4 ms·

Can't speak for others but I'm just tired of hearing far-fetched copyright concerns that mask the real motivation (ideological opposition to LLMs).

leonidasv 3mo ago
They still allow LLM-generated code for tests, LLM-assisted debugging, bug discovery and code reviews. It doesn't seem so.
- olalonde 3mo ago
  At the same time, they would be somewhat forced to concede those use cases if they wanted to stick to the copyright story. Maybe you're right but I remain skeptical.
  - amusingimpala75 3mo ago
    Yes but if the concern is being forced to remove code in the case of copyright violation it is trivial to remove code that is a test case as opposed to a feature of the compiler
    - olalonde 3mo ago
      Yes, that's what I meant. It's harder to use the copyright excuse for those use cases.
randusername 3mo ago
It's far-fetched that the GNU project is authentically concerned about software licensing?
- olalonde 3mo ago
  No, it's far-fetched to believe GCC would get sued for incorporating LLM-generated code.
  - Ekaros 3mo ago
    Yeah, I would question that part. On other hand I would not as them risk being able to sue worth it. Which use of LLMs could very well result in.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - gspr 3mo ago
    I think you know that well-known, highly visible entities usually set their legal bar a bit higher than "I'm sure we won't be sued over this".
  - overgard 3mo ago
    The risk might be small -- but is it a risk they need to take at all? We're talking about a very mature project here that more or less needs to move at the speed of standards bodies, which is basically glacial. Being the first to implement C++ 29 probably isn't that big of a deal. People do not upgrade their compilers daily, shit, most projects stay on the same version for years, so optimizing for velocity seems like a bad idea here.
    - graemep 3mo ago
      For that very reason they would also add very little LLM code over the next few years (until we get more court rulings) even if they allowed it. A little LLM code would not be usable without the rest of their code which remains covered by copyright. Its much the same as someone creating a fork of GPL code in which they make additions that they put in the public domain. All the original code and the fork as a whole would remain GPL. its not a small risk, its a negligible risk.
      - cygx 3mo ago
        You want to prevent the transition from a GPL codebase with some public domain code to a public domain codebase with some GPL code. One way to do so is to outright ban contributions leveraging tools that are able to generate public domain code at superhuman speeds. As you pointed out yourself, there's always the option to create a fork that does allow AI contributions, which may eventually force a re-assessment of the policy if the gap in utility grows too large.
graemep 3mo ago
The stance may be reasonable, but the reasoning is not clear to me and the limit does sesm to suggest copyright concerns that are, as you say, far fetched.
overgard 3mo ago
I don't think the concerns are far fetched at all. Look at how image models spit out copyrighted stuff all the time. Midjourney has a bizarre EULA clause that if you use it to generate images that violate copyright and _they_ get sued, they can hold you liable downstream. Which is wild to me -- just don't train on things you don't own and this is not a problem! In images it's much more _obvious_, but I think code is very likely to have similar problems. Like, websites that an LLM spits out are often very very similar. It wouldn't be shocking to me if some of the code in the training set was trained off GPL code, and there are small GPL violations all over the place.
- olalonde 3mo ago
  Anthropic and co basically have the opposite policy (for paid users): if you get sued for copyright infringement, they will indemnify you. That means they're confident it's not an issue. By the way, do you have a source on Midjourney spitting out copyrighted stuff all the time? Does it happen at random or when users intentionally steer the prompt in that direction? I suspect it's the latter but I admit I'm not really familiar with this tool.
  - overgard 3mo ago
    These companies have already shown they're extremely reckless with copyright (Anthropic was penalized 1.5B for books, for example). I don't think they've earned that trust of "they looked at it so it must be ok"
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
pibaker 3mo ago
There is nothing far fetched about this. GNU is an ideological organization and their ideology is "free software." Free software exists because of the copyright system. Now imagine if someone can just fork your GPL licensed software and distribute it under an incompatible license, and when you go to court, the judge tells you to punch sand because your codebase is all AI generated and therefore not copyrighted. I am not saying this is not what will happen — the actual law seems to be still up in the air. But if it does happen it will be an existential threat to the GNU and the whole free software ecosystem.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- graemep 3mo ago
  > the judge tells you to punch sand because your codebase is all AI generated and therefore not copyrighted. 1. There is no indication that is at all likely except for purely vibe-coded projects. It seems highly unlikely and in some countries (e.g. the UK) the law clearly says otherwise. 2. There have been quite a few rulings in countries where it is unclear, and they all set some level of human input that will make AI generated code covered by copyright. Look at the cases that have been in HN stories about cases in the US, Germany and Japan, for example. 2. It would have to be all AI generated, and you would need to replace all the human written parts. Not a practical problem for a large, old project. If this is their real reasoning they are jumping at shadows. However, this might be like where, the copyright (which is the explanation given in the ToS) is not the real reason (which was explained in the subsequent blog post). It is interesting that proprietary software businesses, who have an even stronger interest in ensuring their software is covered by copyright in all countries seem to be quite happy to use LLM generated code. Microsoft and many others boast about how much of their code is now LLM generated.
- lanstin 3mo ago
  Without code copyright we are inherently free to modify, improve and share code we have access to. FSF used copyleft as a legal hack to maintain that right in an environment where corporations where using copyright to deny that right. I don’t think taking copyright off the table harms the practice of sharing code. They will still try to use trade secrets to restrict code sharing and contracts, but using GNU software won’t be stopped. It will reduce the ability to sue people not sharing their modifications but that was always outside the mainstream, and places like AWS, Apple, and Google find ways around it anyways since it doesn’t cover hosted services or non-linked code. The core stream of openly developed and exponentially improving software does not need copyright to win if it cannot be sued for copyright violation. Now I suppose some OpenAI lawyer is trying to find a way to sue humans for copyright infringement while keeping them safe from lawsuits, so we can worry about that attack.

leonidasv 3mo ago

They still allow LLM-generated code for tests, LLM-assisted debugging, bug discovery and code reviews. It doesn't seem so.

olalonde 3mo ago
At the same time, they would be somewhat forced to concede those use cases if they wanted to stick to the copyright story. Maybe you're right but I remain skeptical.
- amusingimpala75 3mo ago
  Yes but if the concern is being forced to remove code in the case of copyright violation it is trivial to remove code that is a test case as opposed to a feature of the compiler
  - olalonde 3mo ago
    Yes, that's what I meant. It's harder to use the copyright excuse for those use cases.

randusername 3mo ago

It's far-fetched that the GNU project is authentically concerned about software licensing?

olalonde 3mo ago
No, it's far-fetched to believe GCC would get sued for incorporating LLM-generated code.
- Ekaros 3mo ago
  Yeah, I would question that part. On other hand I would not as them risk being able to sue worth it. Which use of LLMs could very well result in.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- gspr 3mo ago
  I think you know that well-known, highly visible entities usually set their legal bar a bit higher than "I'm sure we won't be sued over this".
- overgard 3mo ago
  The risk might be small -- but is it a risk they need to take at all? We're talking about a very mature project here that more or less needs to move at the speed of standards bodies, which is basically glacial. Being the first to implement C++ 29 probably isn't that big of a deal. People do not upgrade their compilers daily, shit, most projects stay on the same version for years, so optimizing for velocity seems like a bad idea here.
  - graemep 3mo ago
    For that very reason they would also add very little LLM code over the next few years (until we get more court rulings) even if they allowed it. A little LLM code would not be usable without the rest of their code which remains covered by copyright. Its much the same as someone creating a fork of GPL code in which they make additions that they put in the public domain. All the original code and the fork as a whole would remain GPL. its not a small risk, its a negligible risk.
    - cygx 3mo ago
      You want to prevent the transition from a GPL codebase with some public domain code to a public domain codebase with some GPL code. One way to do so is to outright ban contributions leveraging tools that are able to generate public domain code at superhuman speeds. As you pointed out yourself, there's always the option to create a fork that does allow AI contributions, which may eventually force a re-assessment of the policy if the gap in utility grows too large.

graemep 3mo ago

The stance may be reasonable, but the reasoning is not clear to me and the limit does sesm to suggest copyright concerns that are, as you say, far fetched.

overgard 3mo ago

I don't think the concerns are far fetched at all. Look at how image models spit out copyrighted stuff all the time. Midjourney has a bizarre EULA clause that if you use it to generate images that violate copyright and _they_ get sued, they can hold you liable downstream. Which is wild to me -- just don't train on things you don't own and this is not a problem! In images it's much more _obvious_, but I think code is very likely to have similar problems. Like, websites that an LLM spits out are often very very similar. It wouldn't be shocking to me if some of the code in the training set was trained off GPL code, and there are small GPL violations all over the place.

olalonde 3mo ago
Anthropic and co basically have the opposite policy (for paid users): if you get sued for copyright infringement, they will indemnify you. That means they're confident it's not an issue. By the way, do you have a source on Midjourney spitting out copyrighted stuff all the time? Does it happen at random or when users intentionally steer the prompt in that direction? I suspect it's the latter but I admit I'm not really familiar with this tool.
- overgard 3mo ago
  These companies have already shown they're extremely reckless with copyright (Anthropic was penalized 1.5B for books, for example). I don't think they've earned that trust of "they looked at it so it must be ok"

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

pibaker 3mo ago

There is nothing far fetched about this. GNU is an ideological organization and their ideology is "free software." Free software exists because of the copyright system. Now imagine if someone can just fork your GPL licensed software and distribute it under an incompatible license, and when you go to court, the judge tells you to punch sand because your codebase is all AI generated and therefore not copyrighted. I am not saying this is not what will happen — the actual law seems to be still up in the air. But if it does happen it will be an existential threat to the GNU and the whole free software ecosystem.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
graemep 3mo ago
> the judge tells you to punch sand because your codebase is all AI generated and therefore not copyrighted. 1. There is no indication that is at all likely except for purely vibe-coded projects. It seems highly unlikely and in some countries (e.g. the UK) the law clearly says otherwise. 2. There have been quite a few rulings in countries where it is unclear, and they all set some level of human input that will make AI generated code covered by copyright. Look at the cases that have been in HN stories about cases in the US, Germany and Japan, for example. 2. It would have to be all AI generated, and you would need to replace all the human written parts. Not a practical problem for a large, old project. If this is their real reasoning they are jumping at shadows. However, this might be like where, the copyright (which is the explanation given in the ToS) is not the real reason (which was explained in the subsequent blog post). It is interesting that proprietary software businesses, who have an even stronger interest in ensuring their software is covered by copyright in all countries seem to be quite happy to use LLM generated code. Microsoft and many others boast about how much of their code is now LLM generated.
lanstin 3mo ago
Without code copyright we are inherently free to modify, improve and share code we have access to. FSF used copyleft as a legal hack to maintain that right in an environment where corporations where using copyright to deny that right. I don’t think taking copyright off the table harms the practice of sharing code. They will still try to use trade secrets to restrict code sharing and contracts, but using GNU software won’t be stopped. It will reduce the ability to sue people not sharing their modifications but that was always outside the mainstream, and places like AWS, Apple, and Google find ways around it anyways since it doesn’t cover hosted services or non-linked code. The core stream of openly developed and exponentially improving software does not need copyright to win if it cannot be sued for copyright violation. Now I suppose some OpenAI lawyer is trying to find a way to sue humans for copyright infringement while keeping them safe from lawsuits, so we can worry about that attack.