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Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

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Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#81

Post by Hizonner »

hkt wrote: post #36
kstrauser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. They said open source, so I’ll take them at their word that they mean open source. If they meant otherwise, they should’ve said that instead. This is a highly nitpicky topic where terms have important meanings. If we toss that out, it becomes impossible to discuss it.

I've linked elsewhere to the Hippocratic License, which freely refers to itself as open source while specifically being built around refusing licensing based on ethical considerations. OSI don't own the term open source, and the simple and plain meaning of the term is clear to see. Otherwise, we wouldn't consider GPL software to be open source, because it attaches conditions on usage. That even applies to non-copylef…

The OSD came out within months of the phrase "open source" first being used, and the phrase was coined as part of the same process of discussion that produced the OSD. It's not a natural phrase and does not have an obvious "simple and plain meaning". It's a term of art.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#82

Post by Hizonner »

kstrauser wrote: post #62
pessimizer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The didn't redefine the words, they defined them. Anyone using them for anything other than the purposes they were defined to cover is a dishonest parasite who is intending to trade on the goodwill of the people who adhere to OSI's guidelines. "Open Source," capitalized or not, was not a common phrase before they introduced it. I don't care if somebody in 1965 said "I decided I'm going to be open, and share the sourc…

As a personal anecdote, while I’ve heard smart people say they were using “open source” way back when, I had personally never heard it used in any way before starting to used Linux and the BSDs in the late 90s, when OSI came along and people started discussing it in that context. I can’t say others weren’t using it before then. I can say say that I first heard of Open Source after I’d heard of Free Software.

Yes, "Open Source" is newer than "Free Software". The phrases was deliberately coined, yes in the 1990s, to cover different (and mostly broader) ground... because there was a desire for a clear distinction between them. Which there still is.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#83

Post by evanelias »

orphea wrote: post #69
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying "we already have a definition" when it's not clear whether it's been considered whether that definition would interact with something which is new, is... I don't even know what word to use. Square? Stupid? The word you're looking for is "correct". The definition doesn't change just because circumstances do. If you want a term to refer to "open source unless it's for AI use", then coin one, don't misuse an ex…

> If you want a term to refer to "open source unless it's for AI use", then coin one We even have such term already. It's source-available. Nothing necessarily wrong or bad about it. It only requires people to be honest with themselves and don't call code open if it's not.

Part of the background for this entire dispute is that prior to the OSI's founding, "open source" was a generic phrase which was broadly understood to just mean "the source code is available". See many documented cases in https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part...

So it's a bit ironic to argue that terms cannot be redefined, when that's already what happened with "open source" and what got us here in the first place. If OSI had chosen a novel term (e.g. "Sourceware" was one option they considered), they would have been able to trademark it and avoid this entire multi-decade-long argument.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#84

Post by kstrauser »

gaigalas wrote: post #9

If you don't want AIs to train on it you should not open source it.

That’s an important point and one I’ve thought about a bit. If a human reads my code, then the next time they have to write similar code of their own, mine might be kicking around in the back of their head as an example (or maybe a counterexample if they think my implementation was awful; that’s at least equally likely). I’ve learned to code by reading what others wrote. I mean, my first exposure to code was typing in games from the backs of magazines so all of that author’s work went through my brain and fingers on its way to the CPU.

So is there an essential difference if an AI is involved in the middle? I genuinely don’t know. It feels different, but I can’t defend my opinion other than that “it just is”.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#85

Post by spwa4 »

Hizonner wrote: post #79
spwa4 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws cannot be changed retroactively. So if AI training is a copyright extension that can only happen starting sometime next year. So the consequences of these companies' choices are already set in stone, even if they're not known yet. The GPL requires that all materials to reproduce any derivative work be made available at cost (and all models can reproduce linux kernel GPL data structures, including the private par…

Um, no. Copyright puts specific restrictions on what you can do with work. Those restrictions are described by certain words. The question is whether the existing restrictions cover training AI. That's a matter of interpretation, but once an interpretation is accepted, it is understood as what copyright always meant . Training AI is probably not a copyright violation because it never was one to begin with.

The comments of the (German) judge in this case seem to indicate the judge doesn't understand why any of the defendants even thought training AI wasn't a violation (at least not when taken to the point it can exactly reproduce and create derivative works to existing works. Maybe that's why OpenAI is trying to make that harder now. Still trivial to make it violate that rule though).

https://www.dw.com/en/openai-loses-song-lyrics-copyright-cas...

Note that OpenAI has now testified that they indeed used copyrighted works to train their models. The outcome of the case is that both training AI models using copyrighted work and providing AI model outputs that are derivative of some copyrighted work are copyright violations, and would mean model owners have to respect licenses (ie. compensating the authors)

The case can still be appealed, so it is not final. On the other hand, if I'm reading WTO copyright treaty rules correctly, this ruling applies in the US.

In the US things seem to be going in a similar direction: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyrig...

Seems to me this can still easily go the way the authors want it to in the US. And in theory, it doesn't even have to, OpenAI lost. Yes, it can be fought on appeal, but I've always heard that winning an appeal after losing a case is 10x harder than winning that case in the first place. And we'll know in early January if OpenAI fights it at all, so it's not like they have a lot of time left.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#86

Post by Wowfunhappy »

rlupi wrote: post #21

Copyright Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the…

During training, the AI is not actively interpreting language, so I'd expect this to have no effect.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#87

Post by kldg »

pera wrote: post #16

Given that Big Tech is training AI on copyrighted material downloaded from shadow library torrents it's safe to assume that they don't care about licenses at all. Plus the US government is pro Big Tech and they will protect them at all cost.

it strikes me as a dangerous time to try going to court over this as politics are currently aligned to fight back with new laws overriding court interpretations, at least in the US. God knows what's happening in China; afaik, it's a free-for-all outside requirements to avoid "sensitive topics". Between US and China, you have nearly all of the "top 100" LLMs.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#88

Post by kstrauser »

Hizonner wrote: post #82
kstrauser wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a personal anecdote, while I’ve heard smart people say they were using “open source” way back when, I had personally never heard it used in any way before starting to used Linux and the BSDs in the late 90s, when OSI came along and people started discussing it in that context. I can’t say others weren’t using it before then. I can say say that I first heard of Open Source after I’d heard of Free Software.

Yes, "Open Source" is newer than "Free Software". The phrases was deliberately coined, yes in the 1990s, to cover different (and mostly broader) ground... because there was a desire for a clear distinction between them. Which there still is.

Well, OSI didn’t coin “open source”. Factually, the term existed before OSI started using it. People have shared examples of isolated usage before then. However, they definitely brought it, and the modern definition, into common usage.

Like, if people had collectively used the term 23 times through 1996, then 837,000 times in 1997 or whenever OSI popularized it, I’m fully onboard with saying it’s their term.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#89

Post by gus_massa »

pessimizer wrote: post #65
talkingtab wrote: post #25

I think it is time that open source => community source. Where community is NOT corporations making tons of money without royalties. And where community is NOT AI. As someone said these are fair uses of Open source. But it would not be fair use of Community Open Source. Many people will reject such an effort for good reason. Open Source is something of great value. But should only Corporations profit from it. Why not…

It's called the GPL, and it's what Open Source was created afterwards to undermine. It would be nice if people just used it, rather than appealing to spirits to make Open Source into what it explicitly is not. It is already entirely clear that LLMs have absolutely no permission to use GPL code for something that is being redistributed without full source, before they were even invented. AI companies are arguing fair…

For that case AGPL is better, because it avoids the server loophole.

Re: Ask HN: Anti-AI Open Source License?

#90

Post by gaigalas »

kstrauser wrote: post #84
gaigalas wrote: post #9

If you don't want AIs to train on it you should not open source it.

That’s an important point and one I’ve thought about a bit. If a human reads my code, then the next time they have to write similar code of their own, mine might be kicking around in the back of their head as an example (or maybe a counterexample if they think my implementation was awful; that’s at least equally likely). I’ve learned to code by reading what others wrote. I mean, my first exposure to code was typing i…

If I see a human copying me, I know for a fact at least one person was impacted by what I do. Even if that person never acknowledges me publicly, or forgets I even exist, I know for a fact that what I did meant something.

Scrapers gobble everything up. Good, bad, memorable, non-memorable. Doesn't matter. I don't know, maybe one day I'll make a small piece of code that changes how an AI behaves (profoundly, by being in the training data, not superficially when used in the prompt). However, that hasn't happened yet. I also think it's unlikely to happen.

I know this isn't what you were going for, but it's good enough for this discussion to estabilish a critical difference. I don't even have to touch consciousness or anything like that to argue within those lines.

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