Live data from Hacker News

Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

codyho.dev

181–190 of 293 posts

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#181
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In the 90s aircraft manufacturers basically stopped whole segments of the market (anything smaller than a piston twin) due to litigation. I wouldn't be horribly surprised to find we spend the next 10 years fighting about this stuff in court.

The lack of modern small airplane designs, especially engines, is the extensive and thus expensive certification process. Most of what is a "new" airplane usually is derived from a very old, grandfathered design.

The only real innovation for small planes is in the electric flight area - when you gotta do a full certification anyway as you're piloting an entirely new drivetrain, you can financially afford to be much more innovative on other parts of the design.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#182
post #173
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be feasible for Apple, with an unlimited war chest, to go after Asahi? I am not saying they will, but it is certainly possible for them.

Because if it's feasible for any company with a war chest to start a court case about a competitor maybe having a matching line of code to theirs via an LLM, then basically every single company with a warchest would be at war with eachother, because they're all using LLMs. Business and code production would grind to a halt whilst basically every big tech company shares it's entire codebase with every other tech compa…

Mutually assured destruction is what keeps everyone quiet at the moment.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#183
post #68
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> crazy anti-LLM policies Weird how justified reasonable policies get the "crazy" label.

Anti LLM is not justified, it's crazy. They are digging their own grave.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#184
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if it's feasible for any company with a war chest to start a court case about a competitor maybe having a matching line of code to theirs via an LLM, then basically every single company with a warchest would be at war with eachother, because they're all using LLMs. Business and code production would grind to a halt whilst basically every big tech company shares it's entire codebase with every other tech compa…

Mutually assured destruction is what keeps everyone quiet at the moment.

These are very good observations indeed.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#185

All this work is tainted since the poster is ex-Apple[1]. There is no way Linux will take that code, since people from Apple also contribute to Linux and this creates a major conflict. There's also ongoing issues around Codex for this sort of thing, given Apple is suing OpenAI over stolen trade secrets[2]. And nobody knows whether training data in other models is similarly tainted. [1]: https://codyho.dev/documents/c…

Why do you hide behind throwaway accounts instead of just using your identity ? its harder to listen if you dont want to say who you are

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#186
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone says this, and then exactly zero cases are cited in support of or against this creative legal theory known as "clean room RE." No statute defines "clean room RE" and there's basically no relevant litigation establishing case law.

When you say "case" does that mean you're rejecting the evidence of Phoenix technologies not getting sued along with all the other BIOS clones?

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. "Not getting sued" doesn't validate a legal theory - legal theories are validated in court where they become case law. Until then, they are plainly speculative.

This "clean room RE" fabrication is also not something so obviously compelling that nobody would ever attempt to challenge it - it's just that nobody has cared to put dollars behind it. IP provenance cases are enormously difficult to prove and are almost always settled ahead of trial. This concept is software engineer folklore more than anything.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#187
post #169
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone says this, and then exactly zero cases are cited in support of or against this creative legal theory known as "clean room RE." No statute defines "clean room RE" and there's basically no relevant litigation establishing case law.

But there are plenty of successful projects which would probably have been taken down if it wasn't for clean room RE. I mean just look at the clean room IBM BIOS clones from "IBM compatibles" in the early days of the personal computer.

This is the same logic that the TSA uses to justify its existence. "We're so good nobody attempts it!"

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#189
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spend enough time in tech and you'll know lots of people who know both technical and business secrets and are under various levels of NDAs. The message you link to explicitly mentions only public info was exchanged. Just talking to someone is not an indication of infringement in any way.

I think this comment is missing the forest for the trees. Obviously, ephemeral interaction is going to happen. The author’s blogpost is sloppy and has some signs of being AI written. This kind of bleeds into the main point I’m going to make. Asahi Linux folks are clearly more conservative and erring on the side of caution, so, this means that the glibness with which the author is treating any of this is probably suff…

> Asahi Linux folks are clearly more conservative and erring on the side of caution

I mean they are working around and on hardware controlled by a nearly 5 trillion market cap behemoth who has resources on the level of some nation states.

I'd be erring on the side of caution as well if they could hire that many lawyers.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who volunteers to be the shmuck that fights Nintendo's lawyers in court? Who's funding the defense against Apple? It's safest to err on the side of plausible deniability, any proximity to OEM software increases liability if things go wrong.

Nintendo doesn't care. There's been proprietary Nintendo SDK code in libogc (open source library for making GameCube homebrew) for years. And more recently the various decompilation process have made recreations of linked code from the SDK that compile match byte for byte. In practice the legal risk of being sued into oblivion for this is not there. If anything there would be a DMCA takedown / cease and desist.

Right, but they are one of the biggest DMCA abusers. They killed many fan projects. They killed game renting in Japan as a concept. They killed Yuzu (a Switch emulator). And they could change their mind at any time.
Post reply on HN