@sicp >if software wasn't copyrightable/patentable (as it was for a period of time) then free software licenses wouldn't need to exist.
License's couldn't exist, rather than wouldn't need to.

Unfortunately, even during the time when copyrights or patents didn't apply to software, many businesses refused to publish the source code, claiming such was their "trade secret", despite publishing the binary (which can be reverse-engineered to find any possible "trade secrets", but you need to actually make an effort to keep "trade secrets" secret for them to count).

Currently, freedom-defending licenses take a crucial role in defending the freedom of the software.

>I think it's a great thing when, for example game developers follow the example of Quake and release the code for their games freely.
I believe the quake source code was only released like 10-20 years after the main release, but that's a lot better than most.

If I remember correctly, the sources for the first few quake versions are complete, but later versions are incomplete, as later versions of the engine have scripting supports and the game relevant scripts have not been released under a free software license.