Live data from Hacker News

John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists

twitter.com

361–370 of 515 posts

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

#361
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "development model" of open source is that one person code dumps, another takes, changes it then dumps it, another picks up the copy with the changes, changes it again, and so on. Sometimes it finds it's way back. A bazaar is a chaotic market with a million vendors, not anything remotely cooperative. The Cathedral and the Bazaar is meant to convey the idea that OSS code develops without central organization, thro…

Have you read the essay? http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral... In it, the bazaar is a metaphor for how Linux was being developed.

Yes. Here's a relevant excerpt:

> No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here — rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, which would take submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles. The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well, came as a distinct shock. As I learned my way around, I worked hard not just at individual projects, but also at trying to understand why the Linux world not only didn’t fly apart in confusion but seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed barely imaginable to cathedral-builders.

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

#362
post #328

Most of FOSS is not a free gift, but asks for some form of repay. MIT asks for credit. GPL asks or credit and GPL'ing of things built atop. Unlicense is a free gift, but it is a minority. AI reproduces code while removing credit and copyleft from it and this is the problem.

> and this is the problem Why? The software is still there and you can still go choose to use it.

If I release something as MIT or Apache, all I want is some credit, either for my own self-satisfaction or for resume fuel.

If a library I wrote was used by BigCo, then I could point to their license file and mention that in a job interview or something. If they have Claude generate something based on my code, they don't put it into their license, I don't get the resume fuel, and my work is unrewarded.

I have gone back and forth about how I feel about AI training on code, and whether I think it's "theft", but my point is that the original code being available is kind of missing the point.

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

#363
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You're right and it's worth pointing out that a lot of open source has the opposite lifecycle: the authors make a thing, aren't sure how to sell it, so they open source it and hope to eventually sell something peripheral, i.e. "open core" with paid plugins or enterprise support. In these cases, open…

There's been something lost over time about the philosophy of open source. It appeared at a time when it was becoming apparent that computers represented a new type of technology where you couldn't just "look under the hood". An independent mechanic or machinist could repair a car to spec. A carpenter didn't need original blueprints of the house to create an addition. You could disassemble a typewriter or a sewing ma…

Of course now everything is like that. Partially that's because of computers and software, but there's lots of other technologies that have contributed too.

There's an old tweet I can't find that was something like "We turned away from God when we invented the integrated circuit" that's always really spoken to the luddite in me.

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

#364

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 the “no true scott”! fallacy. I sure he writes code and makes it open with an open source license, but he not really doing open source.

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

#365
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.

That's because licenses are an abstract complexity tacked on to a simple material reality in order "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". Just like many cultural rules, they keep growing in complexity until they reach a phase change where they become ignored because they have become too complicated.

OSS licenses haven't grown in complexity all that much in the past forty or so years. They're being ignored more now because it's become easier to ignore them, not because it's become harder to abide by them.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same attitude as Carmack. I have several libraries and sites I maintain as well as contributing to several popular open source projects. I still have his attitude about this. Both my open source and my ongoing maintenance are gifts. I'm also free to stop giving when I don't feel like it.

There's more to open source than just the code or output, it is also the community. There's apparenticeship, sharing of knowledge, sense of comradery, supporting each other, etc. My day job uses a lot of open source libraries and projects, and do you know what we do when we fix things? We fork internally and don't upstream any patches. Do you not see a loss here? With LLMs, there's even LESS reason to keep up with up…

That's all great, but to me the primary point is rms' original grievance with that printer driver. If the source is open, anyone can improve it. Multiple anyones can improve it! They can even collaborate on message boards and make a nice community, but this is certainly not a requirement.

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

#368
post #185
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I think you have confused RMS (Richard Stallman) and ESR (Eric S. Raymond). It was ESR that coined and popularized the cathedral and bazaar development analogy and terminology. It was also ESR who was at the conference your comment is discussing. RMS is “free software”, copyleft, and GNU. ESR is “open source” and the author of ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar”.

Of course, I could have misunderstood your comment, if so, mea culpa and feel free to ignore.

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

#369

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…

Carmack was a shareware/proprietary software guy way before he was a open source person if ever.
Post reply on HN