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“I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

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Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#51

Post by EdSchouten »

kbenson wrote: post #41
EdSchouten wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the same can happen with BSD licensed code, right? That license also has certain requirements that need to remain fulfilled. I don’t see how the GPL is special in the discussion around Copilot.

The GPL license is license-viral, the BSD license is just attribution-viral, as I understand it. For BSD licensed code, you must reproduce the license and attribution for that code, but the rest of the code can be licensed as you want. For GPL code there are additional requirements.

But does Copilot reproduce the license and attribution for the code? As far as I know, it does not.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#52

Post by pwdisswordfish8 »

toast0 wrote: post #24
cblconfederate wrote: post #6

There is no empirical evidence in what he says

How would you get empirical evidence of this? Are there any AAA game engines released under a BSD license to compare with? I don't think many games (or other software) ended up shipping with code from the GPL Quake source, other than Quake source ports. Is that because of code quality, code specialization, license, lack of support, or something else? Hard to tell empirically; I think a lot of game developers do want…

> Are there any AAA game engines released under a BSD license to compare with?

Er, stating what should be the obvious here, but the fact that the answer to this is "no" is really making the point of the person you're challenging...

An more relevant question is, "Are there any commercial licensees of id's code, who would have not had to license it had it been available under a permissive license?" Answer for that is, "Yes, lots".

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#53

Post by reidrac »

dman wrote: post #3

This 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…

I think you're right; this is more about choosing the right license to support your means than a general BSD vs GPL.

I find interesting his point of view compared to his partners': he would have preferred if the code was used by more people, his partners were more worried perhaps about competition (if anyone released a game based on their code, they had to contribute the changes back; which is something id could use as long as they keep that engine GPL).

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#54

Post by _ph_ »

EdSchouten wrote: post #49
happymellon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the fundamental difference between BSD and GPL. GPL is is Open Source but for you to benefit, you have to make derivative works GPL. BSD is Open Source and you can close derivatives so that you benefit and you don't have to share back. I'm not sure how you don't see how an auto-suggest tool that inserts GPL code into yours is different to BSD.

Does Copilot in its current form auto-inject copyright notices for all BSD licensed code from which output is derived? As far as I know, it does not. This means that authors of BSD licensed code have their rights violated to the same degree as those of GPL licensed code.

Yes, technically they do. But if the problem is discovered, it is very easy to comply with the BSD terms by adding proper attribution. With GPLed code it is much more difficult.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#55

Post by foxes »

Why is a few snippets of code so valuable anyway? We don't GPL scientific research, you expect people to cite you, and then build off your work, the licensing in a sense is far more permissive. You don't GPL maths text books and then require proofs to be licensed back. Other knowledge doesn't seem to propagate in society like this.

The human element of the programmer who can understand, adapt and develop some program is more valuable. The valuable thing is their time and overall knowledge, not the end piece of content necessarily. I think you do want to make sure people who have good ideas get recognised, (but this is like GitHub, employment record etc) but truly it's more beneficial to society if those good ideas propagate freely and get reused. I think the copilot thing really brings this to light. I believe BSD is probably the best option.

Valuing the programmer more, caring more about who develops your app is more important than merely the code at the end of the day. Eg is this a reputable team I want to support? The copyright/license system seems out dated in light of new information. I think the citation model works better. If its truly well established knowledge then yes maybe a formal reference exists somewhere, but they sort of fade into the background.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#56

Post by pwdisswordfish8 »

young_unixer wrote: post #31
kaptain wrote: post #11

I’ve looked at some of the Copilot threads but am unable to follow the issue. Can someone summarize what the issue is with Copilot and why a BSD license would have been significant for the code?

1. Someone expressed their concern that fragments of GPL code would end up in projects with non-GPL licenses and called it open source laundering. They were also concerned about the interpretation of derivative work. Could copilot's output be considered a derivative work? https://twitter.com/eevee/status/1410037309848752128?lang=en 2. Someone posted how copilot reproduced the famous fast inverse square root function…

> concern that fragments of GPL code would end up in projects with non-GPL licenses

Framing it like this makes it sound like a problem with the GPL in particular, when really it's a problem for anything (including ingested code with no discernable license) that isn't expressly available under permissive licenses--more permissive than even the BSDs or MIT license, which after all, still require attribution by way of reproducing any copyright notices and distributing the text of the license itself.

The only terms where this isn't really a problem is limited to basically WTFPL and public domain code.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#57

Post by paavohtl »

eitland wrote: post #37
bifrost wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GPL is certainly better than a license prohibiting commercial use. The GPL prohibits some commercial use. The BSD license does not.

> The GPL prohibits some commercial use. > The BSD license does not. Really a nitpick but is this actually true? I mean the GPL actually defends your right to do whatever you want with the software including selling or renting it out. What it restrict is what limitations you can put on those who use it, but (and here comes the nitpick): prohibiting others from using something in a certain way isn't what I'd call "com…

> I mean the GPL actually defends your right to do whatever you want with the software including selling or renting it out.

But realistically, practically, you can't. There is nothing to sell if the software has to be open source. The list of commercial GPL applications is really short compared to the millions of applications which include BSD-licensed code.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#58

Post by drran »

simion314 wrote: post #47
horstmeyer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that when Copilot automatically inserts some GPL licensed code fragment into your project, your project automatically has to become GPL licensed, whether you want and realize or not.

>your project, your project automatically has to become GPL licensed, whether you want and realize or not. This is not exactly true, GPL is not magic that automatically re-licenses your code behind your back. What actually happens is your are in violation of the GPL , one way to solve the violation is that you re-license your code (so you have to do it, it is not happening behind your back automatically). I am not aw…

NeXT (now Apple) has this experience:

> The C compiler in use at the time was GCC, which was released under the GPL. To avoid the restrictions of this code, NeXT provided its front end as a library that end users would link against GCC, thereby avoiding the GPL (which only applies to distribution of the software, not how you use it). This little legal maneuver didn't work, however, so NeXT was forced to release the code.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#59

Post by kortilla »

an_opabinia wrote: post #46
young_unixer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Someone expressed their concern that fragments of GPL code would end up in projects with non-GPL licenses and called it open source laundering. They were also concerned about the interpretation of derivative work. Could copilot's output be considered a derivative work? https://twitter.com/eevee/status/1410037309848752128?lang=en 2. Someone posted how copilot reproduced the famous fast inverse square root function…

> open source laundering Microsoft already launders open source code by just hiring people in China and Romania to rewrite it. Copilot is their engineering culture distilled. However most big companies do this.

Rewriting isn’t the same thing. Otherwise you could claim libreoffice devs are just laundering closed source Microsoft office code.

Re: “I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD”

#60

Post by executesorder66 »

bifrost wrote: post #23
dman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the particular metric John cares about, yes definitely. But there are other metrics out there by which GPL would have been a superior choice.

And those are? The GPL is far more restrictive, I can't see anything valuable that the GPL would contribute here.

GPL is more restrictive for the developers, but more liberating for the users. If you care about your users, you'd use GPL.

It's just a matter of perspective.

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