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Coding agents could make free software matter again

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Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#211

Post by vetler »

piker wrote: post #186
est31 wrote: post #64

If I look around in the FLOSS communities, I see a lot of skepticism towards LLMs. The main concerns are: 1. they were trained on FLOSS repositories without consent of the authors, including GPL and AGPL repos 2. the best models are proprietary 3. folks making low-effort contribution attempts using AI (PRs, security reports, etc). I agree those are legitimate problems but LLMs are the new reality, they are not going…

> LLMs are the new reality, they are not going to go away That's the conventional wisdom, but it isn't a given. A lot of financial wizardry is taking place to prop up the best of these things, and even their most ardent proponents are starting to recognize their futility once a certain complexity level is reached. The open weight models are the stalking horse that gives this proposition the most legs, but it's not gi…

But LLMs themselves are literally not going away, I think that's the point. Once a model is trained and let out into the open for free download, it's there, and can be used by anyone - and it's only going to get cheaper and easier.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#212

Post by hrmtst93837 »

coffeefirst wrote: post #49
threethirtytwo wrote: post #4

I think the opposite. It will make all software matter less. If trendlines continue... It will be faster for AI to vibe code said software to your customized specifications than to sign up for a SaaS and learn it. "Claude, create a project management tool that simplifies jira, customize it to my workflow." So a lot of apps will actually become closed source personalized builds.

This isn’t going to happen. I can already build a ticket tracker in a weekend. I’ve been on many teams that used Jira, nobody loves Jira, none of us ever bothered to DIY something good enough. Why? Because it’s a massive distraction. It’s really fun to build all these side apps, but then you have to maintain them. I’m guessing a lot of vibeware will be abandoned rather than maintained.

[flagged]

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#213

Post by ori_b »

eru wrote: post #166
ori_b wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We aren't losing code; we are making the ability to code a universal human "literacy." The same way that doordash makes kitchen skills universal.

You say it like it's a bad thing.

I say that like it's a thing. LLMs have the goal of replacing intellectual work with passive consumption. People seem to like that.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#214

Post by virtualritz »

samiv wrote: post #189
apatheticonion wrote: post #21

Having over a decade of open source software I've written freely available online, I actually really appreciate the value that AI && LLMs have provided me. The thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that my works were likely included in the training data and, if it doesn't violate my licenses (GNU 2/3), it certainly feels against the spirit of what I intended when distributing my works. I was made redu…

The other day I was working with some shaders GLSL signed distance field functions. I asked Claude to review the code and it immediately offered to replace some functions with "known solutions". Turns out those functions were basically a verbatim copy of Inigo Quilez's work. His work is available with a permissible license on the Internet but somehow it doesn't seem right that a tool will just regurgitate someone els…

> Turns out those functions were basically a verbatim copy of Inigo Quilez's work.

Are they? A lot of these were used by people >20 years before Inigo wrote his blog posts. I wrote RenderMan shaders for VFX in the 90's professionally; you think about the problem, you "discover" (?) the math.

So they were known because they were known (a lot of them are also trivial).

Inio's main credit is for cataloging them, especially the 3D ones, and making this knowledge available in one place, excellently presented.

And of course, Shadertoy and the community and giving this knowledge a stage to play out in that way. I would say no one deserves more credit for getting people hooked on shader writing and proceduralism in rendering than this man.

But I would not feel bad about the math being regurgiated by an LLM.

There were very few people writing shaders (mostly for VFX, in RenderMan SL) in the 90's and after.

So apart from the "Texturing and Modeling -- A Procedural Approach" book, the "The RenderMan Companion" and "Advanced RenderMan", there was no literature. The GPU Gems series closed some gaps in later years.

The RenderMan Repository website was what had shader source and all pattern stuff was implict (what we call 2D SDFs today) beause of the REYES architecture of the renderers.

But knowledge about using SDFs in shaders mostly lived in people's heads. Whoever would write about it online would thus get quoted by an LLM.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#215

Post by BlueTemplar »

> a free software license alone does not empower users to be truly free if they lack the expertise to exercise those freedoms

This is a bullshit argument, and I'm surprised that people aware enough of these issues would try to push it.

Closed (or online-only) software prevents not only the end user from modifying it, but also 'unlicensed' hackers that the end user can ask for help.

See the "right to repair" movement as a very close example. The possibility of an 'ecosystem' of middlemen like these, matters !

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#216

Post by davemp »

mr_toad wrote: post #209
advael wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly speaking, GPL is a license that has specific provisions about creating derivative software from the licensed work, and just saying "fair use" doesn't exempt you from those provisions. More specifically, an advertised use case (in fact, arguably the main one at this stage) of the most popular closed models as they're currently being used is to produce code, some of which is going to be GPL licensed. As such, t…

> Broadly speaking, GPL is a license that has specific provisions about creating derivative software from the licensed work, and just saying "fair use" doesn't exempt you from those provisions. Broadly speaking, yes it does. The whole point of fair use is that you don’t need a license.

Claiming LLMs are fair use is ridiculous bordering on ignorant or disingenuous.

Here’s the 4 part test from 17 U.S.C. § 107:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

Fail. The use is to make trillions of dollars and be maximally disruptive.

2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

Fail. In many cases at least, the copy written code is commercial or otherwise supports livelihoods; and is the result much high skill labor with the express stipulation for reciprocity.

3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

Fail. They use all of it.

4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Fail to the extreme. There is already measurable decline in these markets. The leaders explicitly state that they want to put knowledge workers out of business.

- - -

Hell, LLMs don’t even pass the sniff test.

The only reason this stuff is being entertained is some combination of the prisoner’s dilemma and more classic greed.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#217

Post by jofzar »

vetler wrote: post #211
piker wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are the new reality, they are not going to go away That's the conventional wisdom, but it isn't a given. A lot of financial wizardry is taking place to prop up the best of these things, and even their most ardent proponents are starting to recognize their futility once a certain complexity level is reached. The open weight models are the stalking horse that gives this proposition the most legs, but it's not gi…

But LLMs themselves are literally not going away, I think that's the point. Once a model is trained and let out into the open for free download, it's there, and can be used by anyone - and it's only going to get cheaper and easier.

Yeah like Kimi is good enough, if there was some kind of LLM fire and all the closed source models suddenly burnt down and could never be remade, Kimi 2.5 is already good enough forever.

Good enough is probably redundant, it's amazing compared to last year's models

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#218

Post by dannersy »

throwaw12 wrote: post #31

> SaaS scaled by exploiting a licensing loophole that let vendors avoid sharing their modifications. AI is going to exploit even more: "Given the repository -> Construct tech spec -> Build project based on tech spec" At this stage, I want everyone just close their source, stop working on open source until this issue of licensing gets resolved. Any improvement you make to the open source code will be leveraged in ways…

Even worse, the AI will supply a mediocre version of the source specific to someone else's case, and not getting anything in return, ultimately choking the open source effort. The article touches on this briefly.

All I post anymore is anti-AI sentiment because it just feels like we're in a cycle of blind trust. A lot of FOSS seems cautious about LLMs for a plethora of reasons (quality and ethics among those) but we're a long way from making the tools that are supposedly going to replace us a locally runnable tool. So, until then, we're conceding pur agency to Anthropic and whoever else.

Meanwhile, war is breaking out and disrupting already stressed supply chains and manufacturing (for instance, Taiwan relies heavily on natural gas). Many manufacturers are starting to ditch production of consumer hardware, the supposed hardware folks ITT want to run their local models on. The vast majority of datacenters aren't being built yet, and those that are being built are missing their targets, still have aging GPUs in boxes without the infrastructure to power and turn them on, all while floating hundreds of billions in debt.

Surely I can't be the only one who sees the issues here? Each topic is hours of "what ifs" and a massive gamble to see if any of it will come together in a way that will be good for anyone who visits HN.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#219

Post by lentil_soup »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #173
j_bum wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if the analogy is yours, but the scribe note really struck a chord with me. I’m not a professionally trained SWE (I’m a scientist who does engineering work). LLMs have really accelerated my ability to build, ideate, and understand systems in a way that I could only loosely gain from sometimes grumpy but mostly kind senior engineers in overcrowded chat rooms. The legality of all of this is dubious, though…

Sharing for advancing humanity / benefit of society, and megacorps getting rich off it, is not either-or. On the contrary, megacorps are in part how the benefit to society materializes. After all, it's megacorps that make and distribute the equipment and the software stacks I am using to write code on, that you are using to do your research on, etc. I find the whole line of thinking, "I won't share my stuff because t…

> "OSS but not for megacorps/aicorps" is just proprietary software

why? it's not like it's binary. It could well be that it's open source but can't be used by a company of X size. I'm not a lawyer but why couldn't a license have that clause? I would still class that as being open, for some definition of open

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#220

Post by lstodd »

graemep wrote: post #195
As1287 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor billionaire Rowling has no protections against the evil corporations. Everyone using this argument has no clue about artists and and writers. Yes, corporations take a large cut, but creative people welcomed copyright and made the bargain and got fame in the process. Which was always better for them than let Twitch take 70% and be a sharecropper. Silicon Valley middlemen are far worse than the media and music ind…

The individuals who get rich from copyright are a rarity. Most mid-list authors make very little from copyright. A lot of the "authors" who make a lot of money from writing are celebs who slap their name on a ghost written work. > Which was always better for them than let Twitch take 70% and be a sharecropper. Copyright predates Twitch or giant corporations and was designed to protect the profits of the publishers fr…

This is so, but note that publishers were the "giant corporations" of the time.

In this nothing changed. Authors never were and still are not the point of copyright/IP.

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