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No right to relicense this project

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Re: No right to relicense this project

#321

Post by wakawaka28 »

rao-v wrote: post #282
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the legal interpretations, I think it's very worrying if an automated AI rewrite of GPLed code (or any code for that matter) could somehow be used to circumvent the original license. That kinda takes out the one stick the open source community has to force soulless multinationals to contribute back to the open source projects they use.

I’m genuinely surprised to see this not discussed more by the FOSS community. There are so many ways to blow past the GPL now: 1. File by file rewrite by AI (“change functions and vars a bit”) 2. One LLM writes a diff language (or pseudo code) version of each function that a diff LLM translates back into code and tests for input/output parity The real danger is that this becomes increasingly undetectable in closed so…

#1 is already possible and always has been. I never heard of a case of anyone actually trying it. #2 is too nitpicky and unnecessarily costly for LLMs. It would be better to just ask it to generate a spec and tests based on the original, them create a separate implementation based on that. A person can do that today free and clear. If LLMs will be able to do this, we will just need to cope. Perhaps the future is in validating software instead of writing it.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#322

Post by nmfisher »

rao-v wrote: post #282
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the legal interpretations, I think it's very worrying if an automated AI rewrite of GPLed code (or any code for that matter) could somehow be used to circumvent the original license. That kinda takes out the one stick the open source community has to force soulless multinationals to contribute back to the open source projects they use.

I’m genuinely surprised to see this not discussed more by the FOSS community. There are so many ways to blow past the GPL now: 1. File by file rewrite by AI (“change functions and vars a bit”) 2. One LLM writes a diff language (or pseudo code) version of each function that a diff LLM translates back into code and tests for input/output parity The real danger is that this becomes increasingly undetectable in closed so…

I’ve never delved fully into IP law, but wouldn’t these be considered derivative works? They’re basically just reimplementing exactly the same functionality with slightly different names?

This would be different from the “API reimplementation” (see Google vs Oracle) because in that case, they’re not reusing implementation details, just the external contract.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#323

Post by singpolyma3 »

maybewhenthesun wrote: post #266
antirez wrote: post #116

I believe that Pilgrim here does not understand very well how copyright works: > Their claim that it is a "complete rewrite" is irrelevant, since they had ample exposure to the originally licensed code This is simply not true. The reason why the "clean room" concept exists is precisely since actually the law recognizes that independent implementations ARE possibile. The "clean room" thing is a trick to make the litig…

Regardless of the legal interpretations, I think it's very worrying if an automated AI rewrite of GPLed code (or any code for that matter) could somehow be used to circumvent the original license. That kinda takes out the one stick the open source community has to force soulless multinationals to contribute back to the open source projects they use.

If it actually is a rewrite it's not "circumventing" it's just a new thing

Re: No right to relicense this project

#324

Post by singpolyma3 »

rao-v wrote: post #282
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the legal interpretations, I think it's very worrying if an automated AI rewrite of GPLed code (or any code for that matter) could somehow be used to circumvent the original license. That kinda takes out the one stick the open source community has to force soulless multinationals to contribute back to the open source projects they use.

I’m genuinely surprised to see this not discussed more by the FOSS community. There are so many ways to blow past the GPL now: 1. File by file rewrite by AI (“change functions and vars a bit”) 2. One LLM writes a diff language (or pseudo code) version of each function that a diff LLM translates back into code and tests for input/output parity The real danger is that this becomes increasingly undetectable in closed so…

"change functions and bars a bit" isn't a rewrite. Anything where the LLM had access to the original code isn't a rewrite. This would just be a derivative work.

However most of the industry willfully violates the GPL without even trying such tricks anyway so there are certainly issues

Re: No right to relicense this project

#325

Post by ottah »

maybewhenthesun wrote: post #266
antirez wrote: post #116

I believe that Pilgrim here does not understand very well how copyright works: > Their claim that it is a "complete rewrite" is irrelevant, since they had ample exposure to the originally licensed code This is simply not true. The reason why the "clean room" concept exists is precisely since actually the law recognizes that independent implementations ARE possibile. The "clean room" thing is a trick to make the litig…

Regardless of the legal interpretations, I think it's very worrying if an automated AI rewrite of GPLed code (or any code for that matter) could somehow be used to circumvent the original license. That kinda takes out the one stick the open source community has to force soulless multinationals to contribute back to the open source projects they use.

It cuts both ways. You can write a GPL version of a proprietary or permissively licensed program. The only difference is the effort of the rewrite is (theoretically) easier.

(I have my doubts the rewrite is a reasonably defect free replacement)

Re: No right to relicense this project

#326

Post by yxhuvud »

klustregrif wrote: post #307
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…

> Claim is if they or Claude read the old code (or of course directly use any of it) it is a license violation The original code is part of claude's training material. With that intepretation of the LGPL AI is incapable of writing non LGPL derivatives. I like that interpretation.

I'm not certain I buy it, but I find it a little hard to motivate the training being fair use if used to regenerate the project in a different licence.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#327

Post by wlonkly »

rao-v wrote: post #282
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the legal interpretations, I think it's very worrying if an automated AI rewrite of GPLed code (or any code for that matter) could somehow be used to circumvent the original license. That kinda takes out the one stick the open source community has to force soulless multinationals to contribute back to the open source projects they use.

I’m genuinely surprised to see this not discussed more by the FOSS community. There are so many ways to blow past the GPL now: 1. File by file rewrite by AI (“change functions and vars a bit”) 2. One LLM writes a diff language (or pseudo code) version of each function that a diff LLM translates back into code and tests for input/output parity The real danger is that this becomes increasingly undetectable in closed so…

(1) sounds like a derivative work, but (2) is an interesting AI-simulacrum of a clean room implementation IF the first LLM writes a specification and not a translation.

Re: No right to relicense this project

#328

Post by gpm »

Someone wrote: post #250
simiones wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit too broad. There are actually three possible cases. When there is similar code, the only defense possible to prove that you have not copied the original is to show that your process is a clean room re-implementation. If the code is completely different, then clean room or not is indeed irrelevant. The only way the author can claim that you violated their copyright despite no apparent similarity…

> When there is similar code, the only defense possible to prove that you have not copied the original is to show that your process is a clean room re-implementation. Yes, but you do not have to prove that you haven’t copied the original; you have to prove you didn’t infringe copyright. For that there are other possible defenses, for example: - fair use - claiming the copied part doesn’t require creativity - arguing…

- Arguing that you owned the copyright on the copied code (the author here has apparently been the sole maintainer of this library since 2013, not all, but a lot of the code that could be copied here probably already belongs to him...)
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