I would agree with Luca on this - our code and probably all other publicly
available code has already been used to train models.
But in addition - I'm pretty certain the potential legal issues are quite
overrated. As the models have improved and continue to do so, I would think it
would become less and less likely that AI will simply copy code. Now obviously
it will use what it has learned from code wherever it gets it, but that is no
different than a human. Every programmer learns from other people's code
whether it is open source or commercial, and then uses what they learn in
writing other code.
The way I look at it is this - linuxcnc already has few enough developers.
Banning AI and moving hosting to get away from AI looking at our code is going
to hurt the project. AI has gotten good enough that it can be a real help in
development, and it can also be an immense help in developing alternatives if
linuxcnc gets too unfriendly.
Here's an article I just saw. While they are not sure why things changed about
a month ago, I think from what I've seen the biggest change was
ChatGPT-5.3-codex and now 5.4, and Sonnet/Opus 4.6.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/26/greg_kroahhartman_ai_kernel/
About a month ago I ran across this article which got me started looking more
seriously at AI for the first time:
https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening
Instead of reacting against AI and trying to ban it; use it as a tool - and an
extremely useful one at that - because it is almost certainly not going away.
mozmck
On 3/27/26 9:48 AM, Luca Toniolo wrote:
Hi Bertho,
I've been discussing this on the Discord as well, and I think the core issue
isn't really about who the custodian is.
If the code is public, it will be scraped. That's true on GitHub, on Codeberg,
on a self-hosted server. Changing the custodian doesn't change the fact that
our code is open source and publicly accessible. Any AI tool, not just Copilot,
can ingest it.
The real tension is between open source and AI, and that transcends any hosting
platform. It's a legal and policy problem that needs to be addressed at the
tool level and through legislation, not by moving repositories.
Best regards,
Luca
On March 27, 2026 10:27:35 PM GMT+08:00, Bertho Stultiens <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 3/27/26 2:58 PM, Luca Toniolo wrote:
My irony-meter just overloaded and have to appreciate the boldness of the
statement :-)
/LinuxCNC/ is just a small volunteer-run party.
Ha, fair point Bertho, I walked right into that one.
Happens to the best of us ;-)
But that's actually my argument. We are a small volunteer-run project, which is
exactly why we shouldn't be taking on additional infrastructure to maintain.
Every hour spent managing servers and CI runners is an hour not spent on the
actual codebase.
I don't think that managing all infrastructure ourselves is the best way to
proceed either. However, there are many middle ways to get things done for
least extra time. That said, I do not think we need to do all that much work.
On a side note. Coherently managing the whole project is not only about a git
server or a CI pipeline. There are currently many disjoint servers used, like
web, forum, wiki and buildbot. And there are plenty of problems with that
because we lack the organisation to bundle resources structurally and assure
continuity on many levels. So I can understand the reluctance to add to that
burden. But we can create an organisation to handle it. Others have done it
before and we can learn from them. I'd be happy with that, even if we need to
drop some bells and whistles to get there.
But what this discussion started is: Who do we allow to be custodian of the
data we generate in developing the project? That is what the copilot thingy is
about. I for one do not trust github as a good and honest custodian.
Github/Microsoft don't really care about what we actually want, just their own
bottom line, regardless who or what they need to trample on. The copilot
controversy exemplifies that very well.
--
Greetings Bertho
(disclaimers are disclaimed)
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And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look
for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
(Hebrews 9:27-28)
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