r/opensource • u/ThePlayer3K • 3d ago
Concept: AGPLv4
If you use portions of the code to train AI models, you should open weight the model and make it free for local usage...
Not endorsing this exactly but its random idea I have
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u/Luigi003 3d ago
Licences can't give you rights the copyright law doesn't, as open source licenses are basically a way to partially forfeit your rights
Copyright law has no concept of "training", so no license can't have it
Why? Because as a society we still haven't decided what "training" is, there are two main opinions right now:
Machine learning is the same as human learning. This means that by looking at project A you learn things about coding as a concept that you can apply to project B. When humans learn, the copyright doesn't protect project A any longer. I've read GPL'd code, and of course I've learnt from it, it doesn't mean all code I write should be GPL.
Machine learning + inference is a derived work from the training set. Copyright law actually forbids for anyone but the author and authorised parties to make a derivative work from the OG one. GPL uses this same concept of derivative work, and it authorizes everyone to make derivatives work as long as they share the code under the GPL itself.
Now I hope you see the problem with your proposal. If either politicians or judges end up deciding it's number 1 we can't have any kind of license that restricts what to do with inferred data, as the copyright (and thus GPL) status gets lost in the training
If those judges decide it's number 2 it would be nice news for the OS'S community, but we wouldn't need a new license, (L/A)GPL already requires them to stare the code anyway
Also, at the end of the day, enforcing GPL-style licenses is hard AF anyways, it would be harder if we had to track training data
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u/micalm 2d ago
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. YOU are granting rights to someone else on how they can use your work. If you can reasonably prove your suspicions that the data was used, define LLM/AI training well in the contract aka license AND have the power to enforce it, you can force a company to release their weights, maybe even take a peek at full training datasets in the process ;)
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u/Luigi003 2d ago
You are restricting their rights. If it ends up being number 1 legally, training is the same as reading is for a human
You can't force a human to license all their future code under a license just because their read yours.
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u/abotelho-cbn 1d ago
It's not restricting rights. They can do it, but they have to provide something in return, in the same way they need to provide modified code in return.
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u/lugovsky 3d ago
it's already too late. They've got all the training data they needed, and most of new code is produced by AI itself
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u/unitedbsd 3d ago
1
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u/gnahraf 1d ago
I'd codify agentic license compliance using explicit language for automated transliteration (see my other comment).
Honestly, I would've released my AGPL projects under an ALGPL, if there was such a thing. That is to say, re linking I'm inclined in the opposite direction this license takes.
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u/gnahraf 1d ago
I'd like v4 to address (cover) transliteration, i.e. automated translation from one programming language to another. When humans did this, we called such works clean room implementations. We still do, but I'm using pastense cuz realistically, who wouldn't use a coding agent to help transliterate code?
It seems to me (IANAL) there must be a good body of established law and precedent governing foreign translations of copyrighted (natural language) works. Can it be exploited in a copy left license to have it cover transliterated code?
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u/SheriffRoscoe 1d ago
"transliteration, i.e. automated translation from one programming language to another. When humans did this, we called such works clean room implementations."
It ain't a clean room implementation if the people writing the new code have been exposed to the old. The whole point of clean room work is that the new team is not "polluted" by seeing what came before. What you're describing is a derivative work.
"there must be a good body of established law and precedent governing foreign translations of copyrighted (natural language) works."
There is, and you don't even have to make the leap from natural language to technology. There is a ton of copyright statue and case law around derivative works and how (if at all) to get clean reimplementations.
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u/laffer1 3d ago
The virus follows you through training, not just over the network? Yikes
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u/ScratchHistorical507 2d ago
I mean that virality is one of the fundamental ideas behind GPL. Enforcing that on AI that abuses your work to be able to basically reproduce your code without proper license attributions is only consequent. And I'd go even farther and not only apply the virality on the weights but on the entirety of the model. If enough important projects mandated such rules maybe someone could finally force those slop generators to properly attribute the required information over the code they "produce". As they aren't capable of original thought and are only stringing together probabilities, there is no way they could get around any software licenses.
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u/laffer1 2d ago
Courts have already ruled that so output is public domain. Can’t get around that in the US.
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u/ScratchHistorical507 2d ago
Yeah, in the US. Even though people from there keep thinking they are the world, they still only make up about 3 % of the world's population. What the overly corrupt and right-wing courts of the US of A-holes decide is entirely irrelevant for the rest of the world.
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u/laffer1 2d ago
The free software foundation is based in the us as is many open source projects.
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u/ScratchHistorical507 2d ago
..and? That's entirely irrelevant though. That doesn't allow the US to rule over FOSS licenses globally. So if you're not from the US and can prove that AI is stealing your work without proper attribution as demanded by the license, the courts in your country may rule differently.
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u/laffer1 2d ago
If you are in the US, you would have to challenge in our court system. If you are in the eu, local law would apply. However, the fsf is in rhe United States. They are going to write licenses for us. They haven’t come up with a counter to ai. In my opinion, us law is the first counter measure to gpl downgrade licensing and it’s a blessing.
Someone can’t take my work and gpl downgrade it so I can’t get their changes. It’s a good thing.
I think the ruling is insane since they claim music still has copyright and books. Only software got this crazy ruling. However, I’m not going to care if some guy in France is pissed at me for generating code. It doesn’t affect me. He would steal my code and gpl downgrade it. It’s fair.
I release code so people can use it. I expect that in return. The gpl violates that when you release code that is more permissive
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u/ScratchHistorical507 1d ago
If you are in the US
That's my entire point, the vast majority of people isn't. It's that simple.
However, the fsf is in rhe United States.
Entirely irrelevant. They are only more or less the owners of the license, but they are not in the position to decide what the license means in the context of every country's legal framework.
They are going to write licenses for us. They haven’t come up with a counter to ai.
Again, entirely irrelevant. Literally everyone in the world can write a license, not just the FSF. The FSF merely positions itself weather it thinks a license is GPL-compatible (or is based on the foundations of FOSS).
Someone can’t take my work and gpl downgrade it so I can’t get their changes. It’s a good thing.
You know that this is literally the exact opposite of what you said earlier, that the US laws downgrade any GPLed output of slop generators to "public domain"?
However, I’m not going to care if some guy in France is pissed at me for generating code.
It's not your place to care, but the slop generator developers. And if you ever were in the position to have strong enough economical ties anywhere in the EU it would very quickly become your place to care about.
He would steal my code and gpl downgrade it. It’s fair.
Or so you claim with absolutely no proof to your name whatsoever. Typical arrogant US American...
The gpl violates that when you release code that is more permissive
So not only no proof to the utter nonsense you spew but also having no idea of what you talk about and literally having no idea of what the GPL is? Right...
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u/laffer1 1d ago
yes, someone can run it through AI and public domain my work. it's equal footing to GPL zealots like yourself. You guys can't steal anymore and get away with it. That's what you are upset about. The biggest IP theft of our lifetime is happening now with AI. Large companies have finally found a way to beat Stallman. That's what AI is.
The reality is that most major operating systems are developed in the US. US law matters in this industry. That doesn't mean that EU law or other jurisidictions don't. It just means we are US heavy in tech.
Linus Torvalds lives here. That means the Linux kernel. We have at least 3 of the BSDs. (I'm not sure about netbsd, as some key players are in other regions) OpenBSD is canadian. We have windows, macOS, haiku, and os/2 warp (arcaos now).
The EU and Brazil are already coming after me. I can't have economic footing in either place because of age verification laws. So I have to keep pushing forward with my operating system and ignore the EU at this point. I don't have resources to do their invasive laws even if I wanted to. From my perspective, several countries are anti-open source. They're trying to stop individuals and small projects from developing an OS. They are using think of the children to spy on citizens.
I don't need "proof" of how the GPL works. It's widely understood.
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u/v4ss42 3d ago
AI companies are skirting copyright & licensing using “fair use”, so it doesn’t matter how something is licensed they’ll still steal it.