John Carmack already had his bag and reputation when he did the code dumps.
John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
381–390 of 515 posts
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Attack the argument not the man. Whether he is set for life or not has nothing to do _in this context_, since, presumably, people who open source their code do not care about profit.
No please, for the love of god, he's been an asshole for decades. He has set back gaming everywhere he's been in charge. The guy makes 1 kind of experience. He's the opposite of a good leader.
Elaborate on your points
How has he set back gaming?
1 kind of experience?
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#383This 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…
> 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…
I think your comment leads to discussing a distinct third ‘cause’ for open source development: where a developer realizes their ambition is greater than their abilities, either in the technical sense or (more likely) in the sense that a single developer stands no realistic chance of ever completing an implementation of the idea alone.
For this class of open source development the authors essentially require the contributions and gifts of others for the project to even be realizable. I think this is the underlying basis for open source’s move toward a more “community” development model. It has led to open source being viewed by many as requiring a community and a “managed” community at that, to be open source. I think this class of open source is going to be impacted the most by LLM ‘assisted’ development (no matter how much distaste it generates for me and many others), where the hurdles of large scale development are more in reach (seemingly) for solo or very small groups of developers.
The really interesting thing is going to be to see how many of these projects move toward the Carmack ‘gift’ model and look to leave the community-centric model behind as an unnecessary externality.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Has anyone else noticed a cultural shift around monetization of output? I think it's simply due to the economy being in the shitter for the non-"Capital Ownership Class". 1977-2007 was generally a good time in the US if you survived by trading your time/knowledge/expertise for a wage as most people do. This is also the time in which F/OSS came into existence. If you had a decent job during that time, then the futur…
> 1977-2007 was generally a good time in the US if you survived by trading your time/knowledge/expertise for a wage as most people do. This is also the time in which F/OSS came into existence. FOSS came into existence during this time because computers and the internet became available, not because it was a specific economic situation. > If you had a decent job during that time, then the future looked bright and you…
> because computers and the internet became available
Because of Bell Labs (inventors of the transistor & Unix & UUCP & so much more) which was so well-funded by the post-WW2 US economic situation.
The Internet? DARPA!
DARPA? Post-WW2 US M.I.C.-driven economy.
The list goes on and on and on. F/OSS owes so much to The Marshall Plan.
Is this a sweeping, reductionist PeterZeihan-esque argument? Sure, but I think it's valid.
> This seems like rewriting history. Tech salaries today are higher than they were back then.
So? Does the future look bright to you? Most of the SWEs I know wouldn't say so.
How bright you think the future will be has a direct impact on your long-term planning and, for many, results in prioritizing hedonistic activities in the short term, not F/OSS.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
You and Bigstrat2003 are arguing a technicality, and you're technically correct, but in context I think that's somewhat beside the point. Skrebbel and Layer8 are focused on the cultural associations of "open source" development, and this mismatch is causing everyone to talk past each other. The original post in this thread was: > This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a li…
More succinctly, Carmack only contributes his code to OSS, but not his time , and shouldn't impose his values on the wider community that contribute both. > technically correct, but in context I think that's somewhat beside the point Talking past people to argue on semantics and pedantry is a HN pastime. It may even be it's primary function.
This. ^^^
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#386> My million+ open source LOC were always intended as a gift to the world. Says yet another person who's hilariously rich, financially invested in the success of AI and isn't materially affected by AI displacing them.
id Software released the source code to Wolfenstein in 1995, he was only rich at that point on merit and the success of their games.
Bethesda ended that practice.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#387Well, if Carmack wants to give gifts to AI companies then he's free to do it, but it doesn't mean that other people want it too. I think this debate is mainly about the value of human labor. I guess when you're a millionaire, it's much easier to be excited about human labor losing value.
If OpenAI, Anthropic, and all other US labs stopped developing LLM’s, the Chinese and Europeans would still continue.
You can’t put this genie back in the bottle, and this type of event of human labor being deprecated isn’t new.
The forecasts are still not well defined and speculative.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#388He threw Quake 3 over the wall after having made tons of money off it. He is now invested in AI and should just shut up. "AI training on the code magnifies the value of the gift. I am enthusiastic about it!" Si tacuisses ...
id also released the source code to:
Wolfenstein 3D: 1995
DOOM: 1997
Quake: 1999
Quake II: 2001
Quake III Arena: 2005
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: 2010
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory: 2010
Doom 3: 2011
Some people are still leveraging those codebases and are thankful for their releases.
Maybe just don’t read what he has to say.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#389> those were to allay fears of my partners to allow me to make the gift I respect Carmack so much more now. I always scratched my head why he made Quake GPL. It was such a waste. Now it doesn't matter anymore. I so thankful copyleft is finally losing its teeth. It served its purpose 30 years ago, we don't need it anymore.
Corporate lawyers for id wanted GPL iirc
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#390Personally for me I don't see it as gift, he licensed out the engine but didn't want to be in the engine business, after selling enough it feels he just put it out there so it's his stamp forever with the GPL infection. I think he already felt the diminishing returns at the time. He knew about the sharing of floppy discs and hacker scene and eventually someone would've done it and I think he felt cornered and said fu…
This is completely speculative and not factual.
A lot of work was done by the team to release the source code of many of these games.
I know TTimo did a lot of work to help.