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Open Source Round Table at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco

Stephen Jacobs - 20 February 2019

Over the past several years, there has been a greater willingness within the game industry to use open source technologies and/or put their own proprietary tech under a wide variety of fully or semi-open licenses. There are also more independents working with open game engines like Godot.

This past fall, the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences joined forces with the Linux Foundation to create the Academy Software Foundation to “provide a ‘neutral’ space for artists, engineers and developers to share work and collaborate on projects, thereby increasing both the quality and quantity of open source tools.” The companies currently signed on are, by a wide majority, film industry companies. There are a few game industry companies currently engaged and the language on the website alludes to this foundation covering multimedia and games as well.

The goal of this IGDA GDC roundtable is to to learn more about the ASWF and its mission and to ask questions like the following:

  1. What are the up and downsides of such an effort?
  2. Considering there is an overlap, but not an overall match, between the needs of game production and film and television production, should games be a part of this effort or should there be a separate foundation?
  3. What might next steps be in seeing this model, or another, move forward to promote the benefits of open source to and/or within the game industry?

Who will be there?

The session will be led by Stephen Jacobs of the FOSS@MAGIC initiative and a Professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Joining the roundtable are Chris Aniszczyk of the Linux Foundation, Ruth Suehle of Red Hat, Inc. and Todd Prives, of the Academy Software Foundation Board.

The roundtable will be held at GDC in the Moscone Center Hall on March 20th at 9:00 AM. You must be an attendee of the Game Developer’s Conference with at least an “Expo Pass” to attend the roundtable.

Roundtable Agenda

  1. Call to order / brief explanation of the FOSS SIG and day’s topic
  2. Linux Foundation and Red Hat representative introductions
  3. Attendee introductions
  4. Informal Presentation:
    • What the Linux Foundation does
    • What the ASF is
    • How it was formed
    • What its goals are
    • How ASF perceives game industry participation and role
  5. Discussion:
    • ASF and Games Industry: what they could do
    • If they’re a fit or if a different foundation needs to be set up because of significant different needs within the Games industry or is a formal sub-entity should be considered under ASF

Get involved

Want to get involved before the conference kicks off? Email Stephen Jacobs and say hello, or join the SIG’s official Facebook group.