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No right to relicense this project

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Re: No right to relicense this project

#171

Post by bsenftner »

dathinab wrote: post #110

The argument that a rewrite is a copyright violation because they are familiar with the code base is not fully sound. "Insider Knowledge" is not relevant for copyright law. That is more in the space of patent law then copyright law. Or else a artist having seen a picture of a sunset over an empty ocean wouldn't be allowed to pain another sunset over an empty ocean as people could claim copyright violation. Through wh…

Hate to be "that guy" but in a corrupt legal system, which ours is, none of this matters. Who has the influence and dollars to make the decision theirs is all that matters.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#172

Post by larodi »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #125
dathinab wrote: post #110

The argument that a rewrite is a copyright violation because they are familiar with the code base is not fully sound. "Insider Knowledge" is not relevant for copyright law. That is more in the space of patent law then copyright law. Or else a artist having seen a picture of a sunset over an empty ocean wouldn't be allowed to pain another sunset over an empty ocean as people could claim copyright violation. Through wh…

> And don't just rewrite the same code from memory, but instead write fully new code producing the same/similar outputs. How different does the new code have to be from the old code and how is that measured?

nobody can tell and this is how we entered this very turbulent modern times of "everything can be retold" without punishment. LLMs already doing it at large, while original author is correct in terms of the LGPL, it is nearly impossible to say how different should expression of an idea be to be considered separate one. this is truly fundamental philosophical question that may not have an easy answer.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#173

Post by helsinkiandrew »

twoodfin wrote: post #146
dathinab wrote: post #110

The argument that a rewrite is a copyright violation because they are familiar with the code base is not fully sound. "Insider Knowledge" is not relevant for copyright law. That is more in the space of patent law then copyright law. Or else a artist having seen a picture of a sunset over an empty ocean wouldn't be allowed to pain another sunset over an empty ocean as people could claim copyright violation. Through wh…

If I read Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and then proceed to write a structurally identical novel with many of the same story beats and character types, it will not be difficult to convince a jury exposed to these facts that I’ve created a derivative work. On the other hand, if I can prove to the jury’s satisfaction that I’ve never been exposed to Puzo’s work in any form, it’s independent creation.

In the case of chardet though it wouldn't it be more like you were the publisher of the godfather novel, withdrawing it from print and releasing a novel with the same name with much of the same plot and characters but claiming the new version was an independent creation?

Re: No right to relicense this project

#174

Post by earthscienceman »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #134
binaryturtle wrote: post #89

Isn't the real issue here that tons of projects that depend on the "chardet" now drag in some crappy still unverified AI slop? AI forgery poisoning, IMHO. Why does this new project here needed to replace the original like that in this dishonourable way? The proper way would have been to create a proper new project. Note: even Python's own pip drags this in as dependency it seems (hopefully they'll stick to a proper v…

This indeed the real issue (not the AI angle per se, but the wholesale replacement. The licensing issue is real, but less important IMO). Half a million lines of code have been deleted and replaced over the course of four days, directly to the main branch with no opportunity for community review and testing. (I've no idea whether depending projects use main or the stable branch, but stable is nearly 4 years old at th…

Woah. As someone not in this particular community but dependent on these tools this is exactly the terrifying underbelly we've all discussed with the user architecture of tools like pip and npm. It's horrifying that a major component just got torn apart, rebuilt, and deployed to anyone who uses those python ecosystems (... many millions? ... billions of people?)

Re: No right to relicense this project

#175

Post by Pannoniae »

markthered wrote: post #170

The copyright argument is a sidetrack both in the PR comment thread and here. The issue opened claims the new code is based on the old code, and therefore derivative, and therefore must be offered in a modified version of the source code under the previous license, LGPL. The complaint is the maintainers violated the terms of LGPL, that they must prove no derivation from the original code to legally claim this is a le…

That's not what a derivative work means, though. Being exposed to something doesn't mean you can't create original work which is similar to it (otherwise every song or artwork would be a derivative work of everything before it)

People do cleanroom implementations as a precaution against a lawsuit, but it's not a necessary element.

In fact, even if some parts are similar, it's still not a clear-cut case - the defendant can very well argue that the usage was 1. transformative 2. insubstantial to the entirety of work.

"The complaint is the maintainers violated the terms of LGPL, that they must prove no derivation from the original code to legally claim this is a legal new version without the LGPL license."

The burden of proof is on the accuser.

"I am genuinely asking (I’m not a license expert) if a valid clean room rewrite is possible, because at a minimum you would need a spec describing all behavior, which ses to require ample exposure to the original to be sufficiently precise."

Linux would be illegal if so (they had knowledge of Unix before), and many GNU tools are libre API-compatible reimplementations of previous Unix utilities :)

Re: No right to relicense this project

#176

Post by duskdozer »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #134
binaryturtle wrote: post #89

Isn't the real issue here that tons of projects that depend on the "chardet" now drag in some crappy still unverified AI slop? AI forgery poisoning, IMHO. Why does this new project here needed to replace the original like that in this dishonourable way? The proper way would have been to create a proper new project. Note: even Python's own pip drags this in as dependency it seems (hopefully they'll stick to a proper v…

This indeed the real issue (not the AI angle per se, but the wholesale replacement. The licensing issue is real, but less important IMO). Half a million lines of code have been deleted and replaced over the course of four days, directly to the main branch with no opportunity for community review and testing. (I've no idea whether depending projects use main or the stable branch, but stable is nearly 4 years old at th…

The test coverage is going to be entirely different, unless of course they copied the tests, which would then preclude them from changing the license. They didn't even bother to make sure the CI passed on merging a major version release https://github.com/chardet/chardet/actions/runs/22563903687/...

Re: No right to relicense this project

#177

Post by bsza »

jacquesm wrote: post #167
bsza wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that sounds like a witch hunt to me, not modern law. Isn't the burden of proof on the accuser? I.e. the accuser has to prove that "this piece of code right here is a direct refactoring of my code, and here are the trivial and mechanical steps to produce one from the other"? And if they present no such evidence, we can all go home?

No, the burden of proof is on the defender: if you didn't create it you are not the copyright holder. Copyright is automatic for a reason, the simple act of creation is technically enough to establish copyright. But that mechanism means that if your claimed creation has an uncanny resemblance to an earlier, published creation or an unpublished earlier creation that you had access to that you are going to be in troubl…

That much I understand, but that question only comes up when the similarity is already an established fact, no? If we take the claim that this is a "complete rewrite" at face value, then there should be no reason for the code to have any uncanny similarities with chardet 6 beyond what is expectable from their functionality (which is not copyrightable) being the same, right?

So my (perhaps naive) understanding is if none can be found, then the author of chardet 1-6 simply doesn't have a case here, and we don't get to the point of asking "have you been exposed to the code?".

Re: No right to relicense this project

#178

Post by duskdozer »

skeledrew wrote: post #137
Maken wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user is the end-user of the product. If the relicensing means that someone down the line receives a close-down binary application that he cannot modify, that's a violation of the user's rights.

But it's a non-issue as said user can just have AI reverse engineer said binary. Or reimplement something with the same specs. That's what it means for code to be cheap.

It may be "cheap" at the moment. Let's revisit when the AI companies decide they need to regain a little bit of the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they're creating.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#179

Post by skeledrew »

duskdozer wrote: post #178
skeledrew wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's a non-issue as said user can just have AI reverse engineer said binary. Or reimplement something with the same specs. That's what it means for code to be cheap.

It may be "cheap" at the moment. Let's revisit when the AI companies decide they need to regain a little bit of the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they're creating.

China is always waiting for this. And the US won't allow China to get all the users who'd emigrate over increased costs, so the costs will remain low. They'll have to find ways to recoup that don't involve raising the cost of code.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#180

Post by 3rodents »

amelius wrote: post #102
3rodents wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not describing anything new, you're describing progress. A company invests time and money and expertise into building a product, it becomes established, people copy in 1/10th of the time, the quality of products across the industry improve. Long before generative AI, Instagram famously copied Snapchat's stories concept in a weekend, and that is now a multi-multi-multi-billion contributor to Meta's bottom line.…

> You don't protect yourself from your competitor by worrying about them copying your mobile app. They did not copy the mobile app. They copied the service.

Replace “mobile app” with “backend” in my comment.
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