> Accepting AI-rewriting as relicensing could spell the end of Copyleft
The more restrictive licences perhaps, though only if the rewriter convinces everyone that they can properly maintain the result. For ancient projects that aren't actively maintained anyway (because they are essentially done at this point) this might make little difference, but for active projects any new features and fixes might result in either manual reimplementation in the rewritten version or the clean-room process being repeated completely for the whole project.
> chardet 7.0 is a ground-up, MIT-licensed rewrite of chardet. Same package name, same public API —
(from the github description)
The “same name” part to me feels somewhat disingenuous. It isn't the same thing so it should have a different name to avoid confusion, even if that name is something very similar to the original like chardet-ng or chardet-ai.
This is super interesting. Exploring the basis for Free Software (the 4 liberties, Richard Stallman)... if AI-code is effectively under Public Domain, wouldn't that actually be even MORE defensive than relying on copyright to be able to generate copyleft? Wouldn't the rewrite of code (previously under any license, and maybe even unknown to the LLM) constitute a massive win for the population in general, because now their 4 liberties are more attainable through the extensive use of LLMs to generate code?
Many copyleft licences give more rights to the user of the software than being public domain would.
A bit of public domain code can be used in a hidden way in perpetuity.
A bit of code covered by AGPL3 (for instance) (and other GPLs depending on context) can be used for free too, but with the extra requirement that users be given a copy of the code, and derivative works, upon request.
This is why the corps like MIT and similar and won't touch anything remotely like GPL (even LGPL which only covers derivative works of the library not the wider project). The MIT licence can be largely treated as public domain.
Who cares if it can be maintained. The system now penalizes the original creator for creating it and gives thieves the ability to conduct legal theft at a gargantuan scale, the only limit being how creative the abuser is in making money.
With the incentives set up like that, the era of open software cooperation would be ended rapidly.
> Who cares if it can be maintained.
People who understand and care about the implications of https://xkcd.com/2347/
Which admittedly is not nearly enough of us…