The company has decided to open source most parts of Corona’s code except for some plugins, the Corona Marketplace, www.coronalabs.com, and the build infrastructure.
Corona Labs is making its free and cross-platform 2D game engine, Corona, available as open source under the GNU GPLv3 license and commercial licenses. The commercial license will be available upon agreement with Corona Labs.
The license for builds and releases, however, remains unchanged. The new changes only apply to the source code of the engine which is now available for download.
Corona is a popular game engine for creating 2D games and apps for mobile, desktop systems, TV platforms, and the web. It is based on Lua language and makes use of over 1,000 built-in APIs and plugins, and Corona Native extensions (C/ C++/Obj-C/ Java).
The company has decided to open source most parts of Corona’s code except for some plugins, the Corona Marketplace, www.coronalabs.com, and the build infrastructure.
“This is not a final or exhaustive list as the team may open source even more as we move forward,” the California-based software company said in a blog post.
A long-term vision
The company has been planning this move for a few years now, with the goal of making the engine development process more transparent.
“The transition of Corona to the open source model of development has been our long-term vision since Corona Labs was acquired by Appodeal in 2017. We believe that this move will bring transparency to the development process, and will allow users to contribute features or bug fixes to make the project better for everyone,” said Vlad Sherban, product manager for Corona Labs.
Benefits of the open source model
The engine team at Corona Labs believes that entrusting Corona to the open community will enable them to quickly respond to market shifts and changes. It would also ensure that Corona stays relevant and valuable to all mobile app developers.
The open source model will also bring more visibility and flexibility to the development process by allowing the users to see what the engine team is working on and where the project is going. It will also allow users to contribute valuable new features that will help spearhead Corona to the next level, they said.
In addition, businesses will be able to acquire a commercial license for source code and customize the engine for certain commercial projects.
A dedicated team to keep up to date with changing requirements
According to Vlad Sherban, Corona Labs will continue to have a dedicated team and infrastructure to support their flourishing plugin ecosystem and infrastructure, as well as to keep up to date with the ever-changing requirements and updates coming from applications stores.
“Powered by the new open source model and supported by the development of new features and bug fixes will make Corona more community driven — but not without our help and guidance — going open source will provide confidence in the future of the engine and an opportunity to grow community involvement in engine development,” said Sherban.
The Corona engine was updated with HTML5 and Linux (alpha-version) building in 2018.
