Regarding putting it on Steam at a price tag. I've been thinking about doing the same for my game but on the other hand it feels bad that I take profit on something people contribute to for free without getting any share of it (even though I am the biggest contributor).
There are blockbuster Steam games which sell tens of millions of copies largely on the strength of an active volunteer modding community keeping them interesting, and no shortage of OS projects whose founding company profits from selling [derivatives of] that software to people that want paid software licenses.
Obviously it's less legitimate if you rugpull access to the existing base game or if your original OS project marketed itself as being always free everywhere...
As long as you keep it open on GitHub, and keep it installable for people, I don't think there's any issue. In fact, I think it's a great thing! If it makes money, it incentivizes you to put more time and effort into development, which in turn benefits the entire community of contributors. Again, as long as you don't remove it from GitHub or make installation outside of steam a pain in the ass, it's win-win for everyone.
I think it is fine if you keep an easy to install free version. And if you earn a significant amount, you could distribute some of that back to certain contributors if you wanted.
As other people have replied, I think it's fine as long as there's a free version that's also available.
Personally, I started playing Mindustry using the free version. I enjoyed it and started playing it with a friend. Keeping my version up to date was _just_ annoying enough that throwing the developer $6 (USD) to not start each game session with 20 minutes of fiddling with software versions was worth it. I really liked that it's free and open source AND I really appreciated the easier to use option once I decided that I like this particular game.
So giving people the option (free & manual, or token payment and Steam makes my life easier) is actually a really nice, appreciated option for players. Or at least, appreciated by this player :)
As long as you honor the license you all agreed to and you own any IP not covered by copyright, I can't imagine what the complaint could be.
Plenty of copies of games get charged for by people with no connection to them at all. Asking for a non-required purchase as the creator of software shouldn't feel weird.
Plus you'll be providing and updating the Steam release de facto providing nominal support. That's not free.
How does this actually work? Game has a MIT license. I thought that meant that the brand and the art was also under MIT. I'm clueless about this stuff btw.
mindustry allows you to still get the game on github, you just don't get steam integrations. i think that's pretty fair.
However, even if that wasn't the case i think it would be fine. If I contribute to a BSD licensed project, i shouldn't be mad if someone ends up selling my code.
So as long as the license permits it, I think it's generally fine. Otherwise, what's the point of the license?
As long as the game is freely available to fulfill copyright license clauses, I don’t think people would mind.
Steam makes it easier for people to keep updated and allows them to support the creator. People who can’t afford that can still download independently.
Make it obvious that whatever is sold on Steam is also freely available, and I don’t think anyone will have issues. The only thing Steam specific to Mindusty is the multiplayer logic (as far as I’m aware), and that wouldn’t work without steam in the first place.
As long as you have a free-to-play version available outside of Steam, you're fine. Keeping a game updated for Steam is extra work on top of the other free versions.
Think Dwarf Fortress, but your source code is open and always free.
What's your view on it?