From The Blog: Corona Labs annual update

Getting Started Announcements
#21

@richard11 the GPLv3 license was huge turn off for people who are interested in engine development. I don’t think we really though that many Corona developers would get involved when we open sourced under the dual license. We were hoping that some of the people who want to work with open source engines would have gotten involved, but, well GPLv3. With the change to MIT, those restrictions will hopefully attract people who want to do that.

I also would like to remind all of the Lua developers out there. A sizable portion of Corona is written in Lua. Widgets, transitions, animations, timer, network.* and a host of other API groups are straight up Lua making Corona API calls. Widgets could certainly use some love adding new widgets, re-theming them with more modern UI stylings and more give people opportunities. The welcome screen is even written in Lua. Sample apps! The list goes on.

Rob

#22

  1. **PLEASE** Do not discuss AdMob here. There are plenty of “Admob is broken” threads out there you can express your frustrations at us. This thread is specifically to discuss Corona’s overall future and not hijack the thread into a particular issue. These are still forums and we need to use different threads/posts to maintain a semblance of organization. Please open new topics for specific topic discussions. 

  2. You should always look at the latest daily build, look at what changed in the release notes and decide if you need to update to that version or not. However at some point we are going to have to shut down the build servers. If you want to use the simulator, you will, at that time need to get a new version.

Rob

#23

@Rob,

First of all - your response about having personal issues to factor in to whether or not you stay active here after May 1st - Hope all is well?

Lua - I actually had no idea so much of the core was written in Lua. I’d had a brief look through a few things when you first went open source and found myself lost in OOP, but perhaps I’ll have another poke around at the Lua side at some point.

Patreon - If we do go ahead with building a new marketplace I’d like some of its revenue to go towards core development. As per my post above, I honestly just don’t think Corona has much of a life expectancy without a dedicated team keeping up with platform changes. Clearly the current marketplace isn’t generating enough income to fund you and I’m not naive enough to think that a replacement will do a better job of that, but others here have already expressed interest in Patreon support and I’m sure more will follow. In which case, do you have any kind of ballpark figure in mind for how much of a backing you’d need to keep whoever is interested from jumping ship entirely?

#24

Being somewhat brutal and self-serving here… I only care about the core SDK being updated enough to meet store requirements.

My main concern is that things like Apple maybe dropping openGL is supported by the core.  If not we are screwed.

#25

All is well. It’s just not stuff that should be talked about in a public form (it is after all “personal”) :slight_smile:

Rob

#26

Hi Rob,

When you say “We will change the Corona Simulator to be an offline tool, …”

Does this mean builds will be generated, completely disconnected form a Corona host, via a program we will download and run locally?

Thank you.

#27

This makes me very sad. I have been developing with Corona many years, almost since it’s inception. At one point I had 8 Corona built apps/games in the Apple store. I have one left now which I just recently updated.

Update: I just checked my computer. I have Corona game template files going back to December of 2010. Wow! I didn’t realize it has actually been that long.

#28

I have been using Corona SDK for almost 10 years and have been paying for the subscription since the beginning including a few years on their enterprise license and subsequently plugins in the marketplace. It sadden me to see its closurI have been looking at Flutter in recent months but Corona still wins in terms of ease of use.

I guess the most logical step now is to start migrating all my existing Corona apps (more than 10) to another cross platform engine as we cannot predict the future of Corona engine from now onwards. 

#29

What happened to the rest of the apps? Have you migrated them to another engine?

#30

We will issue a new update to the simulator at some point. That version will not require any connects to Corona servers. You won’t need any special program other than the offline version of the simulator.

Rob

#31

No I didn’t migrate them. Some where pulled by Apple after the 64 bit mandate, others I pulled myself when they broke after an iOS update.

The last couple of years I have been working with native iOS using Swift and I have just begun learning Flutter. Flutter is very good for a certain type of app.

#32

I see. Yes, Flutter is good for business app but if you require many plugins, it can be a nightmare as the plugins might not be well maintained.  Basically the contributors have no obligation to keep it up to date.

#33

I’m so screwed… I’m too old to start over again with a completely new tool set and I don’t know what can replace Corona SDK anyway…

#34

What kind of apps have you developed using Corona?  Mine are mostly business apps and the most logical engine would be Flutter.

#35

Now the inevitable has happened we can be grateful for small mercies, it would have been easy for the owners to just shut the doors a year ago and walk away without a single line of code on GitHub and the forum history lost forever.

Now there is a fighting chance, but even just a small breaking change from those ever-helpful people at Apple presents a massive challenge.

#36

I think the chances to keep using Corona are not that bad … I don’t think a small breaking change will become a showstopper, for small updates it’s probably always possible to find someone who can fix it.

Big updates/changes are where the real risks are - the biggest one on the (close) horizon is probably the change to Metal on iOS.

#37

We are a long time Corona user as well. This is indeed sad news. I wish Rob, vlad, and everyone at Corona the best. I do wish some of the fine folks will continue to contribute to the SDK. We don’t have the expertise to help, but can contribute financially. 

@Rob would you happen to know if Corona Cards would be in a good enough shape for folks to continue running Corona using another framework? (eg. Unity) I am assuming that won’t solve the issue with migration to Metal? 

#38

Very sad to hear.

Firstly, thank you to those individuals who have worked tirelessly to support Corona over the years. We’ve used it for much of our development since 2012 and have published nearly 20 apps via the platform over the years. It always seemed like an amazing deal… we pay $100 to remove the splash screen and get access to this awesome platform with no other costs apart from a few plugins.

Which is why I’m wondering if I’m missing something and the idea of charging a subscription to Corona users is something that’s been explored in more depth? I would imagine anyone running a business based on publishing Corona-based apps would gladly pay a subscription to support continued development of the product? We certainly would.

All this leaves a lot of us with some tough choices to make and I’d welcome others’ views on how they’re looking to proceed.

The major concern for us is not so much new features being added (Corona already does more than enough for our current 2d development needs over the next few years) but support for any changes Apple and Google make meaning we could be in a position where we simply can’t submit updates a year or two down the line with newer versions of Android or iOS.

I imagine most people reliant on Corona are looking at one of these three possibilities…

  • move away from Corona at this stage and invest in another platform (with no guarantee they don’t go the same way)
  • go for purely native development and lose the multi-platform benefits of a single codebase
  • stick with Corona and hope someone takes it on in a more official capacity and commits to providing the support for any changes the various app stores make in the future

I’d be interested to know what other people’s intentions are and whether anyone has any thoughts on other multi-platform solutions that seem robust / long term viable. For us, 2d game development with sqlite support, some kind of network api that allows loading and sending data to a remote server and the json, encryption and audio libraries are important. No ad requirements at all.

One question I have that someone who has used other platforms may be able to answer:

  • If we move to another platform, will we be able to publish updates to existing apps that can plug into the sqlite database that was shipped with the current version of the app built in Corona, so users don’t lose progress built up over time?

Thanks again to everyone involved in making Corona so awesome. It will be hugely disappointing if it falls away altogether so anything we can do to help, we will do. In all my years of programming, there is not an environment I’ve more enjoyed developing in or found a more enthusiastic and friendly community around.

Count us in for financial support.

#39

In the last month I developed a lot of apps with Corona. I am really disappointed and depressed now. So, I really hope everything will go on. I am not a great developer, but maybe I can help somewhere.

#40

 move away from Corona at this stage and invest in another platform (with no guarantee they don’t go the same way)

I think if there are not quick answers about the management of the asks of apple and google play, we were oblige to switch to an other language, not necessary a 2d game engine working with lua, but perhaps ( and it’s the harder ) an another language.

we don’t know when the next update of apple and google play will happen, so unitl that time, perhaps 6 mouth or 1 year, we can build app.

I hope Corona still be maintain in the future.

Sincerely,

Yvan.