“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”

#31

Post by young_unixer » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:13 AM UTC

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 verbatim, including comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27710287

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

#32

Post by bifrost » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #25

bifrost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As he says in the linked tweet: the major value the GPL contributed is the code being open-sourced in the first place, since his co-copyright-holders would never have agreed to license it BSD. The alternative to the GPL, in this case, was "(c) All Rights Reserved", which is still how most other old games are licensed.

So valuing that his co-holders didn't want to opensource is good for the open source community? That seems backwards.

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

#33

Post by phendrenad2 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

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 lets you release source code and enforce that no one can modify it without releasing their modifications. A lot of people like that "restriction" because it maximizes the amount of source people have access to.

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

#34

Post by bifrost » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #16

irjustin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point: I don't think it's sensational. I interpreted his words directly as he wishes he gone a different direction given what he knows now. At the time he thought GPL was the best move, and now how he doesn't. HNTitle at the time of my reply: "John Carmack wishes he'd used the BSD license instead of the GPL"

He also said in the thread that his partners wouldn't have gone for it, so he may have thought BSD was better back then too, but went with what he could do. Releasing the engine code at all was a big deal back then, and inspired some others to do so, but others sometimes had more restrictive than GPL licenses; GPL is certainly better than a license prohibiting commercial use.

> GPL is certainly better than a license prohibiting commercial use.

The GPL prohibits some commercial use.

The BSD license does not.

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

#35

Post by rStar » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

eeegnu wrote: post #18

rStar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never have had the opportunity to read the DOOM source if JC had insisted on using BSD, because, as JC tweets, his business partners at Id soft would not have gone for it. ipso facto the GPL + Id + JC are responsible for this privilege being available to us all.

The relevant implication in it hypothetically having been BSD is that he would have convinced his partners, not that its usage would have made the project never happen.

i don’t see that. i see carmac reminiscing as, wouldn’t it have been nice if this had happened rather than that, while clearly acknowledging that his business partners would not have gone along with ‘that’. the implication I draw, having no more info than these tweets, is that, after some discussion, JC and Id compromised on using the GPL to license the DOOM source, versus not releasing the DOOM source. The GPL allowed wide general availability of the DOOM source, which Carmac wanted, while being acceptable to Id’s business needs as Id saw them at that time.

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

#36

Post by _delirium » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:17 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #16

irjustin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point: I don't think it's sensational. I interpreted his words directly as he wishes he gone a different direction given what he knows now. At the time he thought GPL was the best move, and now how he doesn't. HNTitle at the time of my reply: "John Carmack wishes he'd used the BSD license instead of the GPL"

He also said in the thread that his partners wouldn't have gone for it, so he may have thought BSD was better back then too, but went with what he could do. Releasing the engine code at all was a big deal back then, and inspired some others to do so, but others sometimes had more restrictive than GPL licenses; GPL is certainly better than a license prohibiting commercial use.

Genuinely curious: have there been any best-selling AAA games released under an open-source license of any kind since Quake 2 was GPL'd? It feels like a huge outlier that any release at all was agreed to, never mind quibbling over which license it picked.

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

#37

Post by eitland » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

bifrost wrote: post #34

toast0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also said in the thread that his partners wouldn't have gone for it, so he may have thought BSD was better back then too, but went with what he could do. Releasing the engine code at all was a big deal back then, and inspired some others to do so, but others sometimes had more restrictive than GPL licenses; GPL is certainly better than a license prohibiting commercial use.

> 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 "commercial use" or "use". I guess a lawyer could argue that but in everyday speak, no.

Not a native speaker though.

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

#38

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

bifrost wrote: post #32

_delirium wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As he says in the linked tweet: the major value the GPL contributed is the code being open-sourced in the first place, since his co-copyright-holders would never have agreed to license it BSD. The alternative to the GPL, in this case, was "(c) All Rights Reserved", which is still how most other old games are licensed.

So valuing that his co-holders didn't want to opensource is good for the open source community? That seems backwards.

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by Fatalist_ma » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

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…

Does not look like that was his only metric: "but I'm pretty sure there would have been more total users of the code, likely making the amount shared in the open still greater."

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

#40

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

This part of Carmacks tweets really touches home,

> I touched on that recently with the comment about open source culture and game dev;

One thing I learned the hard way is how game dev is all about IP, creating business oppportunities, publishing deals, getting the game into the hands of as many kids as possible (while being able to keep paying for the mortgage), whatever APIs get used is a very tiny detail of the whole games production circus.