One of the things that irks me about this whole thing is, if it’s so clean room and distinct, why make the changes to the existing project? Why not make an entirely new library?

The answer to that, I think, is that the authors wanted to squat an existing successful project and gain a platform from it. Hence we have news cycle discussing it.

Nobody cares about a new library using AI, but squash an existing one with this stuff, and you get attention. It’s the reputation, the GitHub stars, whatever

> an argument for protecting that test suite and API specification under copyleft terms.

If we protect API under copyright, it makes it easier to prevent interoperability. We obviously do NOT want that. It would give big companies even more power.

Now in the US, the Supreme Court that the output of an LLM is not copyrightable. So even a permissive licence doesn't work for that reimplementation: it should be public domain.

Disclaimer: I am all for copyleft for the code I write, but already without LLMs, one could rewrite a similar project and use the licence they please. LLMs make them faster at that, it's just a fact.

Now I wonder: say I vibe-code a library (so it's public domain in the US), I don't publish that code but I sell it to a customer. Can I prevent them from reselling it? I guess not, since it's public domain?

And as an employee writing code for a company. If I produce public domain code because it is written by an LLM, can I publish it, or can the company prevent me from doing it?

I don't think this part is correct: "If you distribute modified code, or offer it as a networked service, you must make the source available under the same terms."

That's what something like AGPL does.

Buried in here: Mark Pilgrim suddenly reappearing after his sudden disappearance years ago! Has he been up to anything since then?

There is a definite issue in terms of legitimacy and I also think there are some issues in the wording of certain open source licenses like MIT which give rights to 'Any person obtaining a copy of this software'.

Firstly, an AI agent is not a person. Secondly, the MIT license doesn't offer any rights to the code itself; it says a 'copy of the software' - That's what people are given the right to. It says nothing about the code and in terms of the software, it still requires attribution. Attribution of use and distribution of the software (or parts) is required regardless of the copyright aspect. AI agents are redistributing the software, not the code.

The MIT license makes a clear distinction between code and software. It doesn't cede any rights to the code.

And then, in the spirit of copyright; it was designed to protect the financial interests of the authors. The 'fair use' carve-out was meant for cases which do not have an adverse market impact on the author which it clearly does; at least in the cases highlighted in this article.

A lot of untagged IANAL takes here today.

I'm less concerned about AI eroding copyleft and more exited about AI eroding copy right.

This take, which I've seen in a few different places now, seems 100% bonkers. A world where anyone can cheaply reimplement anyone else's software and use it on hardware of their own choosing in their own designs and for their own purposes is a free software utopia.

This isn't a problem, this is the goal. GNU was born when RMS couldn't use a printer the way he wanted because of an unmodifiable proprietary driver. That kind of thing just won't happen in the vibe coded future.

It also erodes copyright. A decent amount of commercial software can be AI cloned with no copyright violation.

A lot of SaaS too, especially if AI can run a simple deploy.

We might be approaching a huge deflationary catastrophe in the cost of a lot of software. It’s not a catastrophe for the consumer but it is for the industry.

Someone be brave, and do this to ZFS. Poke the Oracle bear!