On Thu, Aug 06, 2026 at 11:02:53PM -0500, Simon Richter wrote:
> Now, there are multiple possible interpretations:
Sorry, none of this makes any sense.
> 1. the output is not a derivative work of the context. The prompter
> therefore is not the author, and asserting that they own the copyright is
> therefore fraudulent.
In the case where the person is submitting a changes to most projects,
they don't need assert that they own the copyright. This might be
true in the case of (say) the FSF copyright assignment, but I refuse
to sign the FSF copyright assignment document, mainly because I know
what the word "indemnify" means, and I own a house.
For most open source projects, you just have to assert that you have
the right to submit the change, not that you own the copyright. This
is critical when you have multiple contributors, potentially working
for different employers, and so asserting that the patch submitter has
the copyright would be highly problematic. Take a look at the
Developers Certification of Origin (which *was* drafted by lawyers,
not random people making opinions about how copyright law works :-).
> 2. the output is a derivative work of the context. We therefore need a
> licence from the service provider to be able to freely choose a licence for
> the generated output (I suppose we have that, but we need to make sure), and
> the generated code is largely attributable to the authors of the existing
> code, not the person implementing the latest change.
Again, so what? Someone might clean up existing code base by
refactoring the code, and/or moving chunks of code around --- say to
avoid a use after free bug. The fact that the patch is largely
attributable to the authors of the existing code, not the person
implemented the latest change is a feature, not a bug. And again,
most open source projects don't forbid that, because we like code
cleanups and paying down technical debt.
This isn't a problem without AI. Adding AI doesn't magically make
things problematic. If people were to hold human beings to the same
standard as what people are trying to assert for LLM's, open source
would be dead in the water. Especially with the existence of Stack
Exchange....
- Ted
