We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

I honestly don't know where we would be without OBS Studio now, it's a fantastic bit of free and open source software for recording videos and doing livestreams. It seems Twitch agree.

Developer and OBS founder Hugh "Jim" Bailey, wrote a new progress report yesterday which goes over some thoughts on how they're doing. The first big point was how Twitch have started directly supporting OBS Studio (full announcement), as they've become a "Premiere" level sponsor which means they're pumping more than $50K a year into the project. It's not clear exactly how much, as the sponsor tiers only go up to "Diamond" which is $50K a year and Twitch are being listed above that level on the OBS contribute page.

Seems like OBS Studio is a reasonably well funded project with $1.2K monthly from Patreon, around $100K a year from their Open Collective campaign and now Twitch too for at least the $50K a year. It might sound like a lot but for a few developers, that kind of funding does disappear pretty quickly if they're working full time.

I never did look into the history of how OBS Studio came to be, which Bailey answered in the Twitch announcement:

When I first started the project back in 2012, I was a jobless idiot who watched a lot of Starcraft 2 streams, and wanted to stream it myself for fun. When I saw that there were no real serious open source projects out there for capturing, streaming, and recording, I decided to make my own tool, and make the tool the way I liked. I grew up programming along with my brother, and I always liked to write my own tools for fun and the challenge. Except this time, I decided to open source it, and that led me down the crazy path that we reached today. For the first time in my life, I've made something for myself, something I worked hard to achieve, and I've enjoyed it every step of the way.

That is really awesome. They saw a gap, they needed some software and so they made it themselves and kept it open source. Now it's likely one of the most popular open source applications around.

If you've been following recent OBS Studio releases the rest of the blog is likely not news to you. It goes over features they've been able to add in like pausing recording, browser source audio going through OBS, dockable browser panels and more.

There's a lot still to do though and pull requests start piling up whenever Bailey works on his own code. So it seems the project may go through a bit of a transition, with Bailey moving over to more of a managing role helping others and pulling in the code requests.

Linux even got a little mention:

Don't even get me started on macOS and Linux related stuff I want to see worked on. I've talked about that in previous blogs and we're still working on them. They always have to take reduced priority because not as many people use them. I'm not happy about that but when the vast majority of your users are on Windows, it's just the way things are.

Sadly that's the way everything goes, we see it in gaming all the time. Windows is the priority, Linux is often in second or third place or just forgotten about entirely. Perhaps if Bailey does spend more time on the managing side, more Linux related code can make it in from pull requests. Like the browser stuff, service integrations and more that the Linux version of OBS Studio is missing right now.

Anyway, to end on a much nicer high note, the future of OBS Studio and so easy video recording and livestreaming on Linux is now very bright.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Open Source
18 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
10 comments

WorMzy Sep 24, 2019
That's the beauty of open source though -- you may want to prioritise features/bug fixes/etc for one platform, but that doesn't stop other people in the community picking up the slack and working on the other platforms in your stead. :D
Corben Sep 24, 2019
QuoteLinux is often in second or third place or just forgotten about entirely.
BrazilianGamer Sep 24, 2019
SO COOL
mphuZ Sep 24, 2019
Spoiler, click me
Waiting for SteamTV
ZyanKLee Sep 24, 2019
You are aware that there is a thirdparty browser plugin for OBS on linux?
=> https://github.com/bazukas/obs-linuxbrowser
Recently I submitted a patch to the obs-websocket plugin to support the linuxbrowser plugin as well.
Liam Dawe Sep 24, 2019
Quoting: ZyanKLeeYou are aware that there is a thirdparty browser plugin for OBS on linux?
=> https://github.com/bazukas/obs-linuxbrowser
Recently I submitted a patch to the obs-websocket plugin to support the linuxbrowser plugin as well.
Very aware, it's what we already use. However, they need browser stuff done directly in OBS before we can get the service integration since that relies on CEF.
14 Sep 25, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Cool news I think. There is always a little fear that the highest sponsor gets to do the most steering. That sponsor is really Amazon right now. At least it's open source though.

I find it odd that XSplit is a sponsor. Did they give up?
hm11 Sep 25, 2019
This is good.
Liam Dawe Sep 25, 2019
Quoting: devnull> directly in OBS before we can get the service integration since that relies on CEF

I don't follow that, at all.

Really wish projects would STOP USING CEF. And just to support websockets? Hell even bash can do that.
Service integrations like Twitch web panels, auto sign in and so on. The Linux client is missing all of that special stuff due to the browser bits not being sorted for Linux.
RossBC Sep 27, 2019
Ahh Logitec acquiring Streamlabs which has their own flavor of OBS probably has something to do with it.


Last edited by RossBC on 27 September 2019 at 8:36 am UTC
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.