> This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a license ("a gift").

That is, in fact, OSS. Open source does not mean, and has never meant, ongoing development nor development with the community.

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.

> 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 source isn't a gift so much as a marketing strategy. So it makes sense the maintainers wouldn't see LLM training on their code as a good thing; it was never a "gift", it was a loss leader.

He also (presumably) doesn't have to worry as much about money as many OSS folks might, so dual licensing (as a means to keep working on the OSS version while also making ends meet) is likely not something he would consider.

He also started an AI company, right?

The assumption here is that the people who maintain something in a painstaking manner did not intend people to take it and do whatever they want with it in accordance with its license?

Then by your definition, SQLite isn't open-source because it's a code dump with a license, but outsiders are not allowed to participate in shaping (the official copy of) the code.

> This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS

It's a little disheartening that someone can release their code and still be told they "don't really do OSS".

That is, in fact, open source.

The community is not the license. The “open source” development community is a user of that kind of licensing.

You might better describe them as the open source maintainer community. I do see how ai impacts maintainers. But I’ve dumped hundreds of thousands of loc into the bucket with no hope that anyone would really maintain it. With AI it might become part of something useful. The license has many uses.

I mean back in the day licensing Quake from iD was like that too. It was basically "hey, thanks for the $2 million, here's your cdr and never contact us again."

It was night and day between them and Epic back then, which I think is entirely why Unreal Engine grew to be such a juggernaut, and iD tech stagnated.

> 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.

He didn't have to give it away, but he did, and for that I thank him

Well said. Some people are misparsing your core point here.

Skrebbel is largely referring to the OSS projects that need people to do consitent grunt work like shipping predictable releases, stable branch maintenance, backporting security fixes, etc. This is the kind of work maintains that the internet's infrastructure.

A bit like the Nebraska guy from the famous XKCD, dependecy: https://xkcd.com/2347/

OSS is a big umbrella. At the end of the day, if you are not hurting for money, you might be okay donating your work for AI training. Meanwhile if you’re working hard on projects while sacrificing a lot (including money) you are very much allowed to not want AI use it for training if it means financial gain for a select few at the top.

It has the same undertones as how rich people talk about philanthropy. “Look I donated a portion of my wealth that barely affected my life, I must be better than all those poor people who never donate to chariTy”.

This sounds to me like the "No True Scotsman" argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

I break down what you said as: "Sure, he's released code with an open-source license, but that's not real open source in the sense that matters."

I happen to disagree. OSS is OSS. AGPL is OSS. MIT is Open Source. Unlicense is OSS.

Though I agree that a healthy, vibrant, open source software project requires community and merge maintainer(s), open source "code dumps" (contributions of one's work for others to share) are open source.

There's no need to shame or diminish people into a different open source contribution pattern.

We can be grateful for open source code dumps with no express or implied commitment to future performance. We aren't entitled to ongoing support or ongoing development.

Open source is literally just releasing the code under an OSS license.

Any additional meaning or steps isn't open source, it's something else...

What do the people who are deep into open source mean by the term then, in your understanding?

>This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps

OSS wasn't always endless PRs and other git-specific related crap, and I think that line of logic is fucking ridiculous.

Open source when I started was a website or BBS where a tarball of code was there waiting for me to download it. It wasn't PRs/issues/CI/career-finagling/virtue-seeking/etc; it was just the tarballl full of source code.

I agree wholeheartedly with Carmack and I am glad to see people with that perspective. I think exactly the same with regards to all of the OSS projects and code that I put out for 20+ years before LLMs were a thing. nothing changes; i'd do it again.

I didn't do it to make a career, I did it because I believe in the greater ethos of OSS.