Free software people: A major goal of free software is for individuals to be able to cause software to behave in the way they want it toLLMs: (enable that)Free software people: Oh no not like that
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@mjg59 Yeah, as soon as there‘s an ethically sourced and trained free LLM that‘s not controlled by very shitty companies I‘m totally on board with you.
Until then we shouldn’t let that shit near our projects.
@chris_evelyn @mjg59 Isn't https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/09/press-release-apertus-a-fully-open-transparent-multilingual-language-model.html supposed to be something like that?
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Look, coders, we are not writers. There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose. The creativity exists outside the code. It always has done and it always will do. Let it go.
@mjg59 I disagree. Code is written for people, not computers. It doesn’t matter where the creativity exists, if companies/people reap it without giving a damn.
“Let it go!” == “Don’t fight it!”
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Free software people: A major goal of free software is for individuals to be able to cause software to behave in the way they want it to
LLMs: (enable that)
Free software people: Oh no not like that@mjg59 IIRC a big confusion was that early on Copilot would generate verbatim copies of existing, GPL'ed code, including comments. I do neither understand why that was the case or if that has changed, but my understanding of other LLMs is that they don't work in a way that they are just literally reproducing existing input.
I think you are right in pointing out that writing code is not really a artistic/creative job, no matter what we have been saying to ourselves.
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When I write code I am turning a creative idea into a mechanical embodiment of that idea. I am not creating beauty. Every line of code I write is a copy of another line of code I've read somewhere before, lightly modified to meet my needs. My code is not intended to evoke emotion. It does not change people think about the world. The idea→code pipeline in my head is not obviously distinguishable from the prompt->code process in an LLM
@mjg59 this feels like a weird reduction of the argument as LLMs as used by people do more than generate code at a micro-level (statements et al, regardless of your thinking those can't be creative), they are also used to architect codebases entirely
regardless, disappointing to read your apparent need to defend slop
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@mjg59 IIRC a big confusion was that early on Copilot would generate verbatim copies of existing, GPL'ed code, including comments. I do neither understand why that was the case or if that has changed, but my understanding of other LLMs is that they don't work in a way that they are just literally reproducing existing input.
I think you are right in pointing out that writing code is not really a artistic/creative job, no matter what we have been saying to ourselves.
@mjg59 That being said, I do think that the "Free Software" concern is legitimate, especially when people are replicating existing GPL programs to circumvent copyleft and undermining a sense of community. After all, copyleft means that you are publishing the source of a program, thereby respecting the user, under the condition that they return the same respect and treat everyone else under the same terms.
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Personally I'm not going to literally copy code from a codebase under an incompatible license because that is what the law says, but have I read proprietary code and learned the underlying creative aspect and then written new code that embodies it? Yes! Anyone claiming otherwise is lying!
@mjg59 What you propose is actually illegal, even if the law doesn’t make much sense. I wonder if you ever had the cops sent after you on a corp-run IP case… maybe it would make you feel different?
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@mjg59
there is a difference between writing code and software engineeringwriting code requires no understanding or decision making abilities, the attitude is "if it works it works" even if it doesn't work because you don't know enough to realize there is a problem
when an engineer makes something, they make decisions and evaluate those decisions based on their knowledge and experience
I value the engineering, I see no value in someone wrangling an LLM
@tthbaltazar I agree with your distinction, and also both outcomes can involve me either writing by hand or engaging sufficiently clearly with an LLM to get that outcome.
But, well, we all know software engineering isn't what we all engage in. Sometimes we just want to fix a thing and we don't want to write tests and we don't want it to be perfect and there's value in that!
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Look, coders, we are not writers. There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose. The creativity exists outside the code. It always has done and it always will do. Let it go.
@mjg59 Ok, but the process of writing code is creative. You think as you write, new ideas are formed. The LLM process at least reduces that.
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@mjg59 This doesn't feel right to me. IMO few people actually object to use of LLMs by individuals for tinkering on personal stuff.
The criticism as I see it is primarily that:
1) there are huge societal/political impacts - uncompensated use of copyrighted material; benefits of it accruing primarily to a few big players; energy use; layoffs; perceived misallocation of massive amounts of capital
2) the output quality of LLMs is t r a s h, unsuitable for professional use@radex See I fundamentally don't believe that code should be copyrightable and also me 30 years ago did not produce code that was suitable for professional use but it fixed my problems anyway
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Free software people: A major goal of free software is for individuals to be able to cause software to behave in the way they want it to
LLMs: (enable that)
Free software people: Oh no not like thatEnablement isn't my issue with use of llm's. It's the glossing over of it's downsides
the techbros pushing it & the bullshit claims made for what it can do
the price paid by the ppl who provided the data sets
the environmental impact of the data centres
the users the techbros sell it to
the anti freedom uses it gets put to
the fact the shit code it produces from poor programmers - wanna fly in a vibe coded plane?
the loss of skills when you rely on llm's 100% of the time -
@mjg59 it is not art, but at least it is craft and skill. And both should be honored. LLM Code is the assemble yourself cardboard filled furniture of codecraft. It is cheaper and faster available but what you safe in price you lack in quality.
@Nfoonf If you're willing to accept that then what's the problem? Are we threatening to burn down Ikea stores now?
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@mjg59 One difference I see is that when I implement (myself, with my own limited brain) my idea (or somebody else's idea for that matter), I actually learn something about the said idea, it becomes more precise in my head. Also, it makes me have other ideas.
@exfalsoquodlibet Personally I'm never going to put shit into the code cranking machine unless I have an extremely good idea of what's coming out the other end and if it surprises me I'm going to learn from that, but I don't think that's a reasonable thing to insist that everyone who wants their code to work should do
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Enablement isn't my issue with use of llm's. It's the glossing over of it's downsides
the techbros pushing it & the bullshit claims made for what it can do
the price paid by the ppl who provided the data sets
the environmental impact of the data centres
the users the techbros sell it to
the anti freedom uses it gets put to
the fact the shit code it produces from poor programmers - wanna fly in a vibe coded plane?
the loss of skills when you rely on llm's 100% of the time@dekkzz78 There's truth in what you're saying and also a lot of it is the same shape as arguing against mass produced clothing over hand tailored clothing
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@mjg59 Ok, but the process of writing code is creative. You think as you write, new ideas are formed. The LLM process at least reduces that.
@barnoid Huh interesting, that's really not my experience of writing code - I sit down with a formed idea of what needs to happen and then I smash keys until it's there. And now I'm curious whether there's a real disconnect between with different models of coding.
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@mjg59 What you propose is actually illegal, even if the law doesn’t make much sense. I wonder if you ever had the cops sent after you on a corp-run IP case… maybe it would make you feel different?
@promovicz Information wants to be free
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@mjg59 That being said, I do think that the "Free Software" concern is legitimate, especially when people are replicating existing GPL programs to circumvent copyleft and undermining a sense of community. After all, copyleft means that you are publishing the source of a program, thereby respecting the user, under the condition that they return the same respect and treat everyone else under the same terms.
@pkal In a universe where someone could legally say "I want software that does this, but slightly differently" and get it then copyleft would be meaningless - the free software goals would already be achieved
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@mjg59 this feels like a weird reduction of the argument as LLMs as used by people do more than generate code at a micro-level (statements et al, regardless of your thinking those can't be creative), they are also used to architect codebases entirely
regardless, disappointing to read your apparent need to defend slop
@shiz Plenty of ways you can use this to generate terrible outcomes, and also plenty of ways people can hack shit into copyleft code that results in terrible outcomes, we can't copyright license our way to taste
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@chris_evelyn @mjg59 Isn't https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/09/press-release-apertus-a-fully-open-transparent-multilingual-language-model.html supposed to be something like that?
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@mjg59 I disagree. Code is written for people, not computers. It doesn’t matter where the creativity exists, if companies/people reap it without giving a damn.
“Let it go!” == “Don’t fight it!”
@promovicz Man in an ideal world sure, but in the world we live in people frequently write code for themselves and not others. How many projects have weird macros or unhelpful comments or quirky norms? To the extent that code is creative it frequently hinders understnding and reuse, not aids it.
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@mjg59 Fuck off with that shit. This doesn't even smell like a good faith argument.
@barubary given my history, if your immediate conclusion is that I'm not presenting an honest opinion then I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of who I am
