> If source code can now be generated from a specification, the specification is where the essential intellectual content of a GPL project resides.
Our foreparents fought for the right to implement works-a-like to corporate software packages, even if the so-called owners did not like it. We're ready to throw it all away, and let intellectual property owners get so much more control.
The implications will not end up being anti-large-corporation or pro-sharing. If you can prevent someone from re-implementing a spec or building a client that speaks your API or building a work-a-like, it will be the large corporations that exersize this power as usual.
We should be removing IP law entirely, not strengthening it to cover entire classes of problem even when implemented entirely differently. Same for anyone trying to claim "colorful monster creatures" as innately Pokemon IP. Just because someone climbed a mountain first doesn't mean they own it forever. Nobody should be honouring any of these claims.
Nor should we be treating AI models themselves as respected IP. They're built on everyone else's data. Throw away this whole class of law, it's irrelevant in this new world.
Sounds very similar to that whole API lawsuit with oracle.
And the whole Adobe pdf thing and the whole Microsoft word thing. And the whole ibm pc thing. Imagine if we were forced to keep using ibm from when they lost their way until now simply because anti-ai luddites were able to scare monger
I would wager that the vast majority of people commenting here about the pitfalls of AI, especially as it relates to governance and laws, are heavy users of AI, recognize the import and value it brings, and find ways to utilize it more themselves, so not sure using an ad-hominem dismissal of very valid objections are going to be effective.
(side bar: the phrase "anti-<whatever> luddites" is way, way overused, especially here. Let's get more creative, people!)
HN comments on LLM agents are bi-modal now, as are views in the general population. The modes are adopters and non-adopters.
There isn’t much of a middle ground anymore.
>Our foreparents fought for the right to implement works-a-like to corporate software packages, even if the so-called owners did not like it
Our "foreparents" weren't competing with corporations with unlimited access to generative AI trained on their work. The times, they're-a-changin'.
You're rehashing the argument made in one of the articles which this piece criticizes and directly addresses, while ignoring the entirety of what was written before the conclusion that you quoted.
If anyone finds themselves agreeing with the comment I'm responding to, please, do yourself a favor and read the linked article.
I would do no justice to it by reiterating its points here.
I believe the GP post is saying that if we react to the new AI-enabled environment by arbitrarily strengthening IP controls for IP owners, the greatest benefactors will almost certainly be lawyer-laden corporations, not communities, artists, or open source projects. That seems like a reasonable argument.
It seems like the answer is to adjust IP owner rights very carefully, if that's possible. It sounds very hard, though.
Adding even more intellectual property nonsense isn't going to work. The real solution is to force AI companies to open up their models to all. We need free as in freedom LLMs that we can run locally on our own computers.
I think the article in fact reaches the exact opposite conclusion it should. I'm not really sure how useful it is to talk about sharing and commons and morals when the point raised was about what is possible. The prescription includes copyleft APIs. These are not possible under Oracle v Google. And you could point it out if I'm wrong but the article doesn't discuss what would happen if Congress acted to reverse Oracle v Google (IMO a cosmically bad idea).
I agree with the comment and find the linked article motivated reasoning at best. It's easy to find something "morally good" when it aligns with what you wanted. But plenty of people at Oracle, at IBM, at Microsoft, at Nintendo, at Sony and plenty of other companies whose moats have been commoditized by open source knockoffs don't find such happenings to be "morally good". And even if in general you think that "more freedom" justifies these sorts of unauthorized clones, then Oracle V. Google was at best a lateral move, as Java was hardly a closed ecosystem. One also wonders how far the idea of "more freedom" = "good" goes. How does (did if Qualcom's recent acquisition changes the position) the author feel about the various chinese knockoff clones of the Arduino boards and systems? Undeniably they were a financial good for hobbyists and the maker world alike, and they were well within the "legal" limits, and certainly they "opened" the ecosystem more. But were they "good"? Was the fact that they competed and undersold Arduino's work without contributing anything back and making it harder financially for Arduino to continue their work a "moral good"?
If "more freedom" is your goal, then this rewrite is inherently in that direction. It didn't "close" the old library down. The LGPL version remains under its license, for anyone to use and redistribute exactly as it always has. There is just now also an alternative that one can exercise different rights with. And that doesn't even get into the fact that "increased freedom" was never a condition of being allowed to clone a system from its interfaces in the first place. It might have been a fig leaf, but some major events in the legal landscape of all this came from closed reimplementations. Sony v. Connectix is arguably the defining case for dealing with cloning from public interfaces and behavior as it applies to emulators of all kinds, and Connectix Virtual Gamestation was very much NOT an open source or free product.
But to go a step further, the larger idea of AI assisted re-writes being "good", even if the human developers may have seen the original code seems to broadly increase freedoms overall. Imagine how much faster WINE development can go now that everyone that has seen any Microsoft source code can just direct Claude to implement an API. Retro gaming and the emulation scene is sure to see a boost from people pointing AIs at ay tests in source leaks and letting them go to town. No our "foreparents" weren't competing with corporations with unlimited access to AI trained on their work, they were competing with corporations with unlimited access to the real hardware and schematics and specifications. The playing field has always been un-level which was why fighting for the right to re-implement what you can see with your own eyes and measure with your own instruments was so important. And with the right AI tools, scrappy and small teams of developers can compete on that playing field in a way that previous developers could only dream of.
So no, I agree with the comment that you're responding to. The incredible mad dash to suddenly find strong IP rights very very important now that it's the open source community's turn to see their work commoditized and used in ways they don't approve of is off-putting and in my opinion a dangerous road to tread that will hand back years of hard fought battles in an attempt to stop the tides. In the end it will leave all of us in a weaker position while solidifying the hold large corporations have on IP in ways we will regret in the years to come.
I mean. Yeah. GPL's genius was that it used Copyright, which proprietary enterprise wouldn't dare dismantle, to secure for the public a permanent public good.
Pretty sure no one, (but me anyway) saw overt theft of IP by ignoring IP law through redefinition coming. Admittedly I couldn't articulate for you capital would skill transfer and commoditize it in the form of pay to play data centers, but give me a break, I was a teenager/twenty something at the time.