Does it? Carmack wouldn't be the first engineer to ignore legal details in pursuit of perceived nobler goals. Many mass-ignore sw patents every day.
Guilt needs to be proven, but I don't find it hard to imagine.
Side note: HN may not realize, but the public sympathy in this case may not be with Carmack and Oculus. ZeniMax, as parent of Bethesda, has a largely solid rep among the video game consumer audience as publisher of respectable games, and while the acquisition of id was initially seen as id selling out, their latest game under Bethesda (the first shipped without Carmack at the company) is widely regarded as a major return to form for a once-struggling game developer. Meanwhile Occulus burned through most of its initial goodwill with (perceived to be) disappointing pricing, exclusiviy shenanigans and losing a lot of ground to HTC's strong Vive offering. Carmack has tons of deserved cachet with us, but the public at large may be ready to hang him and Oculus. This will get ugly.
I would argue most software engineers perceive a huge rift between "I am comfortable violating some software patents" and "I am comfortable exfiltrating large swaths of my employers code base." I would hope so at least.
Most software engineers aren't Carmack, though. He used to co-own his technology, and graciously rooted for putting much of it under open licenses. I think Carmack is a pragmatist and certainly understands the business value of code, but also isn't a big fan of constraints.
It's not like the my mind is made up, I don't know either way. Curious to see what the trial will bring.
Carmack wasn't a freelancer working under Zenimax on an hourly basis. He was a full time employee working on the same industry in games, and as ex-CTO of id (and knowing what we know of Carmack's talents and what he's done before) he was most likely doing a lot more research and prototyping work in his capacity at Zenimax. Therefore it's a lot less obvious what he has ownership of vs what Zenimax has ownership of.
>ZeniMax, ... a rep among the video game consumer audience as
litigious bastards run by clueless lawyer/pron peddler
(btw how curious any mention of friendfinder quickly vanish from his wiki page)
The core of the case revolves around ZeniMax accusing Carmack of copying thousands of Doom 3 source files, you know, the ones Carmack personally authored and released as GPL before selling ID.
I don't think most developers, if any are mass-ignoring software patents that they are aware of... beyond this, software patents shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Anything done purely in software is mostly derivative and tasks that anyone skilled in what is being developed could come up with, without intentionally infringing.
Software patents, and in fact most patents should go away.
I find it hard to imagine. Personality issues aside, Carmack is one of the greatest programmers of our time, and arguably the greatest video game programmer ever. Why would he need to copy anything? All of his value is in his head.
If you'd said he violated an employee contract by working for Oculus on his off-hours because he couldn't help himself, I'd believe it. But stealing documents? No.
that's a bit of a hyperbole isn't it? the obvious counterexample is tim sweeney, who arguably has the more successful game engine and also video games.
there are undoubtedly many game programmers and programmers in general that are completely unknown to the public and maybe even their peers that would be in the running for being "the best".
carmack seems to enjoy his status, which feeds it even more. he is no doubt good, but his cult following may cloud how good he is a bit.
also, who wants to rewrite code they've already written? there's plenty of incentive to want to take code you've already written. nobody likes solving the same problems twice.
All he needs to do to 'copy thousands of documents' is not wipe his hard drive on his way out. Any of us have thousands of 'documents' next to us at all times.
If anything, the fact that Carmack's statements (in this article) focus not on denying anything, but rather focusing on how what he did was ok, it's likely that many (and at very least a core) of the accusations are true. This is referred to as an affirmative defense.
The allegation about copied documents is only one line in TFA, with no context. It's highly likely that the quotes from Carmack are him replying to a different question than "did you steal files?"
Guilt needs to be proven, but I don't find it hard to imagine.
Side note: HN may not realize, but the public sympathy in this case may not be with Carmack and Oculus. ZeniMax, as parent of Bethesda, has a largely solid rep among the video game consumer audience as publisher of respectable games, and while the acquisition of id was initially seen as id selling out, their latest game under Bethesda (the first shipped without Carmack at the company) is widely regarded as a major return to form for a once-struggling game developer. Meanwhile Occulus burned through most of its initial goodwill with (perceived to be) disappointing pricing, exclusiviy shenanigans and losing a lot of ground to HTC's strong Vive offering. Carmack has tons of deserved cachet with us, but the public at large may be ready to hang him and Oculus. This will get ugly.