👀 … https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2026/apr/15/eternal-november-generative-ai-llm/ …my colleague Denver Gingerich writes: newcomers' extensive reliance on LLM-backed generative AI is comparable to the Eternal September onslaught to USENET in 1993.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana So the question is: is it safe, from a legal perspective, given the current state of uncertainty of copyright of such contributions, to encourage accepting such contributions into repositories?
Now clearly, many projects are: the Linux kernel most famously is, and their recent policy document says effectively, "You can contribute AI generated code, but the onus is on you whether or not you legally could have".
Which is not very helpful of a handwave, I would say, since few contributors are equipped to assess such a thing. I've left myself and three others addressed in this portion of the thread, and all of us *have* done licensing work, and my suspicion is, *especially* based on what's been written, that none of us could confidently project where things are going to go.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Part of the problem here is that the AI companies have set the stage themselves. Their presumption is that it's fine to absorb effectively all open and "indie" content, and that this is entirely fair to pull into a model without any legal implications, whereas potentially yes, you may need to "license" something that looks like a Disney character. In the land of code, I also sense that Microsoft is perfectly fine with the idea that you can "copyright launder" a codebase from the GPL to perhaps the public domain, but if someone did that to their own leaked source code, they would be very upset.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine who works in films has said that he keeps hearing rumors that OpenAI would like a cut of stuff made with their stuff. We should presume tthat true.
Regardless, I'm sure everyone on this thread wants an *equitable* situation for proprietary and FOSS licensing. I'll expand on that more in a moment though.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Part of the problem here is that the AI companies have set the stage themselves. Their presumption is that it's fine to absorb effectively all open and "indie" content, and that this is entirely fair to pull into a model without any legal implications, whereas potentially yes, you may need to "license" something that looks like a Disney character. In the land of code, I also sense that Microsoft is perfectly fine with the idea that you can "copyright launder" a codebase from the GPL to perhaps the public domain, but if someone did that to their own leaked source code, they would be very upset.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine who works in films has said that he keeps hearing rumors that OpenAI would like a cut of stuff made with their stuff. We should presume tthat true.
Regardless, I'm sure everyone on this thread wants an *equitable* situation for proprietary and FOSS licensing. I'll expand on that more in a moment though.
However, it's not actually the laundering angle I am concerned with here entirely, it's whether we're turning FOSS codebases into potential legal toxic waste dumps that we will have a hell of a time cleaning up later.
The previous Conservancy post, which @bkuhn linked upthread, indicates that Conservancy does indeed consider the matter unsettled.
Current LLMs wouldn't "default to copyleft", since they also include all-rights-reserved mixed in there. If the result of output of these systems is a slurry of inputs which carry their licensing somehow, their default licensing output situation is one of a hazard.
I note that @bkuhn and @ossguy seem to be hinting at hoping a "copyleft based LLM" with all-copyleft output it a winning scenario. I'm going to state plainly: I believe that's an impossible outcome.
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However, it's not actually the laundering angle I am concerned with here entirely, it's whether we're turning FOSS codebases into potential legal toxic waste dumps that we will have a hell of a time cleaning up later.
The previous Conservancy post, which @bkuhn linked upthread, indicates that Conservancy does indeed consider the matter unsettled.
Current LLMs wouldn't "default to copyleft", since they also include all-rights-reserved mixed in there. If the result of output of these systems is a slurry of inputs which carry their licensing somehow, their default licensing output situation is one of a hazard.
I note that @bkuhn and @ossguy seem to be hinting at hoping a "copyleft based LLM" with all-copyleft output it a winning scenario. I'm going to state plainly: I believe that's an impossible outcome.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Rather than focus on the GPL, let's choose a different copyleft license. In fact, let's choose a gradient of licenses.
- CC0's public domain declaration w/ minimal fallback license
- CC BY
- CC BY-SAImagine for a moment an LLM trained entirely on the above three licenses, and then one that's CC BY and CC0, and then one that's just CC0.
Let's look at both extremes and then we'll find out the real dangers come from observing the middle.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Rather than focus on the GPL, let's choose a different copyleft license. In fact, let's choose a gradient of licenses.
- CC0's public domain declaration w/ minimal fallback license
- CC BY
- CC BY-SAImagine for a moment an LLM trained entirely on the above three licenses, and then one that's CC BY and CC0, and then one that's just CC0.
Let's look at both extremes and then we'll find out the real dangers come from observing the middle.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana First let's imagine the only-CC0 based LLM.
I would fully agree that no matter the law and legal case law passed and established, the CC0 based input LLM is clearly effectively in the public domain, or like CC0 itself, equivalent to it. This one is relatively simple.
Let's make things more complicated.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana First let's imagine the only-CC0 based LLM.
I would fully agree that no matter the law and legal case law passed and established, the CC0 based input LLM is clearly effectively in the public domain, or like CC0 itself, equivalent to it. This one is relatively simple.
Let's make things more complicated.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Regarding the one containing CC0, CC BY, and CC BY-SA, the situation is more uncertain and seems highly affected by legal outcomes in upcoming law and cases to be set. There is the possibility that indeed, the LLM is considered a slurry of inputs and this is legally acceptable, and effectively any output which is not verbatim of its inputs in some way is effectively under the public domain.
Now, of course, the problem is that we don't have to just worry about the US, we have to worry *internationally*. When considered from this angle, that FOSS is an international endeavour, this hope that things are in the public domain feels a lot dicier.
The assumption is that then this effectively leads to the output being under the terms of CC BY-SA. This is fine, great even, right?! Because effectively everything is share-alike (Bradley I don't wanna get into whether BY-SA is copyleft or something weaker). We slap CC BY-SA on the output, it's fine. Right??????
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Regarding the one containing CC0, CC BY, and CC BY-SA, the situation is more uncertain and seems highly affected by legal outcomes in upcoming law and cases to be set. There is the possibility that indeed, the LLM is considered a slurry of inputs and this is legally acceptable, and effectively any output which is not verbatim of its inputs in some way is effectively under the public domain.
Now, of course, the problem is that we don't have to just worry about the US, we have to worry *internationally*. When considered from this angle, that FOSS is an international endeavour, this hope that things are in the public domain feels a lot dicier.
The assumption is that then this effectively leads to the output being under the terms of CC BY-SA. This is fine, great even, right?! Because effectively everything is share-alike (Bradley I don't wanna get into whether BY-SA is copyleft or something weaker). We slap CC BY-SA on the output, it's fine. Right??????
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Except, I actually believe this scenario isn't legally viable. And it's easier to understand if we scale back to the middle case.
Let's now look at the LLM trained on CC0 and CC BY. Because it's the BY aspect that makes everything complicated.
There is *NO WAY* in current LLM technology, nor I believe from studying how neural networks work, any viable computationally performant LLM, that they can track provenance. The BY clause cannot be upheld.
This isn't a theoretical concern for me; someone built another vibecoded Scheme-to-WASM-GC compiler that looks an awful lot like Spritely's own Hoot compiler in places. They didn't attribute us. They probably didn't know. But like many FOSS licenses, Apache v2 does require certain levels of attribution to be upheld. Most FOSS projects do.
You can't uphold the CC BY requirement, as far as I can tell.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Except, I actually believe this scenario isn't legally viable. And it's easier to understand if we scale back to the middle case.
Let's now look at the LLM trained on CC0 and CC BY. Because it's the BY aspect that makes everything complicated.
There is *NO WAY* in current LLM technology, nor I believe from studying how neural networks work, any viable computationally performant LLM, that they can track provenance. The BY clause cannot be upheld.
This isn't a theoretical concern for me; someone built another vibecoded Scheme-to-WASM-GC compiler that looks an awful lot like Spritely's own Hoot compiler in places. They didn't attribute us. They probably didn't know. But like many FOSS licenses, Apache v2 does require certain levels of attribution to be upheld. Most FOSS projects do.
You can't uphold the CC BY requirement, as far as I can tell.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Now here is a counter-argument: how do people attribute Wikipedia? They generally just attribute Wikipedia! And people seem to be mostly fine with this.
It feels fine, when you were a contributor to the Wikipedia project.
It feels a lot less fine when you are a contributor to a specific project, to have everything just sucked up into "the generic LLM". Claude did it! Claude did it all by itself.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Now here is a counter-argument: how do people attribute Wikipedia? They generally just attribute Wikipedia! And people seem to be mostly fine with this.
It feels fine, when you were a contributor to the Wikipedia project.
It feels a lot less fine when you are a contributor to a specific project, to have everything just sucked up into "the generic LLM". Claude did it! Claude did it all by itself.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana If we are pushing for an *equitable* scenario for copyright output, there is only one "good outcome" in terms of copyright, and that is that everything is effectively in the public domain. The dream of having a "copyleft LLM" doesn't work.
And even if it did, there are several problems:
- Nobody is using that *now*, and contributors are facing contributions *now*, and there is legal uncertainty about accepting those contributions *right now*.
- It is unlikely that the "copyleft LLM" would be very useful. The way people use these tools is conversational in a way that requires them to effectively have to be trained on the entire internet to be functional. Not just copyleft codebases.The copyleft LLM dream is a joke.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana If we are pushing for an *equitable* scenario for copyright output, there is only one "good outcome" in terms of copyright, and that is that everything is effectively in the public domain. The dream of having a "copyleft LLM" doesn't work.
And even if it did, there are several problems:
- Nobody is using that *now*, and contributors are facing contributions *now*, and there is legal uncertainty about accepting those contributions *right now*.
- It is unlikely that the "copyleft LLM" would be very useful. The way people use these tools is conversational in a way that requires them to effectively have to be trained on the entire internet to be functional. Not just copyleft codebases.The copyleft LLM dream is a joke.
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana I say "good outcome", and I'm not saying it's an outcome I want, because "what I want" is pretty complicated here. I'm saying, it's the only one where there is the possibility of legal output from these tools that can safely be incorporated into FOSS projects *at all* that is *equitable* for both FOSS and proprietary situations.
And yup, unfortunately, that would mean copyright-laundering of FOSS codebases through LLMs would be possible to strip copyleft.
It would also mean the same for proprietary codebases.
Frankly I think it would kind of rule if we stabbed copyright in the gut that badly, but there's so much vested interest from various copyright holding corporations, I don't think we're likely to get that. Do you?
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana I say "good outcome", and I'm not saying it's an outcome I want, because "what I want" is pretty complicated here. I'm saying, it's the only one where there is the possibility of legal output from these tools that can safely be incorporated into FOSS projects *at all* that is *equitable* for both FOSS and proprietary situations.
And yup, unfortunately, that would mean copyright-laundering of FOSS codebases through LLMs would be possible to strip copyleft.
It would also mean the same for proprietary codebases.
Frankly I think it would kind of rule if we stabbed copyright in the gut that badly, but there's so much vested interest from various copyright holding corporations, I don't think we're likely to get that. Do you?
@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana So let me summarize:
- Without knowing the legal status of accepting LLM contributions, we're potentially polluting our codebases with stuff that we are going to have a HELL of a time cleaning up later
- The idea of a copyleft-only LLM is a joke and we should not rely on it
- We really only have two realistic scenarios: either FOSS projects cannot accept LLM based contributions legally from an international perspective, or everything is effectively in the public domain as outputted from these machines, but at least in the latter scenario we get to weaken copyright for everyone.That's leaving out a lot of other considerations about LLMs and the ethics of using them, which I think most of the other replies were focused on, I largely focused on the copyright implications aspects in this subthread. Because yes, I agree, it can be important to focus a conversation.
But we can't ignore this right now.
We're putting FOSS codebases at risk.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana So let me summarize:
- Without knowing the legal status of accepting LLM contributions, we're potentially polluting our codebases with stuff that we are going to have a HELL of a time cleaning up later
- The idea of a copyleft-only LLM is a joke and we should not rely on it
- We really only have two realistic scenarios: either FOSS projects cannot accept LLM based contributions legally from an international perspective, or everything is effectively in the public domain as outputted from these machines, but at least in the latter scenario we get to weaken copyright for everyone.That's leaving out a lot of other considerations about LLMs and the ethics of using them, which I think most of the other replies were focused on, I largely focused on the copyright implications aspects in this subthread. Because yes, I agree, it can be important to focus a conversation.
But we can't ignore this right now.
We're putting FOSS codebases at risk.
@cwebber @bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana I think we should just destroy copyright entirely and expand the public domain to contain everything that has ever been published. Intellectual property was a very bad idea in the first place IMHO.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Part of the problem here is that the AI companies have set the stage themselves. Their presumption is that it's fine to absorb effectively all open and "indie" content, and that this is entirely fair to pull into a model without any legal implications, whereas potentially yes, you may need to "license" something that looks like a Disney character. In the land of code, I also sense that Microsoft is perfectly fine with the idea that you can "copyright launder" a codebase from the GPL to perhaps the public domain, but if someone did that to their own leaked source code, they would be very upset.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine who works in films has said that he keeps hearing rumors that OpenAI would like a cut of stuff made with their stuff. We should presume tthat true.
Regardless, I'm sure everyone on this thread wants an *equitable* situation for proprietary and FOSS licensing. I'll expand on that more in a moment though.
@cwebber @bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana
Indeed, big tech know full well the FLOSS / indie creators don't have the legal funds to defend. Their IP either.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana So let me summarize:
- Without knowing the legal status of accepting LLM contributions, we're potentially polluting our codebases with stuff that we are going to have a HELL of a time cleaning up later
- The idea of a copyleft-only LLM is a joke and we should not rely on it
- We really only have two realistic scenarios: either FOSS projects cannot accept LLM based contributions legally from an international perspective, or everything is effectively in the public domain as outputted from these machines, but at least in the latter scenario we get to weaken copyright for everyone.That's leaving out a lot of other considerations about LLMs and the ethics of using them, which I think most of the other replies were focused on, I largely focused on the copyright implications aspects in this subthread. Because yes, I agree, it can be important to focus a conversation.
But we can't ignore this right now.
We're putting FOSS codebases at risk.
@cwebber @bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana Super interesting thread. Very helpful to spell out the problems like this.
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@cwebber @bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana I think we should just destroy copyright entirely and expand the public domain to contain everything that has ever been published. Intellectual property was a very bad idea in the first place IMHO.
@LordCaramac @bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana If you are talking about my personal wishes, I would agree. Personally, I perceive of FOSS as a *reaction to* allowing copyright and other intellectual restrictions laws to apply to software.
This puts me at odds with some other copyleft advocates. I see copyleft as useful because it "turns the teeth of the machine against itself". If you have copyright, then great, we will use it to have a way to force the commons to stay open.
But it would be better to have no copyright at all, and if we could give it up, I would give it up.
But it's a far-fetched dream that it could happen. Maybe it will. I am not so sure. If it truly is possible to "copyright launder" any work through an LLM, we'd be as close to it as we ever could be.
But again, whatever scenario, in my view, has to be equitable. If it's possible to do that to GPL'ed software, it's only just to be possible to do it to any proprietary software, including reverse engineering binaries.
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@davidgerard @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning @cwebber Yes, which is why it's important to allow people to identify when they have used LLM/AI assistants to help. New contributors will see this is the norm, and then it will be easier to help them, because we'll know a bit about where any potential knowledge gaps might be coming from.
If we "ban" LLM/AI-assisted contributions, people will use them anyway but hide their use, which is a trickier problem to solve.
@ossguy @davidgerard @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning @cwebber
Very true, Denver Gingerich. People do things despite rules saying not to. You are very smart. Quick question: do you keep your house's door locked despite people being able to break in anyway? Maybe you should stop locking your door.
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@ossguy @davidgerard @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning @cwebber
Very true, Denver Gingerich. People do things despite rules saying not to. You are very smart. Quick question: do you keep your house's door locked despite people being able to break in anyway? Maybe you should stop locking your door.
@TheEntity @davidgerard @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning Despite me disagreeing with @ossguy here, I do think he is smart, and I respect him. I am partly spending this much time here because these are people I consider to be colleagues, and I believe have the best interest of the FOSS world in mind. I just think they are making a huge mistake in how they are framing this, as most of the world is right now.
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@bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana If we are pushing for an *equitable* scenario for copyright output, there is only one "good outcome" in terms of copyright, and that is that everything is effectively in the public domain. The dream of having a "copyleft LLM" doesn't work.
And even if it did, there are several problems:
- Nobody is using that *now*, and contributors are facing contributions *now*, and there is legal uncertainty about accepting those contributions *right now*.
- It is unlikely that the "copyleft LLM" would be very useful. The way people use these tools is conversational in a way that requires them to effectively have to be trained on the entire internet to be functional. Not just copyleft codebases.The copyleft LLM dream is a joke.
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@davidgerard @ossguy @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning @cwebber @david_chisnall In fact, people lying about LLM usage may be the best outcome: code review continues as usual based on the merits of the contribution and track record of the contributor, deniability for the project, legal responsibility lies with the contributor, and any possible benefits of the LLM usage accrue to the project without challenging the norms of copyright and licensing.
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@davidgerard @ossguy @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning @cwebber @david_chisnall In fact, people lying about LLM usage may be the best outcome: code review continues as usual based on the merits of the contribution and track record of the contributor, deniability for the project, legal responsibility lies with the contributor, and any possible benefits of the LLM usage accrue to the project without challenging the norms of copyright and licensing.
@jonmsterling @davidgerard @ossguy @wwahammy @silverwizard @firefly_lightning @david_chisnall It's a perverse incentive situation that this may be true. I can't say I'm comfortable with it, though.
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@LordCaramac @bkuhn @ossguy @richardfontana If you are talking about my personal wishes, I would agree. Personally, I perceive of FOSS as a *reaction to* allowing copyright and other intellectual restrictions laws to apply to software.
This puts me at odds with some other copyleft advocates. I see copyleft as useful because it "turns the teeth of the machine against itself". If you have copyright, then great, we will use it to have a way to force the commons to stay open.
But it would be better to have no copyright at all, and if we could give it up, I would give it up.
But it's a far-fetched dream that it could happen. Maybe it will. I am not so sure. If it truly is possible to "copyright launder" any work through an LLM, we'd be as close to it as we ever could be.
But again, whatever scenario, in my view, has to be equitable. If it's possible to do that to GPL'ed software, it's only just to be possible to do it to any proprietary software, including reverse engineering binaries.
@cwebber@social.coop @LordCaramac@discordian.social @bkuhn@copyleft.org @ossguy@fedi.copyleft.org @richardfontana@mastodon.social In a world without copyright (assuming no other changes), nothing would prevent people from withholding source code and attempting to restrict people’s freedom by technical means (DRM). On the other hand, it would also be entirely legal to reverse engineer everything and bypass the DRM.
Copyright should be removed, but DRM and providing binaries without source code should also be made illegal.
<small>Also why is your post language set to de?</small>
