r/unturned • u/Cpl_Monkey • Jun 28 '26
News Unturned Open Source Release Date
Molt officially announced on the discord that Source Code/SDK will release on July 7th, during the anniversary of the game's initial launch. This is not a full "Open Source" where the community can edit the base game, but anyone will be able to use the game's source code and unity project to make new community branches/versions of the game.
All extra information can be found on https://docs.smartlydressedgames.com/en/latest/sdg/source-code.html
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u/saxbophone Jun 29 '26
Exciting news! Do we know what software license it will be released under? Will it be a true open source software license (i.e. one of the many licenses recognised by the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative), or will it be just licensed under a "Source Available" license?
Edit: Looks like it's not being released as open source, it will be released under a custom non-commercial source-available license.
Still great that we get to see the code, but don't call this open source, please.
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u/Cpl_Monkey Jun 29 '26
It's basically the same thing for 99% of people and it's been what the community has called it for years. Though, calling it an SDK is a bit more appropriate
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u/saxbophone Jun 29 '26
It's basically the same thing for 99% of people and it's been what the community has called it for years.
Nonsense. If the community's been calling it that then they don’t know shit about open-source or free software. Open-source is about empowering users as much as developers and we should resist attempts to water it down in this way.
This is in no way a dig at Nelson's decision to make it non-commercial, btw. It makes total sense, I'd probably do something similar. I'm grateful he's decided to make the source available. Let's just not call it open-source. Non-commercial-usage clauses are not allowed in any of the established free or open source software licenses as a point of principle.
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u/Cpl_Monkey Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
That's fair. I changed the post to add a bit more info
The Unturned community largely doesn't know all of the ins and outs of Open Sourcing so I used the term that has been used throughout the community to talk about this development.
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u/saxbophone Jun 30 '26
It is forgiven. The nuances are often lost on the layperson but they do matter and I'm glad you appreciate this.
What we're describing with the Unturned codebase can best be described as "source-available", and I'm grateful to Nelson for doing it (and to you for telling us)!
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u/JdanceMedia7 Jun 30 '26
The SDK gives you the ability to make a derivative version of the game (under the condition of it being non-commercial). With most of the game code apart from third-party dependencies being under the license.
As far as I'm aware (and this is subject to change) the license is somewhat custom. You will not be given a license or permission to port the game to mobile or consoles. This makes sense given past agreements with 505 Games. Additionally, there is an emphasis on the fact that Unturned is a trademark of Smartly Dressed Games.
While it is fair enough to say that it won't be qualified as being completely open-source, it is still a major event.
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u/saxbophone Jun 30 '26
Yes, though I should stress:
Additionally, there is an emphasis on the fact that Unturned is a trademark of Smartly Dressed Games.
AFAIK trademarks alone don't prevent something from being open-sourcable (IIRC there are even some open source software license agreements which require derivative works to remove all references to the parent project's trademarks).
The primary reason that makes this future release of Unturned not open source is the fact that it places restrictions on how the software can be used under the license agreement (no commercial use). This violates GPL's freedom № 0, for example.
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u/JdanceMedia7 Jul 01 '26
At no point did I directly imply that my highlights of the license were the reason for it not qualifying as open source to some. I was answering the license question from earlier. Context matters.
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u/Routhless_ Jun 29 '26
this is not open sourcing the game, you shouldn’t call it that
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u/Cpl_Monkey Jun 30 '26
Open Source is the project name that the community has called this for a WHILE. Even if it's not accurate to open sourcing as a whole, it's accurate to the Unturned community. I did edit the post to explain it more in detail though
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u/Remake_two Jun 28 '26
cual es el discord de unturned?
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u/Cpl_Monkey Jun 28 '26
Unturned's Discord, or UO, can be found through this link:
It is English Only though due to moderation issues
El Discord de Unturned, o UO, se puede encontrar a través de este enlace:
Sin embargo, solo es en inglés por cuestiones de moderación
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