Comment by sumeno
13 hours ago
"in accordance with its license" is the key part that's missing with LLMs. The licenses are completely ignored.
13 hours ago
"in accordance with its license" is the key part that's missing with LLMs. The licenses are completely ignored.
> The licenses are completely ignored.
Where and when? In cases where LLM coding assistants reproduce copyleft code in someone's work assignment? The responsibility in those would be on the user, not on AI.
In reproducing code that requires the license be reproduced alongside it.
Are you doing a full search of every GPL licensed repository every time you use an LLM to ensure that it isn't giving you GPL licensed code? That doesn't seem reasonable
This is what GitHub promised years ago. Showing repositories where similar code is present so you can guess the license and use appropriate outputs.
I’m not sure whether this is implemented or not since I don’t use generative AI for coding.
Why not? Up until a year or two ago LLM pair programmers weren't even a thing.
The user would know how?
It seems to be a common view on HN that licenses and conditional access to websites should be ignored (i.e. WRT ad-blockers), but also that licenses on Open-Source Software repositories should be respected (i.e. WRT LLM training). I believe that holding these contradictory views is common, but the conflict would need to be resolved to come to a conclusion on how to proceed with LLM training.
There is no contradiction. Open source software licenses allow use without conditions. Ad blocker use does not distribute the modified web pages.
I have not seen any evidence that LLMs ‘distribute’ modified software, though they do seem capable of replicating it.
7 replies →
> Open source software licenses allow use without conditions.
Don't a number of open source licenses notably involve restrictions?
You seem to be conflating copyright with access rights. Two very different things. Regardless of your feelings on either, there is no contradiction in holding different views on them.
Copyright is all about gating access, as media rights holders for sports well know.
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That's because licenses are an abstract complexity tacked on to a simple material reality in order "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts".
Just like many cultural rules, they keep growing in complexity until they reach a phase change where they become ignored because they have become too complicated.
OSS licenses haven't grown in complexity all that much in the past forty or so years. They're being ignored more now because it's become easier to ignore them, not because it's become harder to abide by them.