What is your goal - making an engine to be used by other people? Or making an engine that you can use for games?

If the former, it's a big task - you're up against established open source projects such as OGRE etc. But there's no reason to restrict yourself to friends, why not ask for help online? For open source, there are plenty of people who don't care about money - but yes, they still need a reason to be interested in your project.

If the latter, I'd agree with the comments about making a game. An engine doesn't have to be "finished" (is anything ever really finished in software?), just good enough for your needs. I use my own engine for my personal projects, but I found I had much better progress and direction when I started using it for writing my own games. There's lots of features missing from my engine, but it's good enough for what I need it for. It's also nice that I can now look at the many years I've spent programming, and say that I have several working games to show for it - rather than having thrown all the time into some engine that is never quite finished, and I have little to show to end users except for maybe screenshots or demos.

(And even if your aim is to write an engine, it's still good to make sure and demonstrate it can be used to write actual games - otherwise people are going to be reluctant to even try it.)

[quote name='Krohm']Perhaps you're really rich, I don't know, but if you're offering 100USD for two days of work, I'm afraid you crossed the "desperate" line. If your "friends" are unwilling to help you a weekend for free... odds are you might have to reconsider your friendship.[/quote]I agree it's mad to start paying people for a project you're working on for free (makes me laugh all the people paying $99 a year to Apple for the "privilege" of writing software on products they own) - I know some people don't get the point of open source development, where as I think there're plenty of reasons to write stuff for free, but paying for that is something I do find odd (unless those payments are funded by donations from users or other income related to the software - obviously open source can involve money).

But I disagree on the latter. I wouldn't work on my friends' projects for free - this doesn't mean I'm less of a friend, it just means I have my own projects too. This isn't the same thing as say, helping them out at a time of need, or helping them move house or something. I'd also happily help someone learning to program. But I'm not going to do their work for them. Might as well except me to do their housework for them or something.

(makes me laugh all the people paying $99 a year to Apple for the "privilege" of writing software on products they own)[/quote]
what happens if they earn $10k, will you still laugh
Ideally yes it should be like google

(makes me laugh all the people paying $99 a year to Apple for the "privilege" of writing software on products they own)

Or $500+ for MS. Or $10k per seat for Oracle. Or $100k per seat for IBM.

But what is silliest with this argument: Apple hardware costs exactly twice what identical hardware costs from other vendors. But no, $99 is a rip-off. What's next - $0.99 for an app?

Try doing something in aviation. Such as mounting a camera, heck, a flashlight on a helicopter. You'll spend two years going through certifications and writing about a metric ton of paperwork before your screw+handle is allowed. Even if you own the helicopter, you still need permission to fly in most spaces.


Either way, there's a lot of economic theory dedicated to perceived vs. actual value. Apple's $99 fee applies to platform for those that wish to distribute applications on AppStore targetting the iOS/iPad/iPhone. Everything else is just as free and open as everywhere. For now.

But this is consumer market. It's not computational or computer science, hacking or anything similar. The fee is needed to publish on their platform. For now.

Compared to how other industries work, such as 1 year mandatory certifications, bar exams and similar, software is still open. For now.

Notice the repeated "for now", which is becoming a fairly big deal these days. So far we still have the ability to run arbitrary computations on hardware we own. Quite a few vendors are working at actively eliminating this.

If the former, it's a big task - you're up against established open source projects such as OGRE etc. But there's no reason to restrict yourself to friends, why not ask for help online?

I strongly suggest against that.

I wouldn't work on my friends' projects for free - this doesn't mean I'm less of a friend, it just means I have my own projects too. This isn't the same thing as say, helping them out at a time of need, or helping them move house or something. I'd also happily help someone learning to program. But I'm not going to do their work for them. Might as well except me to do their housework for them or something.

You're pulling out far more than I intended in my statements. To be completely honest, I don't find much difference between your examples. It's a weekend. I don't recall a good "friendship" where money was involved.