Microsoft has claimed that something like 30% of the code for Windows is AI-generated. (I have not verified that they even said that, maybe that’s totally fake.) Last i checked AI-generated stuff cannot be copyrighted. Does this mean that significant portions of Windows are un-copyrightable, and MacroSlop couldn’t do a damn thing if someone leaked those parts?

And then, reservations about including slop in a software project aside, what could this mean for things like ReactOS? They’ve been careful to avoid including any MS-owned code, but nobody owns slop code.

  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
    17·
    24 days ago

    Oh, I disagree. The GNU GPL, which is one of the most widely used open source licenses, is a copyleft license. In practice, this means that any software which uses GPL code (a derivative work) also falls under the GPL and must abide by its terms.

    In purely private (or internal) use—with no sales and no distribution—the software code may be modified and parts reused without requiring the source code to be released. For sales or distribution, the entire source code needs to be made available to end users, including any code changes and additions—in that case, copyleft is applied to ensure that end users retain the freedoms defined above.

    Only if GPL-licensed parts are used in a program (and the program is distributed) must all other source code of the program be made available under the same license terms.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

    Therefore, if a code generating model uses any code derived from GPL projects, the generated code is also GPL and must be made available if the code is to be distributed. The GPL specifically obligates release of the source code.

    Considering how widely and indiscriminately the scraping has been done to feed training data into the bots, the burden should be on Microsoft to prove that any generated code they use is not derived from any GPL code.

    • I_Jedi@lemmy.todayEnglish
      61·
      23 days ago

      All Microsoft has to do is give the presiding judge a few bags of money, and it will be determined that any suit that accuses Microsoft of using GPL code has no standing.

    • njordomir@lemmy.world
      3·
      23 days ago

      I’ve been on top of these topics for years and I’ve somehow never thought of it like this. It’s not like they can remove some of the training material from the finished model. If they fucked upand included open-source training data, it should all be open-source and they can eat shit and get wrecked.

    • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      36·
      23 days ago

      That’d be true if it was just copypasting GPL code, which is not really true except on very simplistic high level view of “it’s seen GPL code, this it knows to recreate similar code”

      Which is same bullshit arguments used against people working on foss products when they’ve worked on related p*opietary solutions before (see windows code/wine for example)

      Also I have a controversial take here; GPL is a bullshit proprietary license due to that cancer of a requirement. Any license that limits you in any way using the code you just downloaded is cancer just as any other proprietary code. Obviously it’s working “fine” in the crapitalist world we live in, but it’s still shit

      • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
        5·
        23 days ago

        Also I have a controversial take here; GPL is a bullshit proprietary license due to that cancer of a requirement. Any license that limits you in any way using the code you just downloaded is cancer just as any other proprietary code. Obviously it’s working “fine” in the crapitalist world we live in, but it’s still shit

        You overlook that without a license, you do not have the right to either copy the source code, or copy the binaries, or copy the software.

        It is right that copyright is used by corporations to make further their interests and make more money. But that is not why copyright was invented - it was invented to provide income to writers, artists, musicians, composers, and that was extended to software developers.

        The GPL is not supportive of capitalism in itself - it is more like a hack within the existing legal system that is geared to the interests of corporation. But the copyright law it is based on stems from the social contract to support artists, creators, and inventors.

        And with AI, corporations are trying to undo that contract.

        Things will become interesting since AI seems also capable to decompile binary code to understandable source code. Which would make it possible to re-implement a lot of proprietay interfaces.