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https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment/pa1spia/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned f

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment/pa1spia/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

SXX 19d ago
I certainly dont care about hiding LLM contributions and all crazy anti-LLM policies, but I really hope author can share process completely so this can be reproduced by someone not working for Apple.
- Krssst 19d ago
  > crazy anti-LLM policies Weird how justified reasonable policies get the "crazy" label.
  - SXX 19d ago
    Asahi state as one of its goals upstreaming Apple Silicon support into Linux Kernel and kernel does not have similar anti-llm policies. Imagine what happen if OP submit patches upstream skipping Asahi and they gonna be accepted.
    - thrway69421 18d ago
      Imagine how crazy it is to be throwing shade at someone for having ethics and holding themselves to a higher than required standard.
      - happymellon 18d ago
        Apple offer LLMs, so they are already on board with the LLM arguments. I have many frustrations with LLMs, mainly around the type of user whos brain shuts down, but Apple would be walking a very fine line if they offer a service that they also will sue you for using. Perhaps they should have used the Foundation Models to build their code. Really put Apple in a difficult position.
  - _zoltan_ 18d ago
    Anti LLM is not justified, it's crazy. They are digging their own grave.
alightsoul 19d ago
Even if this is the case, this is still a valuable contribution to learn upon.
- deleted 19d ago
  [deleted]
- MBCook 19d ago
  It’s taint. Anyone who looks at it can’t work on a real open source driver because they will have had access to information they’re not supposed to. It won’t be clean room like the stuff Alyssa did.
  - alightsoul 19d ago
    Can't this be used to make a clean room implementation? Have someone write a spec then someone else who is unrelated, implement it from scratch?
    - danielheath 19d ago
      "Person A was under NDA, so we got them to pass their knowledge to person B, then had person B do the work - that's clean-room, right?" Judges, as far as I know, do not generally take kindly to such arguments.
      - alightsoul 19d ago
        So what if person a and person b are unrelated and person b found it on their own? There are countries in the global south that never had an industrial revolution and don't speak English and never had factories for export nor made anything in a factory industrially that isn't building material and food and maybe fuel for local consumption so they've never had an IP infringement case
        danielheath 18d ago
        > what if person a and person b are unrelated and person b found it on their own That's what's referred to as a "clean room implementation" further up the thread. However, this specific thread is about the scenario where an employee has inside knowledge and is passing that knowledge on to the implementer. Legally speaking, a clean room implementation has much better defenses from claims of copyright violation.
cromka 19d ago
I find it extremely ironic that big corp openly steals IP en masse to build their models but hackers are still concerned about using same models for their reverse engineering work. I think at this point the hacking community needs to grow some balls.
- doot 19d ago
  Excited to see what you contribute to open source against one of the richest and most litigious companies in the world.
  - cromka 19d ago
    Cool. Excited to see you on the pitch next time you comment on a football game.
  - bigyabai 19d ago
    Nothing. I hope those companies go bankrupt, I'm not underwriting their failure to support their customers with my time and effort.
- cogman10 19d ago
  It's because it doesn't matter how copyrighted material ends up in a project. If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. The fact is, open source has much more liability than closed source software does. If copyrighted material ends up inside a private code base it'll be nearly impossible for the owner to discover that and sue.
  - 1dom 18d ago
    > If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share? I really don't see how this issue is going to be feasible for courtrooms to deal with in a world where big tech are bragging about large percentages of all their code being produced by LLMs.
drnick1 19d ago
If Apple open sourced its drivers this issue wouldn't exist. AI at last gives the "community" a chance to use the hardware they bought the way they want. It's unreasonable to expect anybody to code this kind of stuff "by hand" when automated tools exist.
ADevWithAnIdea 19d ago
> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal information or code about macOS, SPTM, or Apple Silicon during my time there. I also don't have connections to people involved in Apple Silicon development (and I'd add that this does not mean someone cannot contribute, the question is were they exposed to tainted information, which is absolutely not true in my case). I have many friends who work for Apple (I'm a Stanford alum) but none in Apple Silicon directly. I disagree with the phrasing of this entire thing, but this statement is demonstrably false.
- thrwy19940314 18d ago
  At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763 https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
  - quitspamming 18d ago
    You are accusing someone by twisting their own words about their own self disclosed identity against them from a throwaway account created 5 hours ago. And they say irony is dead. I say this from an anonymous account but at least it isn't a throwaway. And at least I have the good taste to feel a little shame for my hypocrisy.
  - politician 18d ago
    Do you work for Apple?
    - 18d ago
ivankra 18d ago
Apple is a huge company with strong silo culture. I only interviewed with them, but it feels to me like different orgs are run almost like entirely different companies. If his work didn't concern Mac, it's quite unlikely he'd have any special insider knowledge about it.
pclowes 18d ago
Why would anyone care about either of these things in a negative sense? Isn’t that just saying “he uses modern tools and has subject matter expertise”?
- preisschild 18d ago
  Because the original data the model is trained on is under copyright you can't include the output in a copyleft codebase. See DCO. You cant sign off on you having permission to license the code when you stole it. Many open source contributors like copyleft, but with illegal LLM copyright-washing many people disrespect the terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developer_Certificate_of_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developer_Certificate_of_Origi...
  - pclowes 18d ago
    Any court case involving an LLM you can point to where LLM output violated copyright AND that was held up in court? General thought here is the entire economy is all in on a bet that that would never be enforced and I am willing to bet we would rather change the law than destroy the economy…
giancarlostoro 18d ago
The LLM use wasnt the part that bothered me so much, but having had an Apple contract is bad.
- Danox 18d ago
  Who is getting really excited about the achievement and then you read that at the end it’s just slop, and the guy who achieved it was acting smug and you find out he’s a former Apple employee oh well, he ain’t Alyssa…
  - giancarlostoro 17d ago
    Well, I've been in reverse engineering circles since 2007... Including Apple related ones, I don't have any issue with AI being used to clean-room a reverse engineering session, but by virtue of having been a former employee in any capacity, your code is a massive liability. I wouldn't take his code, ever, unless Apple literally hand signed by their highest layer and CEO that his code was okay for me to use for my OS or something like that, which would never happen.
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
baq 18d ago
I’m making nothing of this, thanks.

SXX 19d ago

I certainly dont care about hiding LLM contributions and all crazy anti-LLM policies, but I really hope author can share process completely so this can be reproduced by someone not working for Apple.

Krssst 19d ago
> crazy anti-LLM policies Weird how justified reasonable policies get the "crazy" label.
- SXX 19d ago
  Asahi state as one of its goals upstreaming Apple Silicon support into Linux Kernel and kernel does not have similar anti-llm policies. Imagine what happen if OP submit patches upstream skipping Asahi and they gonna be accepted.
  - thrway69421 18d ago
    Imagine how crazy it is to be throwing shade at someone for having ethics and holding themselves to a higher than required standard.
    - happymellon 18d ago
      Apple offer LLMs, so they are already on board with the LLM arguments. I have many frustrations with LLMs, mainly around the type of user whos brain shuts down, but Apple would be walking a very fine line if they offer a service that they also will sue you for using. Perhaps they should have used the Foundation Models to build their code. Really put Apple in a difficult position.
- _zoltan_ 18d ago
  Anti LLM is not justified, it's crazy. They are digging their own grave.

alightsoul 19d ago

Even if this is the case, this is still a valuable contribution to learn upon.

deleted 19d ago
[deleted]
MBCook 19d ago
It’s taint. Anyone who looks at it can’t work on a real open source driver because they will have had access to information they’re not supposed to. It won’t be clean room like the stuff Alyssa did.
- alightsoul 19d ago
  Can't this be used to make a clean room implementation? Have someone write a spec then someone else who is unrelated, implement it from scratch?
  - danielheath 19d ago
    "Person A was under NDA, so we got them to pass their knowledge to person B, then had person B do the work - that's clean-room, right?" Judges, as far as I know, do not generally take kindly to such arguments.
    - alightsoul 19d ago
      So what if person a and person b are unrelated and person b found it on their own? There are countries in the global south that never had an industrial revolution and don't speak English and never had factories for export nor made anything in a factory industrially that isn't building material and food and maybe fuel for local consumption so they've never had an IP infringement case
      - danielheath 18d ago
        > what if person a and person b are unrelated and person b found it on their own That's what's referred to as a "clean room implementation" further up the thread. However, this specific thread is about the scenario where an employee has inside knowledge and is passing that knowledge on to the implementer. Legally speaking, a clean room implementation has much better defenses from claims of copyright violation.

cromka 19d ago

I find it extremely ironic that big corp openly steals IP en masse to build their models but hackers are still concerned about using same models for their reverse engineering work. I think at this point the hacking community needs to grow some balls.

doot 19d ago
Excited to see what you contribute to open source against one of the richest and most litigious companies in the world.
- cromka 19d ago
  Cool. Excited to see you on the pitch next time you comment on a football game.
- bigyabai 19d ago
  Nothing. I hope those companies go bankrupt, I'm not underwriting their failure to support their customers with my time and effort.
cogman10 19d ago
It's because it doesn't matter how copyrighted material ends up in a project. If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. The fact is, open source has much more liability than closed source software does. If copyrighted material ends up inside a private code base it'll be nearly impossible for the owner to discover that and sue.
- 1dom 18d ago
  > If an LLM reproduces copyrighted material (which is very hard to verify) then the lawsuit from the copyright owner can still sink even robustly funded projects. Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share? I really don't see how this issue is going to be feasible for courtrooms to deal with in a world where big tech are bragging about large percentages of all their code being produced by LLMs.

drnick1 19d ago

If Apple open sourced its drivers this issue wouldn't exist. AI at last gives the "community" a chance to use the hardware they bought the way they want. It's unreasonable to expect anybody to code this kind of stuff "by hand" when automated tools exist.

ADevWithAnIdea 19d ago

> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal information or code about macOS, SPTM, or Apple Silicon during my time there. I also don't have connections to people involved in Apple Silicon development (and I'd add that this does not mean someone cannot contribute, the question is were they exposed to tainted information, which is absolutely not true in my case). I have many friends who work for Apple (I'm a Stanford alum) but none in Apple Silicon directly. I disagree with the phrasing of this entire thing, but this statement is demonstrably false.

thrwy19940314 18d ago
At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763 https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
- quitspamming 18d ago
  You are accusing someone by twisting their own words about their own self disclosed identity against them from a throwaway account created 5 hours ago. And they say irony is dead. I say this from an anonymous account but at least it isn't a throwaway. And at least I have the good taste to feel a little shame for my hypocrisy.
- politician 18d ago
  Do you work for Apple?
  - 18d ago

ivankra 18d ago

Apple is a huge company with strong silo culture. I only interviewed with them, but it feels to me like different orgs are run almost like entirely different companies. If his work didn't concern Mac, it's quite unlikely he'd have any special insider knowledge about it.

pclowes 18d ago

Why would anyone care about either of these things in a negative sense? Isn’t that just saying “he uses modern tools and has subject matter expertise”?

preisschild 18d ago
Because the original data the model is trained on is under copyright you can't include the output in a copyleft codebase. See DCO. You cant sign off on you having permission to license the code when you stole it. Many open source contributors like copyleft, but with illegal LLM copyright-washing many people disrespect the terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developer_Certificate_of_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developer_Certificate_of_Origi...
- pclowes 18d ago
  Any court case involving an LLM you can point to where LLM output violated copyright AND that was held up in court? General thought here is the entire economy is all in on a bet that that would never be enforced and I am willing to bet we would rather change the law than destroy the economy…

giancarlostoro 18d ago

The LLM use wasnt the part that bothered me so much, but having had an Apple contract is bad.

Danox 18d ago
Who is getting really excited about the achievement and then you read that at the end it’s just slop, and the guy who achieved it was acting smug and you find out he’s a former Apple employee oh well, he ain’t Alyssa…
- giancarlostoro 17d ago
  Well, I've been in reverse engineering circles since 2007... Including Apple related ones, I don't have any issue with AI being used to clean-room a reverse engineering session, but by virtue of having been a former employee in any capacity, your code is a massive liability. I wouldn't take his code, ever, unless Apple literally hand signed by their highest layer and CEO that his code was okay for me to use for my OS or something like that, which would never happen.

deleted 18d ago

[deleted]

baq 18d ago

I’m making nothing of this, thanks.