“I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases as BSD” • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by tpoacher » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:13 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #105

epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

Licenses are about choices. I do not want 7 year old girls to be sued. I don't want people to go to jail for helping others to take part in culture and enjoy art. I want children (or everyone?) to have access to all of culture, knowledge and art regardless of their parents wealth. I want that researcher has access to research papers and software technology in order to enable the improvement of the human race, especia…

a.k.a. "For God's sake, think of the children!!!1!"

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

#132

Post by dendriti » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:13 AM UTC

epaga wrote: post #108

bruce343434 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah right, you like to make money of off my work that I made available for free? You can buy the commercial license.

Not at all. I don't feel entitled to anything. Here's where I think the misunderstanding is, and maybe I should have made this point in my original comment: I do think there can absolutely be cases where a dual license of GPL / commercial can make a ton of sense. I think those cases tend to be for projects like Linux, Blender, etc. But what I'm saying I personally think is a bummer is that for years, most open source…

We don't know how many projects would never have been written at all without GPL as a license option. Making it difficult to determine whether it's a net negative or not.

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

#133

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:13 AM UTC

epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

There are lots of ways to combine GPL and proprietary code without having to release the proprietary source.

And how do you feel about LGPL? Many companies seem to be terrified of it for no reason.

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

#134

Post by drran » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:14 AM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #113

saurik wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GNU Foundation--and the GPL--put one thing at its most important focus: that "users"--the people who are actually using the software and entrusting it with their data or their lives--have guaranteed freedoms. People--such as myself--who use the GPL believe that these freedoms are extremely important: that "users" should be able to get access to the source code for programs and be able to modify them (...and befor…

> and then not grant the freedoms we GPL-folk care about to actual "users" is unacceptable: it simply isn't why we are writing open source software, as the open source part is supposed to be able to benefit "users". Why is it unacceptable? Why are people writing open source software then? "Benefiting users" can be done in various ways. In my view, the GPL only manages to protest and protect software against the probl…

> Why is it unacceptable?

Because, very often, we ARE users of our own software, so, we don't want the licensee of the code to forbid the licensor of the code his right to modify his own code on his own device.

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

#135

Post by trasz » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:16 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #45

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 BSD also prohibits some commercial use.

How?

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

#136

Post by Houshalter » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #67

_ph_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But if the problem is discovered... The default shouldn't be "you can violate people's licenses until you notice or get caught". Sure, in practice it probably won't cause anyone legal trouble: it would be really hard for, say, the author of some BSD-licensed code to prove that a user of Copilot actually caused them monetary damages by not providing attribution. But this isn't really a world I want to live in; we sh…

All of these issues have existed since GPT-2, maybe earlier. I remember the AI dungeon guys narrowly avoided a lawsuit from training on copyrighted novels. I find it amusing that the tech community was very pro GPT, but anti-copilot. Now that it affects them personally. Especially ironic because this place is usually very skeptical of copyright matters.

All AIs are trained on copyrighted data scraped from the internet. What you guys want effectively amounts to making most AI illegal. At least outside of big tech companies with large private datasets. Is that the world you prefer to live in?

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

#137

Post by oliwarner » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:20 AM UTC

epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

Id engines —as well as many other projects— were dual licensed, GPL or Proprietary. If you wanted to make a game with one, it either had to be GPL too, or you paid for a traditional licence.

This got Id paid and let modders and the open source gaming community go wild. What's the downside?

Carmack's argument about perception, but his view is really about having had more people use his software.

I think he's wrong. Brave thing for any SWE to claim but Id wouldn't have open sourced a second engine if the first was freely taken by a dozen companies and sold in competition with for game sales, giving no source improvements back.

And no, GPL advocates say it protects users of downstream projects. Software freedom is a huge topic, but the user is the focus.

The arrangement Id had protected them too. Carmack's take is just odd.

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

#138

Post by tpoacher » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

trasz wrote: post #123

drran wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is very useful feature for me, the author of GPL'ed code.

Making your code useless to some of potential users is a useful feature?

Yes, especially if the code not being GPL means the bad actor can create a product which then makes your code useless, or worse, evil (via a monopoly, bundled telemetry, or otherwise)

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

#139

Post by trasz » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

malka wrote: post #129

trasz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making your code useless to some of potential users is a useful feature?

I do not care if "potential user" is big corp that do not intend to contribute back. So yeah, it is a feature.

Still, how preventing said corp from using this software help you, or anyone else?

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

#140

Post by happymellon » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #67

_ph_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But if the problem is discovered... The default shouldn't be "you can violate people's licenses until you notice or get caught". Sure, in practice it probably won't cause anyone legal trouble: it would be really hard for, say, the author of some BSD-licensed code to prove that a user of Copilot actually caused them monetary damages by not providing attribution. But this isn't really a world I want to live in; we sh…

> If that's not possible, then Copilot should not exist

Github and Microsoft should have trained it on their own code because they could make it public domain. Using other peoples code with various licences and many different requirements is just going to be a complete shitshow.