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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”

#231

Post by belorn »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #156

I'm very frustrated by some of the answers here and on Twitter. Carmack says: > The GPL virality wound up being a net negative, and more value would have come from BSD. [...] The best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest, but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns. One of the answers on Twitter: > Then what if it's being exploited by big techs and make your work proprietary?…

> The best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest

Did someone get sued for downloading a copy of a game with the quake source code in it?

Did someone release a game with quake code in it, only to go after users for patent infringement?

DRM locked devices built on the quake code?

A license is simply the condition for which an author allows others to do things for which copyright law make illegal. There is also a culture and a movement that has been built around common rules for software development.

Carmack does not explain what he wanted out of the license, and so people attempt to fill in the gaps. That people interpret that as "Dismissing empirical evidence" is on those making that interpretation. I do have a word for that, but we should strive to improve the tone on HN and so its better to just explain the purpose of those who replied to Carmack.

(I don't flag comments often but this is a prime example. Hugely frustrated, dismissive, with a bit snarky tone. The comment would be hugely improved by simply skipping the last paragraph. The outcome? A bunch of up and down votes in all the comments below in typical flame war fashion)

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

#232

Post by scrollaway »

npteljes wrote: post #124
foxes wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I agree in that regard, but I think in the ideal world everything would just be open, and you would want to incentivise openness so it ends up as the natural state. In a sense by decoupling these issues. Eg Microsoft Windows OS could just be open source. There is some value to having windows itself, but the more valuable thing is the horde of programmers, and all the other resources behind it.

This sounds good. How do you imagine getting there? GPL people think that contributing to this ideal is only worth it if you also require all participants to take part in the ideal. Thereby granting that at least the GPL software stays in that ideal world.

It's definitely a tough call. Maybe this is an industry scale problem. The GPL existing hasn't stopped walled gardens from developing, and open source is falling behind in many regards.

Maybe the license isn't the correct place to address this. I'm not sure what the solution is, though...

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

#233

Post by scrollaway »

malka wrote: post #226
PoignardAzur wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how. Working as intended would be "And then the gamedev landscape is dominated by open-source tools because you can't make closed-source tools in-house without giving up on the ecosystem." This is very much not the case today, the market is dominated by closed-source engines (sorry Godot). Seeing as that scenario didn't come to pass, the only result is a net loss of games that could have been made (or mad…

I m sure it is a net loss for people who could have benefited from free work indeed.

I don't think you understand Gp's point that this in turn results in a net loss for everyone else.

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

#234

Post by _y5hn »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #156

I'm very frustrated by some of the answers here and on Twitter. Carmack says: > The GPL virality wound up being a net negative, and more value would have come from BSD. [...] The best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest, but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns. One of the answers on Twitter: > Then what if it's being exploited by big techs and make your work proprietary?…

Ideology fits pretty well, as the term is used in modern times.

In case of Linux, GPL is regarded as a good fit.

In case of games, it'd be surprising now, to see GPL as a good fit. Open source and GPL are not used predominantly, thus never disrupted much in that space. However, this is based on a kind of hindsight bias as well.

In many ways, Free Software is regarded a means by itself: To keep software Free. So the goals of the ideology might not ressonate with the goals of every game developer.

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

#235

Post by belorn »

foxes wrote: post #55

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…

Scientific research is patented and exclusively copyrighted under publisher. If all scientific research were public and accessible we would not have sci-hub, and they would not currently be in court. We would also not live in a world where scientist has to work around patents and in some cases chose alternative research areas just because they can't afford (or use the result) because of patents. In addition there is a huge controversy in many Universities that patent from research is owned by the university, and if the researcher want to use technology that they themselves discover they need to pay the university.

Removing patents and copyright from public funded universities is an on-going struggle that has yet to be fixed. We have yet to start to make all scientific research free from patents and copyright.

We should strive towards the utopia where all that was expected is that people will cite the source, and then everyone could build off the work of everyone else.

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

#236

Post by fnord123 »

hankman86 wrote: post #180
fnord123 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which asks you to give back without being the license cancer that is the (A)GPL. fwiw, cancer isn't contagious, so if you touch (A)GPL 'cancer' then you wouldn't get 'cancer'. If you wanted to disparage it, call it license herpes. Or license genital warts. Or license gonorrhoea (and you can flex that you know how to spell it). Personally, I hope you can be convinced, some day, to see licenses as a tool for building…

That’s a fair argument to make, even though my counter point would be that first and foremost the (A)GPL excludes a community of developers who need to earn a living with their work. In fact, the FSF will call this “morally tainted”. That being said, the free software purists aren’t a particularly tolerant community. And again, I actually like and endorse copyleft in the form of the LGPL. So basically a license that…

GPL does not exclude a community of developers who need to earn a living to work. Linux, GCC and MySQL do not exclude people who are trying to earn a living from their sweat and toil. The GPL even says they can't impose any reason why people want to use the code whether it's in missile guidance systems, teledildonics, or ad networks.

>That being said, the free software purists aren’t a particularly tolerant community.

Sure the zealots of $BELIEF believe in $BELIEF and want others to do so as well. It's not a surprise.

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

#237

Post by wildmanx »

foxes wrote: post #92
wildmanx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key property of the GPL is its virality. It's part of the vision that if I can use some software, I can also change it, to adapt it to my needs, to learn from it, to build something on top of it. I can disassemble my bike, re-assemble it, change it, build on top of it. I want to do that with my browser, my OS kernel and my image viewer too. That this is connected to how "valuable" code is, is in a sense a…

Well I agree in that regard, but I think in the ideal world everything would just be open, and you would want to incentivise openness so it ends up as the natural state. In a sense by decoupling these issues. Eg Microsoft Windows OS could just be open source. There is some value to having windows itself, but the more valuable thing is the horde of programmers, and all the other resources behind it.

Thank you, that's what I tried to say.

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

#238

Post by LinAGKar »

trasz wrote: post #130
globular-toast wrote: post #104

I dislike people calling the GPL "viral". The thing that is viral is copyright. Copyright is baked into law and nobody can escape it. If you relinquish your own copyright then as soon as someone modifies the work copyright comes back. Copyleft is the only antidote we have for copyright. All Stallman et al really want is to "switch off" copyright. That would be obvious if people would listen to his talks. But instead…

Erm, but it is GPL that’s being viral. Not copyright, and also not other Open Source licenses - just GPL. That’s why you won’t get a license incompatibility problem without GPL in the mix.

Yes, copyright. You can't just drop some proprietary code into your code anymore than you can with GPL.

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

#239

Post by malka »

scrollaway wrote: post #233
malka wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I m sure it is a net loss for people who could have benefited from free work indeed.

I don't think you understand Gp's point that this in turn results in a net loss for everyone else.

People are not entitled to games created by free work. So it is not a 'net' loss.

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

#240

Post by pjmlp »

malka wrote: post #224
PoignardAzur wrote: post #156

I'm very frustrated by some of the answers here and on Twitter. Carmack says: > The GPL virality wound up being a net negative, and more value would have come from BSD. [...] The best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest, but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns. One of the answers on Twitter: > Then what if it's being exploited by big techs and make your work proprietary?…

Carmack works for Facebook. The fact that he is unhappy with GPL is a feature, not a problem.

Yet I see plenty of people happy using React, React Native, PHP, Folly,... go figure.
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