Using Apple tech is not going to be cross compatible, but then... is the Android market really paying except for Adverts? If you are planning to change, then looking at Xcode + Storyboard + Swift is a good way to go.
If you want to stay, we'd have to wait for the open source release (which is seeming like it's with Peter Pan, in 'Never' land)...
Other Lua based frameworks are more or less a the same stage.
Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
Even though learning XCode would be a good thing, we loose option of deploying to Android (if/when) we make a game that is worthy of both platforms, tis why i looked for system like Gideros.
http://artleeapps.com/
Bubble Adventure - Colors
Yes it has been a long time, been busy... lots of things happening...
Are you going for DevWorld? I was supposed to be a speaker for that event, but could not as I will be overseas at that time.
yes I love the cross platform ability that I get with Gideros and there's not taking that away. In fact I was quite excited about Windows, etc being added to the mix as well.
However, do I need to have a $150 plan that one day I might get NBN? When Telstra offers me only ADSL1, similarly, if Cross-platform is not a pressing criteria then you can look at other options, let's be honest most developers have admitted that they have made money off the iStores as compared to the gStores (Apart from ad revenues) plus clients look for iOS apps more than Android.
Lastly many even seek native apps with access to all of the features that are available with each release of the frameworks, many other frameworks fall behind and thereby is a bit of a delicate situation.
Working with the new Xcode6 and Swift is not bad, yes it is not cross-platform, but then maybe some company might provide that functionality to convert the code for android (there are currently some offerings, but do not work very well).
Do not get me wrong, I love gideros, but I would like to access functionality natively and even with plug-ins, etc I am targetting iOS and using Objective-C via Wax or plug-ins, then why not work on xCode directly? Why have the middle layer? Those will not be cross-platform with Android as there is no Wax for Android.
cheers,
Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
It is more and more difficult to trust the team and the framework and make any plans for the future. Pitty...
Likes: SinisterSoft
Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
Likes: Disciple
https://github.com/gideros/gideros
https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnBlackburn1975
you are right, but the (lack of) speed in which things happen around gideros does not help much in keeping this momentum you mention (which indeed could push gideros through the change to open-source).
Fragmenter - animated loop machine and IKONOMIKON - the memory game
If it eventually supports things like Windows/OSX, Windows Phone, shaders, GL 2.0, etc., great. In that case, I will very likely stick with it for future projects if they require any of those things. If not, I'll find something else that supports my needs right out of the box (though I'd strongly prefer sticking with Gideros!).
My main concern for now is compatibility. My hope is that the Open Source transition is complete before iOS 8 is released, or that 8 at least doesn't have any backwards-compatibility-breaking surprises for us.
Is anyone here a paying member?
What were your expectations?
How do you feel not being taken care of/answered?
I guess I have already expressed my own feelings here and there.
i completely agree with your concern. I became a pro member recently as a reward for my tutorials, so i don't worry about this much. but if someone paid for a year of support, i imagine that he could be angry about the whole communication and leaving him without any promise of support.
on the other hand i imagine that if support will indeed stop, people can get back their money if they wish so. this seems to be the only fair solution.
Likes: SinisterSoft
Fragmenter - animated loop machine and IKONOMIKON - the memory game