I worry about all the good synergy I was getting from Unity stuff using Github as a default is going to dry up if there's a non-open, non-public VCS as the default. I love trawling Github for interesting Unity projects.
Game development historically and consciously does not use Git so you’re fighting a losing battle. There’s good reason for that. Git remains not a great fit for managing large projects of assets despite extensions and work put in, so I’d be cognizant of your projection of Web-centric preferences on another vertical. That’s a recurring theme from the Web vertical (why don’t you do things our way) and I can tell you I’ve seen frustration with that firsthand.
Perforce and systems like it are the competition here (pay attention to how many games announce changelists in their logs), and AAA studios are quite comfortable with what they have.
If your problem with Unity is how it does source control it speaks more to your unfamiliarity with industry practice than it does a deficiency in Unity. They added Git ability because enough people complained about it, but as this thread points out, it took gymnastics to implement because it’s simply not how that market operates — web folks operate on a pile of text files and games don’t look anything like that. I’m not just talking about graphics, either. The AAA I’m working on has about 75 KB of code and 46 GB of binaries and a few hundred actively committing, so Git is very comfortably a nonstarter.
Do you really mean 75KB of code or is that exaggeration for effect? That comes out to, I don't know, about 2,000 lines of code? I assume you're not including engine code in here, but still - 2k just seems orders of magnitude off from what I would expect a AAA game to have. Is most of the logic not implemented using code, but rather some other method?
I've only ever used Git with Unity and as long as we're disciplined in our process, it's not a problem. It's free, scales to any size team for free, and lets us open source our projects easily.
I would be willing to consider Perforce, but it seems very expensive.
What is the industry standard means of open sourcing a Perforce repository?
Genuinely curious. You insist a VCS is not how the industry operates. But then how do those AAA devs manage synchronizing changes across a team of several hundreds of people? I imagine there must be some equivalent to VCS that better fits the gamedev indurstry. Or are people just throwing flash drives around the office?
Perforce. You have an always online server, and binary files can only be checked out by one person at a time (enforced by the server). Its big, it's clunky, the UI (p4v) sucks more than you could possibly imagine, but it scales.
You hinted you’re worried about the perceived and hypothetical lack of synergy of GitHub and Unity reflecting on your perception of the latter, and you spoke about licensing concerns to reinforce that point. You also expanded your position in nearby comments. I’m advising you that the entire concern and approach you’re taking to source management, and your interpretation of the same as well as your beliefs about free software, reflects where you come from more than where you’re going, and you should loosely hold whatever conviction brought you there if you’re serious about pursuing the industry.
I was responding to you. The game industry is fundamentally different from other industries, and approaching it with questions like “why not Git?” or “why no type safety?” or “what about GPL?” marks you as not really understanding the industry, its product, or its motivations. I realize there’s a huge clutch of cash and free time that lets the average Web dev schedule meetings about and argue type safety and microservices and so on among their peers, but game development is an industry driven by a whip and is closer to Hollywood than San Jose. We look to indie to innovate and put in our 80 wishing we had the time.
> approaching it with questions like “why not Git?” or “why no type safety?” or “what about GPL?” marks you as not really understanding the industry,
Sorry - I'm trying to remember the contexts that I've said stuff like that in. You must have delved quite far back in my post history. Posting them as if they are direct quotes without context is a little unfair.
(Plus - I've got no interest in joining the mainstream games industry)
I'm simply interested in continuing to find useful and inspring stuff on Github or some similar open, shared resource. I can see how it might be less than ideal for large projects and the purchase of Plastic SCM might be a great benefit to studio workflows - but I hope all the strange, quirky, experimental stuff on Github that's a real boon to learning doesn't disappear in it's wake
I worry about all the good synergy I was getting from Unity stuff using Github as a default is going to dry up if there's a non-open, non-public VCS as the default. I love trawling Github for interesting Unity projects.