4 ms·

I do use and run my own LLMs locally. But I understand why Debian might ban it, under just 1 reason: LLM outputs cannot be copyrighted. That alone starts to i

by nekusar 2mo ago

I do use and run my own LLMs locally. But I understand why Debian might ban it, under just 1 reason: LLM outputs cannot be copyrighted. That alone starts to invalidate the GPL and other FLOSS licenses. It overall weakens the project the more you accept. And companies (MS, Amazon, etm) will gleefully loot anything marked with "LLM" as a free-for-all. Until the whole copyright situation can be finalized, I'd understand for any FLOSS org to refuse all LLM code. (Its also the same reason why Oracle also forbids all LLM code in Java and their DB. Same reason.)

singpolyma3 2mo ago
There's not yet any reason to believe that mixing LLM output with your work makes it uncopyrightable any more than hitting enter in intellisense did before that.
rstuart4133 1mo ago
> LLM outputs cannot be copyrighted. For stuff that isn't Debian supplied Debians only contribution is the packaging. Debian considers "Public Domain" is a perfectly acceptable licence for the packaging work. So LLM produced packaging is also perfectly fine - copyrightable or not. By the by, even the option most favourable to LLM's in the ballot insists the Debian Developer take responsibility for all his work, regardless of whether he or an LLM produced it. > That alone starts to invalidate the GPL and other FLOSS licenses. How? > And companies (MS, Amazon, etm) will gleefully loot anything marked with "LLM" as a free-for-all. I'm not fan of their sharp practices either, particularly when I wrote this: https://lwn.net/Articles/1046105/ https://lwn.net/Articles/1046105/ But what Amazon could do with publically licensed packaging that they can't do now is a mystery to me - it's not terribly useful outside of the Debian ecosystem, and it's not like you are forced to distribute most of it. Many companies just ship Debian binary packages now, no Debian source available. GPL and friends only bite if you distribute it. I do think LLM's could be a threat to open source licences, but this isn't the mechanism. The real threat is far more insidious: https://lwn.net/Articles/1064113/ https://lwn.net/Articles/1064113/ So, for Debian packaging LLM's don't create copyright issues, or accoutability issues. If environmental concerns are serious, Debian could always setup it's own LLM server farm running open source models powered with renewable power. That sounds expensive, but whenever Debian needs compute (it already use a lot recompiling all those packages on all supported arches) it just seems to "appear". I'm not sure what's left, beyond a technophobia of computation done using 4K vectors rather than bits. The underlying silicon is the same after all, lots of packing tools already automate most of the steps, and the output (the packaging) is highly constrained so will be near identical.

by nekusar 2mo ago

singpolyma3 2mo ago

There's not yet any reason to believe that mixing LLM output with your work makes it uncopyrightable any more than hitting enter in intellisense did before that.

rstuart4133 1mo ago

> LLM outputs cannot be copyrighted. For stuff that isn't Debian supplied Debians only contribution is the packaging. Debian considers "Public Domain" is a perfectly acceptable licence for the packaging work. So LLM produced packaging is also perfectly fine - copyrightable or not. By the by, even the option most favourable to LLM's in the ballot insists the Debian Developer take responsibility for all his work, regardless of whether he or an LLM produced it. > That alone starts to invalidate the GPL and other FLOSS licenses. How? > And companies (MS, Amazon, etm) will gleefully loot anything marked with "LLM" as a free-for-all. I'm not fan of their sharp practices either, particularly when I wrote this: https://lwn.net/Articles/1046105/ https://lwn.net/Articles/1046105/ But what Amazon could do with publically licensed packaging that they can't do now is a mystery to me - it's not terribly useful outside of the Debian ecosystem, and it's not like you are forced to distribute most of it. Many companies just ship Debian binary packages now, no Debian source available. GPL and friends only bite if you distribute it. I do think LLM's could be a threat to open source licences, but this isn't the mechanism. The real threat is far more insidious: https://lwn.net/Articles/1064113/ https://lwn.net/Articles/1064113/ So, for Debian packaging LLM's don't create copyright issues, or accoutability issues. If environmental concerns are serious, Debian could always setup it's own LLM server farm running open source models powered with renewable power. That sounds expensive, but whenever Debian needs compute (it already use a lot recompiling all those packages on all supported arches) it just seems to "appear". I'm not sure what's left, beyond a technophobia of computation done using 4K vectors rather than bits. The underlying silicon is the same after all, lots of packing tools already automate most of the steps, and the output (the packaging) is highly constrained so will be near identical.