Comment by moogly
20 hours ago
I think if you've been set for life since the late 90s/early 2000s and didn't really have to work another day in your life if you didn't want to, it's a lot easier to be cavalier about giving away some of your output from way back when.
He can easily afford to be altruistic in this regard.
But Carmack isn't wired for empathy; he has never been.
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.
> people who open source their code do not care about profit
Not only are there businesses built around open-source work, but it used to be widely-accepted that publishing open-source software was a good way to land a paying gig as a junior.
I think that whether you need to continue working to afford to live is very relevant to discussions about AI.
Profits don't need to be direct - and licenses are chosen based on a user's particular open-source goals. AI does not respect code's original licensing.
> presumably, people who open source their code do not care about profit
That's not true. There are business models around open source, and many companies making money from open source work.
(I'm only reacting to this specific part of your comment)
I think you are splitting hairs. Yes those models “exist”, if by exist you mean they have dual-licensing setups with different tiers (community, professional, etc).
The point is that most individuals who open source their code do so without expecting financial returns from it. In that context, whether Carmack has a $1 or $1e9 doesn’t make a difference.
3 replies →
Pointing out that a man who has achieved financial freedom decades ago may have different priorities than present and future wage slaves isn't attacking the man.
>Pointing out that a man who has achieved financial freedom decades ago may have different priorities than present and future wage slaves isn't attacking the man.
saying he has no empathy, and has never had empathy, on the other hand...
Says who?
GPL is transactional. The author's profit is in the up streaming of enhancements.
Those who release under GPL absolutely do care about profit, it's just that the profit is measured in contributions.
For a full understanding of any text, you always need to consider the context as well as the content and the author, in this case Carmack, is part of the context. You cant just separate them. This is especially true when it concerns contemporary issues.
Open Sourcing software has _nothing_ to do with 'gratis'. Can't believe this still needs repeating in 2026.
It's not a requirement but it is so correlated that there's no need to react so strongly. I struggle to remember a single paid open source tool off the top of my head but could name dozens that you can just use for free.
> Whether he is set for life or not has nothing to do _in this context_
Being a millionaire set for life, who doesn’t need to work a day if he wants to, has nothing to do _in this_ context of AI companies siphoning away all the open source code, profiting off it, and then threatening to automate away at least one cell of white collar jobs and potentially others too. Hmm.
> 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.
What's your point here? Because whether or not someone needs income to pay their bills is MASSIVELY relevant to whether or not they have to care about the profit on their work.
The bulk of Open Source maintainers aren't "set for life", and need to get a real job in order to not be homeless.
> Attack the argument not the man.
But the man's argument is that since he sees something a given way then it's the truth. What people are doing in return is showing that he can only do so because of who he is.
> open source their code do not care about profit.
Ah, how naive. You're not squinting hard enough.
The argument ignores the mans privilege
Go outside and touch grass my man.
4 replies →
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?
1 reply →
GPL is not for you to make money. It is for the end-users to have freedom with their hardware.
If you want to make money, use a proper license.
To expand on this, GPL is not against capitalism neither. Sometimes, end-users' freedom with their hardware is good to make money on (they buy your support, to have confidence they can migrate from one hardware to another, or use their hardware way longer than the original manufacturer can stay in business). But it is also not an automated license to say "give me your money" neither.
arguments are stronger without insults
Anyone who knows anything about Carmack knows that he has trouble empathizing. I don't even think it's his fault per se. I'm fairly sure he would actually agree with the assessment. His raw intelligence is sky-high.
And that is a big reason why he's making this post, is what I'm saying. It doesn't excuse him, but it's not surprising in the least.
> Anyone who knows anything about Carmack knows that he has trouble empathizing.
Can you give some examples, outside of this post? I only know about Carmack by the things he'd worked on, but not anything personal like this. This would help me get a more complete picture of him.
1 reply →
true/false and insult/not insult are two different axes.
If people need money they should seriously considering charging money for the software they make instead of giving it away for free and hoping it somehow becomes profitable.
Oldheads are not the exclusive group of people who have ever meant actual altruism by their open-source licenses. You can't just pick an attribute to dismiss an opinion based on. Creative control over the lineage of a line of code is just not something the open source world is very concerned with in aggregate.
Anti-AI sentiment comes primarily from slop PRs (and slop projects) along with the water use hoax; copyright concerns originate almost entirely from the art sphere, crossing over into the open source sphere by osmosis and only representing a small minority of opinion-havers therein.
Except him being wealthy could just as well be used to support the argument for using GPL instead of gifting. "He does not have to make real money off of it, he is privileged".
> But Carmack isn't wired for empathy; he has never been.
What an utterly pretentious and rude thing to say.
I mean it's the truth. It wasn't necessary to base your argument on it in the context given but still disregarding it with a hand wave is strange. Everyone who worked with him knows people skills and altruism are really not his strongest character traits.