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So let me understand this. Step 1) "Software Heritage" crawls the web (not only Github; they definitely crawl ANY gitlab instances they find online among pract

So let me understand this. Step 1) "Software Heritage" crawls the web (not only Github; they definitely crawl ANY gitlab instances they find online among practically everything else). They "store" ANY type of source code, irregardless of the license of that code. They admit as much in their own FAQ ( https://www.softwareheritage.org/faq/#24_What_is_the_policy_for_determining_what_deserves_to_be_archived_are_there_requirements_for_a_GitHub_Gitlab_or_XXX_repository_to_be_archived_by_SWH https://www.softwareheritage.org/faq/#24_What_is_the_policy_... ) : > Software Heritage archives everything that is publicly available, without preliminary tests or checks [for LICENSE file or others]. You are responsible for checking whether the source code you find in the archive can be reused, and under which terms. Step 2) "Hugging Face" uses the Software Heritage dataset to build some AI training dataset ("The Stack"), again, completely ignoring licensing. You apparently have to manually opt-out if you don't want your COPYRIGHTED source code to be included there. But as far as I can see, opting out is only considered AT ALL for Github repositories via https://huggingface.co/datasets/bigcode/the-stack-v2 https://huggingface.co/datasets/bigcode/the-stack-v2 . If you have your source code published outside Github, then your code appears to be used, period. > The Stack v2 is a collection of source code from repositories with various licenses. Any use of all or part of the code gathered in The Stack v2 must abide by the terms of the original licenses [...] Step 3) Eventually and inevitably someone releases some model trained on this dataset, ignoring licensing again. Step 4) Someone uses code generated from such chatbot, unknowingly violating everything software license known to man. Step 5) ??? Step 6) Profit! Where do these "Software Heritage" guys mention which user-agent their crawler is using so that I can permanently ban them from my websites? At least archive.org does that and they have a much nicer way to request exclusion from their archive.

a_wild_dandan 3y ago
You lost me at step four. If reading source is fair use and generating content isn't derivative work, this is kosher. As litigation mounts, we'll learn more. To me, a learning path that's acceptable for humans is acceptable for AIs. All of the rationales for treating AI/human learning distinctly feel flimsy and arbitrary. "The difference is learning scale." So what? "LLMs just parrot derivatives of their training data." No, they don't. That's demonstrably false, and theoretically absurd, for all the common cited reasons. "AIs obviously aren't people. So their learning restrictions must be different." Why? "People are financially benefiting from the AI's knowledge!" Yep, that's generally how employment works. Etc, etc. My take could be totally wrong. I get that. It'll be interesting to see where the courts fall on the issue. But personally, the critics' arguments feel profoundly crummy and counterproductive; applying their logic to pre-LLM systems usually results in horrendous alternative realities. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.
- AshamedCaptain 3y ago
  Having an agenda to push much? Anyway, this is strictly one level up above that debate, as here they are scraping source code which is NOT free, and whose licenses could explicitly forbid copy for use in training datasets, or by the military, or even by people whose eye color I don't like. For example, example code for proprietary tools which usually allows you to only copy it strictly for purposes of extending the proprietary tool.
gavinhoward 3y ago
I had this problem with Software Heritage for non-Open Source stuff in my personal Gitea. I eventually had to specifically block their IP addresses from accessing my Gitea and threaten legal action before they took the offending repos down. I still have them blocked.

a_wild_dandan 3y ago

You lost me at step four. If reading source is fair use and generating content isn't derivative work, this is kosher. As litigation mounts, we'll learn more. To me, a learning path that's acceptable for humans is acceptable for AIs. All of the rationales for treating AI/human learning distinctly feel flimsy and arbitrary. "The difference is learning scale." So what? "LLMs just parrot derivatives of their training data." No, they don't. That's demonstrably false, and theoretically absurd, for all the common cited reasons. "AIs obviously aren't people. So their learning restrictions must be different." Why? "People are financially benefiting from the AI's knowledge!" Yep, that's generally how employment works. Etc, etc. My take could be totally wrong. I get that. It'll be interesting to see where the courts fall on the issue. But personally, the critics' arguments feel profoundly crummy and counterproductive; applying their logic to pre-LLM systems usually results in horrendous alternative realities. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

AshamedCaptain 3y ago
Having an agenda to push much? Anyway, this is strictly one level up above that debate, as here they are scraping source code which is NOT free, and whose licenses could explicitly forbid copy for use in training datasets, or by the military, or even by people whose eye color I don't like. For example, example code for proprietary tools which usually allows you to only copy it strictly for purposes of extending the proprietary tool.

gavinhoward 3y ago

I had this problem with Software Heritage for non-Open Source stuff in my personal Gitea. I eventually had to specifically block their IP addresses from accessing my Gitea and threaten legal action before they took the offending repos down. I still have them blocked.