Mark Mandel gave a presentation on the challenges of introducing open source software to the games industry. Some of the challenges include developers thinking their code is too unique to share ("It's Not Invented Here"), concerns about sharing code legally ("I can't share that with you"), and a lack of familiarity with open source practices like pull requests. Mandel recommends education about open source tools and processes, doing open source development transparently and bringing in outside contributors, and actively recruiting companies to contribute back to open source projects.

1. Mark Mandel
Developer Advocate
@Neurotic
He/Him
Challenges Introducing
Open Source to the Games Industry

2. Agones
An open source, batteries-included,
multiplayer dedicated game server
scaling and orchestration platform
that can run anywhere Kubernetes
can run.

3. Free and open-source
software (FOSS) is software
that can be classified as both
free software and
open-source software.
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software
CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License

4. Plumbing

5. Introducing OSS to
the Games Industry
It’s not easy.

6. “It’s Not Invented Here”
Every game developer
Ever

7. Build it better
Get a diverse set of contributors and
do a better job than people could do
alone

8. “I can’t share that with you”
Another game developer
Dreading talking to lawyercats

9. Be an example of
transparency
Do as much as possible in the open

10. Private channels
Create private channels as needed
with some contributors and users

11. “What’s a ‘pull request’?”
One more game developer
Knows perforce.

12. Education, Education, Education
Spend time explaining how popular open source infrastructure and community
works.
Git + GitHub
Common OSS
procedures
OSS Community
Etiquette
1
2
3

13. Actively recruit
contributors
The norm is not to contribute back to
open source.
Encourage companies to work with
the OSS community to fill gaps.

15. Thank You
Resources
● github.com/googleforgames
● opensource.google.com/projects/list/games
● cloud.google.com/gaming
● games.withgoogle.com/
Me
● twitter.com/Neurotic
● youtube.com/marksmandel
● twitch.tv/markmandel