A new twist in the "AI license laundering of chardet" story https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327
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1But really, relicensing a GPL codebase to MIT is uninteresting.
Let's do the interesting one, which is: vibe code a "clean room" reimplementation of an entire proprietary codebase! After all, Microsoft released a "shared source" proprietary version of Windows. Now try seeing what happens if you run THAT through the "turn it into public domain" machine
Win-win outcome, no matter how it goes
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7Winning option 1: yes, you can vibe code proprietary codebases into the public domain, allowing us to bootstrap proprietary codebases quickly
Winning option 2: stopping laundering of copyleft codebases
Either of these are interesting outcomes!
@cwebber What constitutes laundering of copyleft codebases?
The way I read it in this context is that an existing codebase has license (whether GPL, LGPL, or proprietary or whatever), and that by "laundering" the codebase through an LLM, the output no longer retains the retains the license terms. In the US at least, the Supreme Court has ruled that LLM output is uncopyrightable.
So as @cwebber highlights, either the licensewashing works, in which case LLMs can scrub licenses off proprietary codebases giving a leg up on "reproducing" proprietary codebases into the public domain; or it doesn't work, in which case LLM-produced code becomes subject to the licensing of the original code.
I left a comment to that effect here https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327#issuecomment-4005721071
omg I am just seeing now that the dude who did the "AI relicensing" fucking replied with an obvious slop response, of all the fucking disrespectful things to do, holy fucking shit https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327#issuecomment-4005195078
@cwebber how is than an "obvious slop response"? I don't see anything odd other than the "core claim" statement but I would probably have phrased it similarly
