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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”

#331

Post by shagie »

bluGill wrote: post #279
fazgl wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carmack explicitly mentions the BSD/GPL question in connection with copilot. He is working on AI now and has an explicit interest in the intellectual property discussions that flared up after copilot. It's natural that people think he's using his status as a super programmer to lobby for the position that currently benefits him. I don't see why he would be more qualified to assess the pros/cons of the GPL than the Li…

> I don't see why he would be more qualified to assess the pros/cons of the GPL than the Linux and GCC authors. That is simple: he has thought about it in more depth than most of them. Most Linux and GCC authors don't really care about licensing much, just code they can work collaboratively on. Since the code they are working on is GPL they use GPL and get back to work. I suspect if Linus took the time to really thin…

In https://youtu.be/PaKIZ7gJlRU Linus talks about BSD licenses at 8:30 (well, somewhere around there).

Its a good watch for the philosophical background on which license Linux is under and Linus's feelings about the GPL v2 and v3.

No, he wouldn't have used the BSD license - it didn't match what he wanted for linux.

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

#332

Post by drran »

simion314 wrote: post #228
drran wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few cases are listed here: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases .

But from a quick check those are the reverse of the OP implication, in this cases someone takes a big GPL project and inserts a small proprietary thing on top , I would like to see an example where someone had a bit proprietary project, a dev inserted 5 lines GPL code and a judge forced them to GPL everything.

If you are looking for the smallest case, then look at Oracle vs Google multibillion debate about this function:

  private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
     if (fromIndex > toIndex)
          throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
               ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
     if (fromIndex  arrayLen) 
          throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
  }
https://www.copperpodip.com/post/oracle-v-google-shows-why-f...

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

#333

Post by marcodiego »

alex_smart wrote: post #292
marcodiego wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That assumes a very specific kind of user. The kind that has the time and energy, not to mention the ability, to read and understand source code and modify it according to his needs. Actually, no. End users also benefit when code is contributed back to the software they use.

Good point. Of course open source software has definitely benefitted users in a wide variety of ways: for instance by providing open source tools to help build said software (can't even imagine a world without free compilers these days). My intent was only to help the GPL and free software fanatics see an important freedom provided by non-free platforms, not to belittle the achievements of open source community.

I often hear the following invalid argument: "I don't care about code availability, I won't look at it!" to which my response is: "You won't look at it, but other people will, and when they contribute back, you will benefit too."

Saying that the source availability is not important because you won't use it is like saying free speech is not important because you have nothing to say.

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

#334

Post by tapoxi »

lukeschlather wrote: post #327
jrochkind1 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, people are allowed to disagree or challenge Cormack, it doesn't bother me that they brought up that worry despite knowing he is an experienced respected person. I do find it notable how many of my peer computer programmers/software engineers no longer believe in open source though. 15 years ago it was very popular to believe in open source, as a way of combating the power of giant corporations. The dislike/distru…

Carmack is clearly still in favor of open source, he just wishes he had gone with BSD. And it doesn't sound like it's because he's anti-corporate. It sounds like it's because he works for a mega tech corp and his mega tech corp hates the GPL so he has to do a ton of paperwork to use any GPL code there. (which is the same as working for any tech corp.)

Well it’s also because we didn’t see much done with the GPL’d source releases for his engines, just small improvements and standalone mods (The Dark Mod, Xonotic, etc)

No commercial game developer is willing to ship a game with GPL’d code because the license is incompatible with most middleware and console SDKs. We missed out on what could have been a free and open competitor to Unity or Unreal.

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

#335

Post by x4e »

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…

Your comment gives the impression that GPL is a set of restrictions that developers are unfairly enforcing upon others. In fact it is the complete opposite: it is a set of permissions granted by the developer which otherwise would probably be forbidden by law.

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

#336

Post by fsflover »

marcodiego wrote: post #333
alex_smart wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Of course open source software has definitely benefitted users in a wide variety of ways: for instance by providing open source tools to help build said software (can't even imagine a world without free compilers these days). My intent was only to help the GPL and free software fanatics see an important freedom provided by non-free platforms, not to belittle the achievements of open source community.

I often hear the following invalid argument: "I don't care about code availability, I won't look at it!" to which my response is: "You won't look at it, but other people will, and when they contribute back, you will benefit too." Saying that the source availability is not important because you won't use it is like saying free speech is not important because you have nothing to say.

> I often hear the following invalid argument: "I don't care about code availability, I won't look at it!"

Sounds a bit like "I don't care about free speech, I don't want to say anything!".

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

#337

Post by VectorLock »

lukeschlather wrote: post #327
jrochkind1 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, people are allowed to disagree or challenge Cormack, it doesn't bother me that they brought up that worry despite knowing he is an experienced respected person. I do find it notable how many of my peer computer programmers/software engineers no longer believe in open source though. 15 years ago it was very popular to believe in open source, as a way of combating the power of giant corporations. The dislike/distru…

Carmack is clearly still in favor of open source, he just wishes he had gone with BSD. And it doesn't sound like it's because he's anti-corporate. It sounds like it's because he works for a mega tech corp and his mega tech corp hates the GPL so he has to do a ton of paperwork to use any GPL code there. (which is the same as working for any tech corp.)

The crux of his argument seems to be that he wants to be able to copy and paste other people's code and create derivative work without the GPL carrying along.

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

#338

Post by coldacid »

saurik wrote: post #100
throwaway984393 wrote: post #61

Twitter makes for a bad blogging \ platform

I think it works best when people use it like a slide deck--the kind you create and then "send" to someone, as opposed to the kind that is used as a visual aid for a talk or lecture--and carefully organize their tweets so that they have one semi-isolatable (but hopefully rather complete) thought/insight per message. I agree that John Carmack, as evidenced by these tweets, does not seem to know (or care about) how to…

The (slow) death of blogs and .plan files is probably the greatest net negative Twitter has had on the internet.

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

#339

Post by alex_smart »

marcodiego wrote: post #333
alex_smart wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Of course open source software has definitely benefitted users in a wide variety of ways: for instance by providing open source tools to help build said software (can't even imagine a world without free compilers these days). My intent was only to help the GPL and free software fanatics see an important freedom provided by non-free platforms, not to belittle the achievements of open source community.

I often hear the following invalid argument: "I don't care about code availability, I won't look at it!" to which my response is: "You won't look at it, but other people will, and when they contribute back, you will benefit too." Saying that the source availability is not important because you won't use it is like saying free speech is not important because you have nothing to say.

That is just an argument for features/the quality of code, not about freedom. There are other models for make good quality software that has the features users want without making it open source. And no, having the source available for software that you use is not like freedom of speech.

Anyway, like I have already said, my intent here was only to try to make people like you see another perspective (namely that non-free platforms can create ecosystems where users enjoy the labours of a large number of developers who can make a profitable living out of programming for that ecosystem - access to such ecosystems is also a freedom and one that many users care about). Apart from making that limited point, I had no interest in having a pointless argument with an open source fanatic.

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

#340

Post by alex_smart »

fsflover wrote: post #336
marcodiego wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear the following invalid argument: "I don't care about code availability, I won't look at it!" to which my response is: "You won't look at it, but other people will, and when they contribute back, you will benefit too." Saying that the source availability is not important because you won't use it is like saying free speech is not important because you have nothing to say.

> I often hear the following invalid argument: "I don't care about code availability, I won't look at it!" Sounds a bit like "I don't care about free speech, I don't want to say anything!".

That's because they literally set it up to deliver that same punchline in the next paragraph.

Looks like you got too excited to be able to read the entire comment? XD

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