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When you want a clean room non-GPL implementation of something GPL that already exists, you ask the developers not to look at the original. I don't see how this

When you want a clean room non-GPL implementation of something GPL that already exists, you ask the developers not to look at the original. I don't see how this is any different.

mindcrime 3y ago
It's completely different. You're talking about re-implementing a specific piece of software. And that whole "clean room" thing isn't an absolute anyway... that's the level of paranoia you engage if you want to be super duper sure that you can't be accused of copying the original. What I'm talking about is closer to "you fire up your IDE (or Emacs) right now, and churn out 250 lines of code for some arbitrary piece of software. Is it a derivative work of every pieces of software whose source code you have previously look at?" Note that I'm not referring to the case where the AI spits out code that is identical to code taken from another project. I'm aware that that sometimes happens, and that is obviously a problem, just like it would if a human did it. What I'm arguing is only that it probably should not be taken as a given that AI generated code is automatically considered a derivative work. Here's a thought experiment: say an AI emits a single line of code tomorrow. You examine it, and then spend weeks, months, or even years searching all the open source code that's "out there". You fail to identify a line in any existing code-base that was clearly the upstream source for the line from the AI. So is that line a derivative work? If so, of what?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  If 100 experienced C devs are asked to write strcpy, some of those implementations will be identical and that fact will not indicate any copyright infringement has occurred.
Natsu 3y ago
This seems rather unworkable in general if there's no way to learn from anything without infringing somehow if you use what you learned. And I mean that to apply to humans as well as AI, because I'm not convinced that 'learning' is actually different in the two cases.
sokoloff 3y ago
What often happens is that you ask one set of devs to look at the GPL code and draw specifications of the functionality and have a second (non-intersecting) set of devs do the implementation without directly referring to the GPL code, but indirectly doing so by using the specification.

When you want a clean room non-GPL implementation of something GPL that already exists, you ask the developers not to look at the original. I don't see how this is any different.

mindcrime 3y ago

It's completely different. You're talking about re-implementing a specific piece of software. And that whole "clean room" thing isn't an absolute anyway... that's the level of paranoia you engage if you want to be super duper sure that you can't be accused of copying the original. What I'm talking about is closer to "you fire up your IDE (or Emacs) right now, and churn out 250 lines of code for some arbitrary piece of software. Is it a derivative work of every pieces of software whose source code you have previously look at?" Note that I'm not referring to the case where the AI spits out code that is identical to code taken from another project. I'm aware that that sometimes happens, and that is obviously a problem, just like it would if a human did it. What I'm arguing is only that it probably should not be taken as a given that AI generated code is automatically considered a derivative work. Here's a thought experiment: say an AI emits a single line of code tomorrow. You examine it, and then spend weeks, months, or even years searching all the open source code that's "out there". You fail to identify a line in any existing code-base that was clearly the upstream source for the line from the AI. So is that line a derivative work? If so, of what?

sokoloff 3y ago
If 100 experienced C devs are asked to write strcpy, some of those implementations will be identical and that fact will not indicate any copyright infringement has occurred.

Natsu 3y ago

This seems rather unworkable in general if there's no way to learn from anything without infringing somehow if you use what you learned. And I mean that to apply to humans as well as AI, because I'm not convinced that 'learning' is actually different in the two cases.

sokoloff 3y ago

What often happens is that you ask one set of devs to look at the GPL code and draw specifications of the functionality and have a second (non-intersecting) set of devs do the implementation without directly referring to the GPL code, but indirectly doing so by using the specification.