I was just thinking, how often is source code included in projects at itch.io? Wouldn't it be kind of nice if source code was included (no matter if the game is sold or free)? Or is this the wrong platform for this? What do you think about it? I have seen projects here including source code but most don't (perhaps I'm mistaken). Pro's and con's?
Wouldn’t it be kind of nice if source code was included (no matter if the game is sold or free)?
Well, that would mean anyone can play the project for free, so it wouldn’t really work for sold games.
As for completely free games, it would be nice if everything was open-source, but at the end of the day, it’s not as simple as uploading all the source code somewhere.
There are cases where it's difficult or impractical to open source a game, e.g. if it includes assets or code that are licensed (so sometimes you will see the engine for a game open sourced but not any of the content), or maybe the code is really messy and I don't want the world to see it, or I'm still grasping onto the faint hope of making a living or gas money from this stuff. Anyway, I'm all for open source and I use a lot of it (if I make another 3D game for myself, it'll be with Godot), but rather then tell others they should open source their work, I think it's better to lead by example and open source your work to encourage others. There's nothing to stop you from uploading code or projects to itch.io, but for source code I'd suggest deploying something like github so that people can browse, fork, and submit improvements.
OP did not specify whether the source is also free. In the case of free software, freedom 2 and 3 would allow people to redistribute the game to others for free, which makes it impractical to sell games and any software in general.
But if you sell the source with the game and restrict the licensee, this becomes completely practical. It won’t be considered free software or open-source anymore, but “source-available”.
