“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”

#401

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #330

prox wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the implications if you use an engine like Unity or Unreal, since you build upon an existing framework?

For unreal, I think the first $1 million USD of lifetime gross revenue of the game is royalty-exempt, and then you pay. Then I think it is 5% of revenue. For unity it is free if revenue or funding is less than $100K in the last 12 months. That is just the basic implication from a cost perspective. I am not a game developer but there is likely a bunch of other considerations, both legal and technical.

[deleted]

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

#402

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

donkeybeer wrote: post #400

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring wind resistance is the problem. Undoubtedly mass was accounted for, but they got the incorrect answer because wind resistance has a much greater effect on the lighter rider. The extra momentum of the heavier rider easily overcomes the small increase in wind resistance. Anyone who has biked with someone of significantly different body mass will have seen ample evidence that bigger people coast downhill faster…

I don't think momentum should affect how fast you slide down. The reasons are different.

I suppose I should have said "inertia". The heavier rider has greater inertia, meaning the wind has less effect on their velocity.

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

#403

Post by globular-toast » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #379

globular-toast wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright is a complicated thing and I don't pretend to have all the answers. I'm not suggesting to simply reduce the length of copyright and keep everything else the same. I would like to see copyright on software gone completely. Software has a unique purpose in our lives and should not be treated like other creative works such as music and literature. I believe software development would still be good business wit…

> There are a lot of people whose livelihood is based on crime. This isn't a valid argument for what is right or wrong. You are suggesting depriving artists and writers of their livelihood. I will agree that the Disney Micky mouse mess is ugly and does make things worse, but making it so that a photograph that I took {N} years ago is no longer something that I am able to protect and gain value from is... not somethin…

> but making it so that a photograph that I took {N} years ago is no longer something that I am able to protect and gain value from is... not something that I'm ok with.

That's unsurprising.

> Having someone else take that print and then make a poster from it and sell that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Don't share it then. Simple solution. Nobody will ever enjoy your pictures but you.

> The GPL is there to try to make it easier to hack or tinker with the things you own that use something that has been GPLed.

No it's not. The GPL is not about you or me. The GPL is about society. This is what you don't seem to get. Maximising the greater good for society rarely coincides with maximising individual interests. Think of it like global optimisation vs local optimisation. Permissive licences seem to locally maximise individual freedom, ie. if you happen to have the source code right now, you have complete freedom to do what you want, up to and including denying others that freedom. The GPL tries to globally optimise freedom by "disabling" copyright. So you have the freedom to do what you want, but you don't have the freedom to deny those same freedoms to others.

If we reformed copyright, of course a few individuals would lose out. But society as a whole would be far richer.

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

#404

Post by filleduchaos » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

Jyaif wrote: post #349

moonchild wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The profit does not come from the source code, but from the assets. There are games which are fully opensource, but where you have to pay for the assets (and where the source code was released at the same time as the rest of the game). This was not the case for doom, but the demo for doom was free and came out at the same time; the engine was always freely available.

> The profit does not come from the source code, but from the assets. Which is why Unity and the Unreal Engine are free. Oh wait...

They're functionally free to the vast majority of game developers.

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

#405

Post by elevader » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #365

elevader wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this isn't really framing the issue fairly. The issue isn't that Sony couldn't use GPL code, there is no law preventing them from doing so, they just choose not to (for a variety of reasons, I'd imagine). Just as the could contribute to FreeBSD but choose not to. And OS developers have the choice to prevent Sony (or some other company) from essentially using free labor to make money without any obligation…

Nothing in GPL prevents Sony from using free labor; most of the companies using Linux do precisely that.

Of course, but they can't just copy&paste their favorite files from the linux kernel sources and call it FancyOs without releasing the sources to that. I think you got my point, I don't really see the benefit in arguing semantics.

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

#406

Post by anoncake » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #48

I'm still bummed out that for years, GPL was the "standard" go-to open source license. So many projects became useless for any commercial projects whatsoever. GPL advocates say it's so that your code isn't exploited by corporations. But I'd say that choosing GPL means it's more important to you that your code "is not exploited by corporations" than that it can be used for good by people with commercial interests. Tho…

If I make my code non-GPL specifically so other people can use it for profit, I effectively donated to a for-profit company. Why the hell would I do that?

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

#407

Post by defaultname » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #383

defaultname wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the intent of the GPL, and the reasoning behind its creation. I'm not arguing about that. It isn't accidental that I am arguing around that point. I'm talking specifically about the notion of people making money off of open source -- whether BSD, GPL, etc. You cannot possibly make a penny off of what is freely and openly available. It's economic market value is $0.00. It's human value is considerable, bu…

Thats where the "sour grapes" come from. When another person takes a valuable thing that someone else made and turns it into monetary gain they feel like that is "stealing." It is less obvious because its not as directly and easily measurable when a direct dollar sign is put on a product. The same feeling happens when big tech builds huge profit machines using something a person made and gave away as a cog without co…

"You call it sour grapes and then describe how someone is stealing something of value."

This is absurd, and this is just circular. I feel like many of the open source arguments, particularly GPL-based, are predicated on detached bullshit.

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

#408

Post by throw7 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

Neither is better than the other. BSD is better for the developer. GPL is better for the user. It's not strange Carmack would tend toward BSD.

He's pretty confident BSD would have definitively given Id source code more total "use"(copy/paste/modify). That's always the pro-argument for BSD because it allows the source to be "used" in a wider licensing scenarious, but his statement is still counterfactual history.

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

#409

Post by anoncake » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

throw7 wrote: post #408

Neither is better than the other. BSD is better for the developer. GPL is better for the user. It's not strange Carmack would tend toward BSD. He's pretty confident BSD would have definitively given Id source code more total "use"(copy/paste/modify). That's always the pro-argument for BSD because it allows the source to be "used" in a wider licensing scenarious, but his statement is still counterfactual history.

The GPL gives developers an incentive to make their code free, which is better for the developer. It's therefore better for everyone.

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

#410

Post by aroberge » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

donkeybeer wrote: post #394

tzs wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think that's frustrating, try watching an expert talk about economics. Physics, too. I once mentioned on a forum that at least as the fat guy in my group of friends I coasted down a slope faster on my bicycle than did my skinny friends. (It was quite noticeable, too). The number of people who jumped in to tell me I was wrong and attempted to do that math using their first semester freshman physics knowledge to…

Wind resistance should slow down the larger person more.

Imagine a spherical cyclist ;-) Mass scales like the cube of its radius. Surface area (air resistance) scales like the square of the radius. As the radius (mass) increases, the air resistance becomes relatively less important.