Discussion · bonfire.mavnn.eu

@drewdaniels@mastodon.online replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. 🙂
This thread and replies have given me some things to think about.
I hope things get better.

gabboman the wafrn dev

@gabboman@gabboman.xyz replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc@mastodon.social

wich license would you recomend?

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@gabboman The license I am proposing does not currently exist.

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gabboman the wafrn dev

@gabboman@gabboman.xyz replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc@mastodon.social

the issue with these stuff is that there is an organization behind GPL stuff to protect its misuse. any other case youre all by yourself

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@gabboman Yes, that's true.

PsySal

@PsySal@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc this is a super interesting idea. In terms of a legally coherent license as a goal, another path is to consider e.g. how the zlib "you may not use this for evil" clause caused corporate lawyers from IBM to tie themselves in knots. What I mean is there may be some value in a legally /scary/ license which might be easy enough to write.

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@PsySal Preventing corporate usage through WTFPL-like licenses is pretty easy ( consider this: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/112798596112926161 ), but preventing corporate use is not actually my goal. It would probably be the effect of this license however.

dani little ponie :transgender_flag:

@00dani@elekk.xyz replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc wondering whether existing "joke" licenses actually encompass that

it'd be difficult to argue that vibe coding is not doing "what the fuck you want to", so wtfpl is out

but i do think it constitutes "being a proper dick" so maybe dbad technically works. iunno

Fish Id Wardrobe

@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc would that stop them, do you think?

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@fishidwardrobe It depends on which "them".

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Fish Id Wardrobe

@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc people who like to mix your code via statistical model, i suppose.

it seems to me that these people don't pay much attention to "allowed to".

Andy Wootton

@woo@fosstodon.org replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc Are you willing to chase down every statistical model that ignores your stipulation? They don't seem to think Copyright laws apply to them, if they can be said to 'think'.

gaytabase

@dysfun@social.treehouse.systems replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc i thought about doing this. i decided it won't stop them and if i want to actually stop them, i'll have to put a lot more effort in, and i haven't gotten there yet.

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@dysfun Deleting and not reuploading might slow them down a little more effectively. I've been considering this as well.

Play Ball and Fight Fascists

@cafechatnoir@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc

Given the current state of affairs, it seems very reasonable to me.

mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

LLM advocates and their enablers will hide the fact that they are posting stolen code— they brag about this, their most widely-effective argument for LLM code being allowed in OSS is "if you tell us we can't, we'll do it and not tell you"— and attempts to track which open source projects use stolen code will be harassed off the Internet. I do not want to be part of this open source community, so the only options I seem to have are to wall myself off from it, or stop doing open source altogether.

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KFears

@KFears@mstdn.games replied · 10 hours ago

@mcc Thank you for putting it like that. I have long had problems with "if we forbid it they're just gonna hide it" argument, but I couldn't quite place my finger on why. I know now - because if people's idea of "open" "community" is to fucking lie and feign ignorance for some personal convenience, they aren't welcome. Never were for other reasons, won't be for sloperating reasons, either.

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 10 hours ago

@KFears I mean it doesn't make sense because the same is true of code which is stolen. You wouldn't introduce a rule of "note: if you have stolen this code unauthorized from your workplace you must disclose it", and if such a rule were introduced you wouldn't justify it based on "well if we don't require labeling people would just do it anyway". So what they're really saying is some kinds of code theft are acceptable and some aren't

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KFears

@KFears@mstdn.games replied · 10 hours ago

@mcc Yep, exactly. I'm loving your eloquence. You really put into words that which I've been struggling to formulate a retort against.

Grimmauld

@grimmauld@chaos.social replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc free software is based on consensus and open-minded communication. Once that communication dies, FOSS dies with it. And the communication is being actively poisoned by LLM use... I have been meaning to write a blog post about that clusterfuck (well, bad-faith communication as a whole in FOSS), i guess i should really get it done some time soon huh?

Cheeseness

@Cheeseness@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc This is a feeling I've been having for a few years, and I struggle to see how the normalisation of unaccountable LLM platforms and users won't spell the end of the Free Software movement/type of F/OSS culture I care about, and that's heartbreaking on so many levels.

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Cheeseness

@Cheeseness@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc It makes me reluctant when I think about sharing my work. It makes me reluctant when I think about accepting contributions. Even for closed source projects, it makes me wary of collaboration because I feel like the level of micromanagement I'd need to have confidence that my work wasn't being tainted just isn't the sort of working relationship I'd like to have with others.

I don't eat fish because I'm not interested in carefully chewing for bones all the time. This feels like that.

higgins

@higgins@hachyderm.io replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc IANAL but I think the problem that for example EFF highlights is that even though your code is protected by copyright law the "fair use" the vultures claim can not legally be restricted in a license. A license can only give people more rights than allowed by copyright law, not less.If what they do is "fair use" I think open source needs to be done in some other way than relying on copyright law.

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@higgins I believe you have taken my post as saying the opposite of what it said. Please read the remainder of the thread.

bob

@bob@feed.hella.cheap replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc pretty sure it is possible to make watermarks that survive going through an LLM, especially if the thing is using RAG

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bob

@bob@feed.hella.cheap replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc abusing unicode to generate text that tokenizes weirdly for watermarking is clever and seems to work well but it also seems to be easy to defeat by simply changing the tokenizer

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.10892

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@bob I think you are trying to solve the opposite problem from the one I am trying to solve https://mastodon.social/@mcc/115873001725077622

mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

Note: Before replying to this thread, consider whether being blocked by me is something you want.

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David Penfold :verified:

@davep@infosec.exchange replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc I was about to reply with a bon mot, and then I read back.

Nah, you're totally right of course.

mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

RE: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/115872922320160715

To explain my reasoning here—

- You cannot get LLM model creators to comply with a license or law, and they operate in secret, so you don't know they've stolen your code.

- However, people who *use* LLM code are not so lucky. They are non-anonymous. They must comply with the TOSes of their code hosts and the legal departments of their employers.

So attack the problem at the other end. People scrape and steal your code— you can't stop it. But once they do, they get *nothing else from you*.

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lp0 on fire :unverified:

@lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza replied · 9 hours ago

@mcc, if you can do this in a way which doesn't fall foul of the likes of the Debian Free Software Guidelines – and hopefully you can, and easily – then by all means go for it. 👍

margot

@emaytch@mastodon.social replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc yeah i think expedition 33 losing its game of the year award is the most visible example i've seen of the only way to stop people using AI-- once it becomes a liability to have people find out your code was AI-generated, you've eliminated almost everyone who is actually using it right now, and certainly the people who are providing the business model for the AI companies

mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

In other words, if my use of "mixing" was not clear, I am not talking about a license which prohibits scraping for LLM models; I already release my code under such a license (the MIT license). I am talking about banning linking my code against code by people who *used* an LLM model.

To emphasize: I am not actually interested in having a discussion on this subject and will probably block without blinking if you try to start one.

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Tokenizer

@tokenizer@fosstodon.org replied · 34 minutes ago

@mcc I don't understand what you wrote: why does the MIT license forbid against scrappers for LLMs? If I understand the license correctly, it just needs to "be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software". When we use an API, the software that runs it doesn't get shown or me. I don't understand your statement.

https://mit-license.org/

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs

@ellenor2000@mastodon.top replied · 11 hours ago

@mcc
> I already release my code under such a licence (the MIT licence)

this roast of LLMs is valid and enjoyable

#lang_en

PunnO)))

@ieure@retro.social replied · 12 hours ago

@mcc I'm of much the same mind.

What does the license you'd release under look like? Something brand new? Existing license with some new clauses? GPL family seem like a bad fit for this.

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@ieure (1 of 2) I think it would have to be a new license. This is problematic because I am not qualified to make a license.

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mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@ieure (2 of 2) I believe you could make this license GPL-compatible if you modified it for, rather than banning *all* LLMs, allowing a cutout for models which are under GPL-compatible license and which track the required credit/copyright notices. One could then argue that any LLM which is not following this rule is *already* GPL-incompatible, because it includes copyrighted material under violation of its license, and so violates the GPL's "no additional restrictions" clause.

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wyngman

@tasket@infosec.exchange replied · 54 minutes ago

@mcc @ieure GPLv3 section 7-c may cover this, but its optional:

c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version;

mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social replied · 12 hours ago

@ieure I have doubts the FSF would agree with this argument.

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