3 ms·

The GPL should really be updated to say that any code produced from machine learning on GPL code is also GPL licensed.

chatmasta 3y ago
Yes, or there should be a ROBOTS.TXT file that describes how the code in a directory may be indexed or used by machines (e.g. malware scanning okay, no LLM training, etc.) But you're probably correct that such rights should just be covered by the license itself. Your reciprocity suggestion could also work, since it would mean any LLM trained on even a single file of GPL code would be "poisoned" in the sense that any code it produced would also be GPL. This would make people wary of using the LLM for writing code, and thus would make the creators of it wary of training it on the code.
jbaber 3y ago
This is an interesting idea.
gaganyaan 3y ago
I think it's an open question if that would actually work. I would guess that if the courts decided that worked, we'd see a GPL 4 with that sort of clause.
albertzeyer 3y ago
You also don't say that if a human has learned from GPL code, that all code that this human produces in the future is GPL licensed.
- rfw300 3y ago
  Computers aren’t humans. There’s no reason licenses should treat them the same way when completely different considerations of fairness and economic impact apply.
- contravariant 3y ago
  Humans are also not allowed to simply regurgitate GPL code verbatim, even if they do it by committing the code to memory. There's a reason clean room implementations are a thing, sometimes even the appearance of someone possibly remembering code verbatim is risky enough to warrant extra care. That said usually the risks are acceptable even without extra measures because you can hold the humans responsible. Now just because you don't understand a language model and call its fitting procedure 'learning' doesn't mean that it is doing anything even remotely similar. And even if it does then it has no legal responsibilities so if you want to distribute it then you as the distributor need to assume responsibility for all the copyrights such an act could possibly infringe. There are measures you can take to try to prevent the information from any one code base from entering the model verbatim, by severely restricting the model size or carefully obfuscating the data, but to my knowledge nobody has used any method that gives any proven measure of security.
  - olalonde 3y ago
    If an AI model regurgitates GPL licensed code verbatim, that code is already protected by copyright and there is no need to update the GPL to cover it specifically.
    - CableNinja 3y ago
      Except when the GPL header is missing from said code and the user has no idea it is protected, and/or the developer has no idea it was stolen
      - olalonde 3y ago
        If the license is missing, it is a violation of the license and there is legal recourse. Just like if someone did the same thing manually.
        CableNinja 3y ago
        Yes, and thats my point. AI wont include it, user wont know it should be GPL, developer wont know it was stolen. This is a whole can of problematic worms
- xigoi 3y ago
  You can very much be sued for working on a proprietary project and then trying to reproduce it somewhere else. That's why clean-room reimplementations have to make sure that no contributor has seen the original code.
dragonwriter 3y ago
Which would mean nothing at all if any of the “training models on code doesn’t require permission in the first place” theories (Fair Use or otherwise) is true, and pretty much all current models collapse into illegality if at least one of those theories isn’t true. You can’t use a license to bind people who don't need a license.
justincormack 3y ago
Currently the US says that nothing generated by AI has copyright at all, it is all public domain.
xigoi 3y ago
Even better, the model itself should be GPL licenced, since it's clearly a derivative work.

Yes, or there should be a ROBOTS.TXT file that describes how the code in a directory may be indexed or used by machines (e.g. malware scanning okay, no LLM training, etc.) But you're probably correct that such rights should just be covered by the license itself. Your reciprocity suggestion could also work, since it would mean any LLM trained on even a single file of GPL code would be "poisoned" in the sense that any code it produced would also be GPL. This would make people wary of using the LLM for writing code, and thus would make the creators of it wary of training it on the code.

jbaber 3y ago

This is an interesting idea.

gaganyaan 3y ago

I think it's an open question if that would actually work. I would guess that if the courts decided that worked, we'd see a GPL 4 with that sort of clause.

albertzeyer 3y ago

You also don't say that if a human has learned from GPL code, that all code that this human produces in the future is GPL licensed.

rfw300 3y ago
Computers aren’t humans. There’s no reason licenses should treat them the same way when completely different considerations of fairness and economic impact apply.
contravariant 3y ago
Humans are also not allowed to simply regurgitate GPL code verbatim, even if they do it by committing the code to memory. There's a reason clean room implementations are a thing, sometimes even the appearance of someone possibly remembering code verbatim is risky enough to warrant extra care. That said usually the risks are acceptable even without extra measures because you can hold the humans responsible. Now just because you don't understand a language model and call its fitting procedure 'learning' doesn't mean that it is doing anything even remotely similar. And even if it does then it has no legal responsibilities so if you want to distribute it then you as the distributor need to assume responsibility for all the copyrights such an act could possibly infringe. There are measures you can take to try to prevent the information from any one code base from entering the model verbatim, by severely restricting the model size or carefully obfuscating the data, but to my knowledge nobody has used any method that gives any proven measure of security.
- olalonde 3y ago
  If an AI model regurgitates GPL licensed code verbatim, that code is already protected by copyright and there is no need to update the GPL to cover it specifically.
  - CableNinja 3y ago
    Except when the GPL header is missing from said code and the user has no idea it is protected, and/or the developer has no idea it was stolen
    - olalonde 3y ago
      If the license is missing, it is a violation of the license and there is legal recourse. Just like if someone did the same thing manually.
      - CableNinja 3y ago
        Yes, and thats my point. AI wont include it, user wont know it should be GPL, developer wont know it was stolen. This is a whole can of problematic worms
xigoi 3y ago
You can very much be sued for working on a proprietary project and then trying to reproduce it somewhere else. That's why clean-room reimplementations have to make sure that no contributor has seen the original code.

dragonwriter 3y ago

Which would mean nothing at all if any of the “training models on code doesn’t require permission in the first place” theories (Fair Use or otherwise) is true, and pretty much all current models collapse into illegality if at least one of those theories isn’t true. You can’t use a license to bind people who don't need a license.

justincormack 3y ago

Currently the US says that nothing generated by AI has copyright at all, it is all public domain.

xigoi 3y ago

Even better, the model itself should be GPL licenced, since it's clearly a derivative work.