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John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

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Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#181

Post by pjmlp »

arjie wrote: post #108

Has anyone else noticed a cultural shift around monetization of output? I think there wasn't as much back when I first started using open-source programs, both as a user, and a small-time contributor for decades now. And I've noticed this on other things too. A short while ago, someone on Reddit pointed out that something on Google Maps was wrong and so I went and submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a…

It has always been like that, except we used to call it demos, sharewhare, beerware, postware,...

The free beer movement came out of UNIX culture, probably influenced by how originally AT&T wasn't able to profit from it.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#182

Post by tavavex »

moogly wrote: post #156
john_strinlai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

arguments are stronger without insults

Anyone who knows anything about Carmack knows that he has trouble empathizing. I don't even think it's his fault per se. I'm fairly sure he would actually agree with the assessment. His raw intelligence is sky-high. And that is a big reason why he's making this post, is what I'm saying. It doesn't excuse him, but it's not surprising in the least.

> Anyone who knows anything about Carmack knows that he has trouble empathizing.

Can you give some examples, outside of this post? I only know about Carmack by the things he'd worked on, but not anything personal like this. This would help me get a more complete picture of him.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#183

Post by emtel »

OSaMaBiNLoGiN wrote: post #4

I think one of the more prominent issues folks take with mass training on OSS is that the companies doing it are now profiting for having done it. In his follow-up post he talks about him open sourcing old games as a gift, and he doesn't much care how people receive that gift, just that they do. He doesn't acknowledge that Anthropic, OpenAI, etc, are profiting while the original authors are not. The original authors…

It has never been the case that publishing a work entitles you to a share of all profits that are downstream of your work. Copyright law protects your ability to receive profits that result from the distribution of the work itself, but that's quite limited.

If you publish a cookbook, you should get a portion of the sales of the cookbook itself, and no one should be allowed to distribute copies of it for free to undermine your sales.

What you don't get is a portion of the revenues of restaurants that use your recipes!

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#184

Post by pseudalopex »

nickff wrote: post #170
sumeno wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in accordance with its license" is the key part that's missing with LLMs. The licenses are completely ignored.

It seems to be a common view on HN that licenses and conditional access to websites should be ignored (i.e. WRT ad-blockers), but also that licenses on Open-Source Software repositories should be respected (i.e. WRT LLM training). I believe that holding these contradictory views is common, but the conflict would need to be resolved to come to a conclusion on how to proceed with LLM training.

There is no contradiction. Open source software licenses allow use without conditions. Ad blocker use does not distribute the modified web pages.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#185

Post by layer8 »

nickff wrote: post #172
layer8 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “cathedral” model refers to closed-source development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software_developme...

Appending ‘development’ seems like a significant departure from ‘vanilla’ “Open Source” to me, and wouldn’t all development be ‘closed-source’ at least between commits, if not between pull requests?

See https://opensource.org/about/history-of-the-open-source-init... under ‘Coining “Open Source”’:

The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that it would be useful to have a single label that identified this approach and distinguished it from the philosophically- and politically-focused label “free software.”

From the beginning it was about promoting the model of developing software in an open community. The licensing is a means to that, but the motivating idea is to have open-source development.

And Netscape’s release of the source code, what lead to Mozilla, was prompted by the “bazaar” ideas presented by RMS.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#186

Post by bloblaw »

daemonologist wrote: post #169
bloblaw wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds to me like the "No True Scotsman" argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman I break down what you said as: "Sure, he's released code with an open-source license, but that's not real open source in the sense that matters." I happen to disagree. OSS is OSS. AGPL is OSS. MIT is Open Source. Unlicense is OSS.

The point is not that it's not "real" open source, the point is that he has less interaction with the big part of the open source ecosystem which is feeling the brunt of the downsides of AI, namely, giant useless bug reports and PRs. (I do agree that it's still OSS even if you never maintain it or anything.)

That framing makes more sense to me.

I agree there's a difference between publishing code under an OSS license and actively maintaining a project while fielding the flood of low-quality AI issues and PRs. Someone in the latter category is obviously closer to that pain.

I still wouldn't go so far as to dismiss Carmack's view on that basis alone, though. It just means his experience is less representative of maintainers dealing with that specific problem every day.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#188

Post by crote »

arjie wrote: post #108

Has anyone else noticed a cultural shift around monetization of output? I think there wasn't as much back when I first started using open-source programs, both as a user, and a small-time contributor for decades now. And I've noticed this on other things too. A short while ago, someone on Reddit pointed out that something on Google Maps was wrong and so I went and submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a…

> I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me

The problem is that the big tech companies aren't holding up their end of the traditional social contract.

I like to think of the wider open source community as one giant group project. Everyone contributes what they can, and in turn they can benefit from the work everyone else has done. The work you do goes towards making the world a better place. I have absolutely zero problem filing pull requests for bugs I encounter or submitting issues on OpenStreetMap, because I know that in return I get the Linux DE and reliable maps in other towns. If you want to make it political, it's a "from each according to their means, to each according to their needs".

The big tech companies operate completely differently. They see open source contributors primarily as a resource to exploit. Submit a single fix on Google Maps? You'll get zero credit, they'll never stop bothering you with popups about "making improvements", design their map around what is most profitable to show, and they will of course log your location history and sell it to the highest bidder. And they are getting filthy rich off of it as well.

I couldn't care less about getting monetary compensation for some odd work I do in my spare time, but there's no way in hell I'm going to do free labor for some millionaire who's going to reward me by spitting in my face.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#189

Post by yunnpp »

IshKebab wrote: post #19

TL;DR: I really wanted to use a more permissive license so I don't mind AI scraping my code. Fine for him, but it's totally reasonable for people to want to use the GPL and not have it sneakily bypassed using AI.

This is exactly it. The people who release stuff under the GPL do so precisely because they want the software and derivatives to stay free. The software has strings attached; the AI removes them. What's so hard to understand here?

Carmack's argument makes no sense, but I guess it has "Carmack" in it so obviously it must be on the front page of HN.

Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

#190

Post by MrScruff »

contagiousflow wrote: post #54
dysoco wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI as it is being developed is likely to centralize it Depends on how you see it. I know many people building oss, local alternatives to enterprise software for specific industries that cost thousands of dollars all thanks to AI. If everyone can produce software now and at a much complex and bigger scale, it's much easier to create decentralized and free alternatives to long-standing closed projects.

You do understand that the above comment is talking about how the use and reliance on LLMs is what centralizes power right? It's great people can build these tools, but if the means to build these tools are controlled by three central companies where does that leave us?

That would imply that there will never be an adequate open weights coding model. That might be true, but seems unlikely.
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