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>A license is simply the condition [...] I don't think reducing it to that actually helps the discussion. A license/law/policy can't be analyzed via its bare

by jasode 5y ago

>A license is simply the condition [...] I don't think reducing it to that actually helps the discussion. A license/law/policy can't be analyzed via its bare verbatim text. One also has to look at its unintended effects in the real world. Yes, the GPL license has noble intentions but that doesn't mean it's immune from causing actions that indirectly contradict its goal. (Wikipedia article on that phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive) A license or law can have a stated positive goal or ideal with the text written for that intention and motivation ... but the complexity of the real world may work also against it. >Carmack does not explain what he wanted out of the license, To use framework of "perverse incentive" to interpret his tweets.. He wrote: "The GPL virality wound up being a net negative," and followed up with: >the best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest, but tons of opportunities to just copy-paste-modify were lost due to license concerns. It is possible that some of the source ports wouldn't have been as open, 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. I'm still supportive of lots of GPL work, but I don't think the restrictions helped in this particular case. So in this particular case, he claims that GPL unintentionally caused less openness instead of more. Seems like a textbook example of Perverse Incentive. Yes, we could get pedantic and say GPL verbatim text mentions "freedom" instead of "openness". True, but many interpret GPL's copyleft reciprocal nature of "I share my code and you share your changes back" as trying to create source code abundance. Carmack is claiming that in his case, GPL's restrictions unintentionally caused less code to be shared. One can still disagree with Carmack but it's still worth understanding what he's claiming.

belorn 5y ago
Looking at the quoted text one could guess his goal is maximized amount of users, alternative maximized number of copy-paste-modify events, and that he thought that the GPL would produce those? (We could dig into the terminology around "openess", a classic tar trap in the GPL and BSD flame wars, but I doubt such path would lead towards comments getting more thoughtful and substantive.) Going thus back towards getting users and copy-paste-modify events, as a strategy GPL is rarely if ever a maximize for those goals. The discussions around licenses for stackoverflow code seems to have concluded that claiming copyright at all on small code snippets is counter productive and something most users don't seem to even acknowledge or know that it has a license. A patent grant is however a good protective measure, which would be more akin to the apache license rather than BSD. For maximum users we have both Iphone and Android as examples of BSD vs GPL, and the conclusion seems to be that the license has very little effect. In contrast one could make a strong correlative argument that proprietary software on top and DRM is the best strategy out there if you want to maximize users. I doubt however either is what Carmack is talking about. Instead it seems to be the rather common pattern we have seen in the past when old developers test out open source. They look at projects like linux and expect to get similar contributors by releasing their own projects under GPL, and then they end up not getting many and announcing that "the best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest". The question is if that would also have happened under BSD. He could try it today, and if we got the same result, what would that prove?
zelphirkalt 5y ago
> One can still disagree with Carmack but it's still worth understanding what he's claiming. Exactly, one can still disagree, and he is making a claim. Those are 2 things: He does not know what would have happened, had they gone with BSD license. No one does ultimately. It might be a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side". Second is, that he might write however good code he wants, but what is its use, if it can only be used in 1 product, and then gets copied into other people's proprietary products, with no modifications shared back to the community? His code could have been "trapped" in that one BSD licensed product, if they did not make use of it themselves later on. By going GPL, at least they got the people, who did in reality, not just in imagination of an alternative past future, use the code, to contribute back. Those are the facts and they were caused by the license choice. A BSD license does not ensure any such thing. Of course it is possible, that there would have been more adopters and more people sharing code back, but that is not guaranteed, which is kind of the point of GPL.
- zamalek 5y ago
  > Of course it is possible, that there would have been more adopters and more people sharing code back, but that is not guaranteed, which is kind of the point of GPL. BSD/MIT/permissive and our use of them did make it a hell of a lot easier to approach my previous employer about contributing back on company time/pay (they now do). They even came back with "but no GPL." One of the biggest problems in OSS is paid time/contributions, and GPL discouraged it in at least this one case.
  - zelphirkalt 5y ago
    Which is a bit weird, considering, that those things, that are contributed back, are not ensured to remain available, when anyone else makes modifications and has the option to make their changes a proprietary thing. One would think, that if any contributions flowing back are allowed by a company, then it is to GPL licensed projects, because competitors, who want to use it in their products, would have to also contribute back their modifications. Basically to ensure, that a competitor cannot gain an invisible advantage based on ones code. (If all play by the rules.)
seoaeu 5y ago
One problem with arguing that something is an unintended consequence is that you have to prove that they're not among the intended consequences for the creator. I'm really not convinced that the original GPL authors weren't aware that their license would somewhat reduced openness (relative to permissive licenses) in its pursuit of other goals.

by jasode 5y ago

belorn 5y ago

Looking at the quoted text one could guess his goal is maximized amount of users, alternative maximized number of copy-paste-modify events, and that he thought that the GPL would produce those? (We could dig into the terminology around "openess", a classic tar trap in the GPL and BSD flame wars, but I doubt such path would lead towards comments getting more thoughtful and substantive.) Going thus back towards getting users and copy-paste-modify events, as a strategy GPL is rarely if ever a maximize for those goals. The discussions around licenses for stackoverflow code seems to have concluded that claiming copyright at all on small code snippets is counter productive and something most users don't seem to even acknowledge or know that it has a license. A patent grant is however a good protective measure, which would be more akin to the apache license rather than BSD. For maximum users we have both Iphone and Android as examples of BSD vs GPL, and the conclusion seems to be that the license has very little effect. In contrast one could make a strong correlative argument that proprietary software on top and DRM is the best strategy out there if you want to maximize users. I doubt however either is what Carmack is talking about. Instead it seems to be the rather common pattern we have seen in the past when old developers test out open source. They look at projects like linux and expect to get similar contributors by releasing their own projects under GPL, and then they end up not getting many and announcing that "the best aspects of GPL work didn't manifest". The question is if that would also have happened under BSD. He could try it today, and if we got the same result, what would that prove?

zelphirkalt 5y ago

> One can still disagree with Carmack but it's still worth understanding what he's claiming. Exactly, one can still disagree, and he is making a claim. Those are 2 things: He does not know what would have happened, had they gone with BSD license. No one does ultimately. It might be a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side". Second is, that he might write however good code he wants, but what is its use, if it can only be used in 1 product, and then gets copied into other people's proprietary products, with no modifications shared back to the community? His code could have been "trapped" in that one BSD licensed product, if they did not make use of it themselves later on. By going GPL, at least they got the people, who did in reality, not just in imagination of an alternative past future, use the code, to contribute back. Those are the facts and they were caused by the license choice. A BSD license does not ensure any such thing. Of course it is possible, that there would have been more adopters and more people sharing code back, but that is not guaranteed, which is kind of the point of GPL.

zamalek 5y ago
> Of course it is possible, that there would have been more adopters and more people sharing code back, but that is not guaranteed, which is kind of the point of GPL. BSD/MIT/permissive and our use of them did make it a hell of a lot easier to approach my previous employer about contributing back on company time/pay (they now do). They even came back with "but no GPL." One of the biggest problems in OSS is paid time/contributions, and GPL discouraged it in at least this one case.
- zelphirkalt 5y ago
  Which is a bit weird, considering, that those things, that are contributed back, are not ensured to remain available, when anyone else makes modifications and has the option to make their changes a proprietary thing. One would think, that if any contributions flowing back are allowed by a company, then it is to GPL licensed projects, because competitors, who want to use it in their products, would have to also contribute back their modifications. Basically to ensure, that a competitor cannot gain an invisible advantage based on ones code. (If all play by the rules.)

seoaeu 5y ago

One problem with arguing that something is an unintended consequence is that you have to prove that they're not among the intended consequences for the creator. I'm really not convinced that the original GPL authors weren't aware that their license would somewhat reduced openness (relative to permissive licenses) in its pursuit of other goals.