I appreciate the effort on that response, and it’s tone, but you describe a joyless situation filled with people without a sense of humor, so even if you’re right that’s quite depressing.
i'm dismissing the point the other poster made, because what I see as important is what actually happened. what I see as important about what actually happened is that the BSD license was incompatible with the situation, and if only the BSD/MIT whatever license was available, no one outside of Id or one of their contractors would ever have seen the doom source. I see that availability of the DOOM source as a great good for humanity which wouldn't have happened in a world where no GPL exists.
i don’t see that. i see carmac reminiscing as, wouldn’t it have been nice if this had happened rather than that, while clearly acknowledging that his business partners would not have gone along with ‘that’. the implication I draw, having no more info than these tweets, is that, after some discussion, JC and Id compromised on using the GPL to license the DOOM source, versus not releasing the DOOM source. The GPL allowed wide general availability of the DOOM source, which Carmac wanted, while being acceptable to Id’s business needs as Id saw them at that time.
I would never have had the opportunity to read the DOOM source if JC had insisted on using BSD, because, as JC tweets, his business partners at Id soft would not have gone for it. ipso facto the GPL + Id + JC are responsible for this privilege being available to us all.
so, we all have the privilege to read the DOOM source code because the GPL exists and was compatible with the business needs of Id Soft, as well as JC’s vision, is how i’m reading this.