Pixel Vision 8 Is Going Fully Open Source

I'm excited to announce that Pixel Vision 8 will be going fully open source for the next release.

Wait, isn't PV8 already open source? Well, yes, and no. While large parts of the codebase are already on GitHub, I didn't commit some tools and logic, which I kept in a separate private repo. I did this when I offered a free and pro version of the software plus the standalone draw and sound apps. After the last few months of struggling to get a new release out and keep updates going, it's become clear that turning this into a viable commercial product, while only being able to work on it during nights and weekends, isn't realistic.

Over the next two months, I'll be winding down the site. I plan to replace the current website with a static one that doesn't require a log-in to download PV8. The new site will live on Github Pages, and the docs site will live in the Wiki. My goal is to make everything related to PV8 in one project now that I have a working build system. Moving forward, when I push out builds, it will automatically update those following the project on Github, compile a new build to download and make sure that the Wiki has the latest documentation.

Over the past five years, the community's incredible support has helped make PV8 what it is today. Everyone that bought a license, donated on Github or owns the art pack allowed me to hire great artists and developers to help make PV8 what it is today. I will continue to sell the art packs and pro tutorials with the hope of creating more original content for the engine once I get things more stable. If you own one of these projects, you'll still have access to it until I shut down the site, and I'll transfer your ownership to the new platform I decide to host it on.

I want to reiterate one thing: work on PV8 is not stopping. I have been working on a new release for the past two months with an entirely new renderer explicitly optimized to run better on the Pi. My intention for making everything open source and removing the account restriction is to enable more people to get involved in the project, help fix bugs, and propose new features more easily. I've had some great help over the years. I hope more people will be willing to contribute without worrying if their addition will end up behind a paywall.

Please follow PV8 on Github and become a sponsor if you'd like to help support the project. I'll continue to post updates on Twitter as well as be active on Discord. Nothing will change there! To sum things up, I will be pointing everyone to Github when I shut the site down, and it will become the single source of truth for the latest downloads.