3 ms·

Maybe we should just train an LLM on it, then ask it to build a entirely copyright-free clone of WordStar? (sarcasm).

perihelions 2y ago
There's... absolutely nothing wrong with cloning the featureset of software? Even WordStar itself started out as a clone of a different editor, if I've understood the Wikipedia history ("...When IBM announced it was bringing DisplayWrite to the PC, MicroPro focused on creating a clone of it which they marketed, in 1984, as WordStar 2000..."). And in turn, WordStar itself has been cloned multiple times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#WordStar_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#WordStar_2000 If ML would make it much easier to clone software UX, make that kind of task accessible to non-programmer users—then, all power to the users. I'm in solidarity with users. I'm in solidarity with their wish to configure their text-editing software to look and feel exactly as they want it. This shouldn't be the sole province of Emacs priests; if people of the future can do all that magic, not with dozens of hours of Lisp hacking, but with a flick of an LLM wand—the world is that much a better, richer, place for the human species.
- AshamedCaptain 2y ago
  > There's... absolutely nothing wrong with cloning the featureset of software? There is if you literally use the code for that software to build your clone, either directly or through an LLM trained on it, which is my remark implied. Even cloning the entire featureset of a software is problematic... > If ML would make it much easier to clone software UX, make that kind of task accessible to non-programmer users—then, all power to the users This is a contortion. Certainly the core of what you say is true -- but for that what you need is free software, either by political encouragement or by law. Not by making up a loophole where only a certain subset of rube goldberg machines are free to violate copyright but normal users are not. You end up in a world where the Lisp hacker cannot modify his word processor, but the guy with the LLM "can". The ridiculousness of such scenario is precisely what I wanted to point with my sarcasm.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- ngcc_hk 2y ago
  But WordStar 2000 is not WordStar. In fact I recalled correctly this move is one of many reasons it died.
slowmovintarget 2y ago
Copy-washing.
- classified 2y ago
  When the training of LLMs ignores copyright and licenses left and right, I don't see why we can't use the result for copyright laundering.

There's... absolutely nothing wrong with cloning the featureset of software? Even WordStar itself started out as a clone of a different editor, if I've understood the Wikipedia history ("...When IBM announced it was bringing DisplayWrite to the PC, MicroPro focused on creating a clone of it which they marketed, in 1984, as WordStar 2000..."). And in turn, WordStar itself has been cloned multiple times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#WordStar_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#WordStar_2000 If ML would make it much easier to clone software UX, make that kind of task accessible to non-programmer users—then, all power to the users. I'm in solidarity with users. I'm in solidarity with their wish to configure their text-editing software to look and feel exactly as they want it. This shouldn't be the sole province of Emacs priests; if people of the future can do all that magic, not with dozens of hours of Lisp hacking, but with a flick of an LLM wand—the world is that much a better, richer, place for the human species.

AshamedCaptain 2y ago
> There's... absolutely nothing wrong with cloning the featureset of software? There is if you literally use the code for that software to build your clone, either directly or through an LLM trained on it, which is my remark implied. Even cloning the entire featureset of a software is problematic... > If ML would make it much easier to clone software UX, make that kind of task accessible to non-programmer users—then, all power to the users This is a contortion. Certainly the core of what you say is true -- but for that what you need is free software, either by political encouragement or by law. Not by making up a loophole where only a certain subset of rube goldberg machines are free to violate copyright but normal users are not. You end up in a world where the Lisp hacker cannot modify his word processor, but the guy with the LLM "can". The ridiculousness of such scenario is precisely what I wanted to point with my sarcasm.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ngcc_hk 2y ago
But WordStar 2000 is not WordStar. In fact I recalled correctly this move is one of many reasons it died.

slowmovintarget 2y ago

Copy-washing.

classified 2y ago
When the training of LLMs ignores copyright and licenses left and right, I don't see why we can't use the result for copyright laundering.