As you may know, Godot's development is extremely pragmatic, with the focus solely on solving problems. But do we all share this kind of development approach to full extent?
I'd like that we discuss the future of Godot, which is something that I feel and think is neglected due to the above. I think it's necessary that at least some forethought is considered during development, but not to the point of making the decision-making process paralyzed, of course.
Having said that, let me list some concrete questions that will make it easier to jump start this topic.
If you'd like to see another version of Godot, how it should look like? I think most people are not interested in the division of Godot community, but I do think it's necessary to see what community really wants to see from the engine in order to fulfill those needs.
What you absolutely dislike about Godot? I constantly see Godot being praised for A and B (sometimes in a cultish manner), but is there anything that you really don't like about Godot? Again, knowing is half the battle towards a bright future of Godot, but unfortunately some people prefer to be silent and prefer not to talk about the downsides publicly to avoid being shunned.
What needs to be done in order to minimize the chance of someone making a fork (another version) of Godot? If you look at Linux distros out there, you'll get what I mean. I guess it also depends on whether you see division of community as a good, bad, or neutral thing. But I think it's important that contributors stay connected and proper consensus is reached at all times regardless, so that division of community is not just a matter of bad interpersonal relationships within a development team.
If you ask me, I've seen people forking Godot for the sake of using additional C++ modules. That's why I've personally contributed a feature called "Custom modules" in the past to help this. Unfortunately, for some reason, someone from the Godot core developers said that it was a "mistake" from my part to provide such a feature, explaining that module developers can now dictate the direction of Godot's development. Nevertheless, I think that Godot's development should be focused on improving modules/plugins ecosystem, and treated as having highest priority: this is how Godot can stay lean and mean.
Would you like to see Godot be like a Linux kernel, or be an engine on par with Unity, or even Unreal Engine? I see how Godot is compared to Unity all the time, but is it really a fair comparison?
Do you think that Godot should be more community-driven, or less community-driven? I've seen people saying that if we make Godot (more) community-driven, then this will create chaos, therefore making Godot less community-driven might make engine's features and overall user experience coherent. But at the same time, making something less community-driven could definitely lead to division of community, which I'd personally like to prevent.
What is the definition of "community-driven" for you personally? I honestly think that it's not just about semantics (this is how most discussions are disregarded), I do think it's also about our inner understandings: values, beliefs, assumptions, expectations... It's not always about logic. In fact, what I've enumerated dominate over logic most of the time.
For reference, according to Godot's definition of "community-driven" (see Governance model at Godot's website), this means: "open development", "open discussion", "community-minded".
I'm primarily talking as a Godot contributor, but also as a person who used Godot for the past 4 years. I care about Godot and I hope this discussion could lead to useful insights, at the very least.
Also, I've made some statements without quoting anyone. I was previously accused for allegedly quoting core developers out of context, so please forgive me if what I say sounds like random accusations. I can provide quotes upon a request to prove my point, but I'd first need an explicit permission from forum admins/moderators. I'd just like to have an open discussion, please treat my words as someone who has subjective experience.
