This entirely misses the point. Re-implementing code based on API surface and compatibility is established fair use if done properly (Compaq v. IBM, Google v. Oracle). There's nothing wrong with doing that if you don't like a license. What's in question is doing this with AI that may or may not have been trained on the source. In the instance in the article where the result is very different, it's probably in the clear regardless. I'm sympathetic to the author as I generally don't like GPL either outside specific cases where it works well like the Linux kernel.
This reminds me of people crying over toybox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toybox#Controversy
The real test would be to see how much of generated code is similar to the old code. Because then it is still a copyright. Just becsuse you drew mickey mouse from memory doesnt above you if it looks close enough to original hickey mouse.
That’s I believe woefully inadequate. There are some levels of code similarity:
Level 0: the code is just copied
Level 1: the code only has white space altered so the AST is the same
Level 2: the code has minor refactoring such as changing variables names and function names (in a compiled language the object code would be highly similar; and this can easily be detected by tools like https://github.com/jplag/JPlag)
Level 3: the code has had significant refactoring such as moving functionality around, manually extracting code to new functions and manually inlining functions
Level 4: the code does the same conceptual steps as the old code but with different internal architecture
At least in the United States you have to reach Level 4 because only concepts are not copyrightable. And I believe chardet has indeed reached level 4 in this rewrite.
> The real test would be to see how much of generated code is similar to the old code.
I have looked at the project earlier today there is effectively no resemblance other than the public API.