“I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
1–10 of 468 posts
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#2It's never for you, it's for everyone.
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#3This headline is a bit sensationalist. His tweet at the end says -
"I'm still supportive of lots of GPL work, but I don't think the restrictions helped in this particular case."
He also says - "but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns".
It appears that the goal John was shooting for was to have as broad an impact by having the code being reused in as many situations as possible. On this metric, yes BSD would have been a superior choice.
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#4It's never for you, it's for everyone.
He was obviously talking about benefits for everyone to begin with. If he was only interested in selfish benefits to himself he could just have not released the code at all!
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#5This headline is a bit sensationalist. His tweet at the end says - "I'm still supportive of lots of GPL work, but I don't think the restrictions helped in this particular case." He also says - "but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns". It appears that the goal John was shooting for was to have as broad an impact by having the code being reused in as many situations as pos…
Counter point: I don't think it's sensational.
I interpreted his words directly as he wishes he gone a different direction given what he knows now. At the time he thought GPL was the best move, and now how he doesn't.
HNTitle at the time of my reply: "John Carmack wishes he'd used the BSD license instead of the GPL"
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#6There is no empirical evidence in what he says
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#7This headline is a bit sensationalist. His tweet at the end says - "I'm still supportive of lots of GPL work, but I don't think the restrictions helped in this particular case." He also says - "but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns". It appears that the goal John was shooting for was to have as broad an impact by having the code being reused in as many situations as pos…
> It appears that the goal John was shooting for was to have as broad an impact by having the code being reused in as many situations as possible. On this metric, yes BSD would have been a superior choice.
You basically made the point on why using the BSD license would've been superior...
There are a lot of things the GPL prevents and Carmack is spot on about it.
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#8so, we all have the privilege to read the DOOM source code because the GPL exists and was compatible with the business needs of Id Soft, as well as JC’s vision, is how i’m reading this.
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#9so, we all have the privilege to read the DOOM source code because the GPL exists and was compatible with the business needs of Id Soft, as well as JC’s vision, is how i’m reading this.
You would've had the privilege of reading the source with BSD too, but the GPL prevents a variety of things from happening so its not as free as the BSD License.
If you want to read into something - he was bullied into using the GPL and not the BSD license.
Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”
#10There is no empirical evidence in what he says
> There is no empirical evidence in what he says
Didn't Apple remove all GPL-based code from the whole iOS and macOS dev infrastructure at some point due to GPL licensing concerns?
I also believe Apple sticked for a very long time to an older version of GCC in the past, due to licensing concerns of newer versions of GCC [0]. That was, until Apple replaced GCC with Clang.
And I am not sure if GPL-based code can even be submitted to the AppStore [1][2]. As a dev I always avoided GPL-based code in my iOS apps with the exception of GPL2 licensed static libraries (which to my understanding are ok to distribute as part of an app without licensing concerns).
These days I think most big companies avoid GPL3-based code like the plague, thus limiting the spread of GPL-based software.
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[0]: https://qr.ae/pG4YqQ