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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

#241

Post by jraph »

overfeed wrote: post #179
bluefirebrand wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you take my gift and profit, it doesn't hurt me My opinion is that it actually hurts everyone when the open source commons are looted for private profits

Carmack is wealthy, and will do OK even if every single software-related job is terminated and human-mediated code-generation is relegated to hobby-status. Other people's milages vary. My motivations are very different: the projects I authored and maintained were deliberately all GPL-licensed, my contributions to other OSS are motivated by the desire to help other people - not to an amorphous "world."

Correct. And certainly not to people and companies who'd like to use my work to deny end users the rights to control their computing.

That's the whole point of the GPL to me. The code I release is not an unconditional gift. It definitely has strings attached on purpose.

LLMs completely break this. I'm helping very rich people build the systems they impose to the world and that have awful externalities, and these systems help others build proprietary software. I can't say I'm too happy about this.

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

#244

Post by pseudalopex »

Gud wrote: post #197
pseudalopex wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix and Amazon use many packages of all sizes. And contributions to projects with many contributors helped people get jobs.

How would you even know that Netflix or Amazon uses your package?

Their open source software depended on or derived from your package. They included your copyright notice with software they distributed. Someone contributed code. Someone reported a bug. Someone requested a feature. Someone mentioned it at a conference. I could continue.

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

#245

Post by arjie »

Aurornis wrote: post #178
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…

> 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 barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me. Did you respond by asking them how Reddit makes money? The anti-corporate mentality isn't new, but it does surface in different ways and communities over time. The Redd…

Haha, that's funny. I didn't think of it at the time and I was more surprised than anything.

By the way, I have had your comments highlighted for a while now and I've never regretted it. Good stuff.

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

#246

Post by em-bee »

dartharva wrote: post #153
em-bee wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, and no. there is profit and there is excessive profit. if i build something to make my linux experience better and share that with the world, and a few consultancies use that to make the linux experience for their customers better, then that is fine. but if my tool becomes popular and a megacorp uses it to promote their own commercial closed source features alongside it, then that's excessive. that's one reason…

Who is stopping you from licensing your code that way then?

some people are working on that, among others there is bruce perens: https://web.archive.org/web/20251206160538/https://perens.co... (sadly his site seems broken, the static files still work however: https://perens.com/static/DEVELOPMENT_LICENSE.txt )

FUTO is also exploring this space: https://sourcefirst.com/

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

#247

Post by skrebbel »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #128
skrebbel wrote: post #91

This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a license ("a gift"). That's of course great and awesome and super nice, but he's not been painstakingly and thanklessly maintaining some key linux component for the last 20 years or something like that. It's an entirely different thing; he made a thing, sold it, and then when he couldn't sell more of it, gave it away. That's nice! Bu…

> This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a license ("a gift"). That is, in fact, OSS. Open source does not mean, and has never meant, ongoing development nor development with the community.

I agree but he's arguing with people who's personal attachment to their OSS work goes a lot deeper than "I did a few code dumps back in the day".

It was stupid of me to say that he does "not really do OSS" because that opened the door for all kinds of definition arguments. That's a super tired discussion and it wasn't really my point. I can't edit anymore but I meant to say something like "doesn't do OSS in the same way as a large % of the OSS community".

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

#248

Post by moogly »

tavavex wrote: post #182
moogly wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd read Masters of Doom (the psych eval/juvie story and the cat story stand out). You might think "oh he was so young back then", and it's true, but keep in mind that book details id Software up to and including Doom 3 development, and he was in his early 30s there. I'm sure you can find excerpts if you don't want to read the whole thing. It's an interesting book though; great glimpse into trenches of 90s game development.

I've (unoriginally) always been impressed by his technical ability and work ethic, and while I used to religiously read his .plan updates (you might not know what that is, because I'm an old, OK? It's the precursor to blogs) and also follow the old Armadillo Aerospace development blogs, and watch the very long QuakeCon talks, I haven't kept up much as I got older, just come across things here and there (like this Twitter post), and I have not picked up a big change in demeanor or humility in regards to labor, political and societal issues from back then, and those are things he's written about. It's very much objectivism, the criticism of which is beyond this topic, but suffice it to say it's not a philosophy conducive to empathy. I seem to recall he made a bunch of libertarian rants on Facebook when he worked there too, but I'm not going to give Zuck the traffic. I'm sure you can find some.

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

#249

Post by nitwit005 »

charcircuit wrote: post #236
nitwit005 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will someone contribute back without the code?

Code can still be published and merge requests can still be handled even if the code isn't under an open source license. As a prime example check out Unreal Engine. One of the most popular game engines that powers many AAA games and cinema today. They are not open source, but they actively take outside contributions on GitHub. Though unlike what the parent comment is saying Epic can afford to pay people to work on th…

They let people contribute by making the source open, which also lets the AI companies use it as training data. The question was how would you take contributions without letting the training happen.

Edit: typo

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

#250

Post by darth_avocado »

skrebbel wrote: post #91

This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a license ("a gift"). That's of course great and awesome and super nice, but he's not been painstakingly and thanklessly maintaining some key linux component for the last 20 years or something like that. It's an entirely different thing; he made a thing, sold it, and then when he couldn't sell more of it, gave it away. That's nice! Bu…

OSS is a big umbrella. At the end of the day, if you are not hurting for money, you might be okay donating your work for AI training. Meanwhile if you’re working hard on projects while sacrificing a lot (including money) you are very much allowed to not want AI use it for training if it means financial gain for a select few at the top.

It has the same undertones as how rich people talk about philanthropy. “Look I donated a portion of my wealth that barely affected my life, I must be better than all those poor people who never donate to chariTy”.

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