6 ms·

They very specifically do not accept AI contributions because there is no way to tell if it's just regurgitating parts of the various Windows source code leaks

by worble 3mo ago

They very specifically do not accept AI contributions because there is no way to tell if it's just regurgitating parts of the various Windows source code leaks from over the years ad-hoc, which would be a very costly mistake to make if Microsoft were feeling litigious.

Chaosvex 3mo ago
On the other hand, it'd be absolutely fascinating to see how that'd play out. The ramifications could be huge.
hackingonempty 3mo ago
More reason to ditch C, C++, and C#!
- cwillu 3mo ago
  The language wine is written in is irrelevant, the source is still tainted.
cwillu 3mo ago
For reference: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Clean-Room-Guidelines https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Clean-Room-Guide...
cedws 3mo ago
Tech companies shouldn’t be able have it both ways and say that copyright doesn’t apply to LLM-generated code only when it benefits them.
- bigstrat2003 3mo ago
  And yet, they likely will be able to. The law doesn't have much hold on the rich.
- Ferret7446 3mo ago
  They likely won't, once precedent setting judgements start coming out
charcircuit 3mo ago
That would be something Microsoft would have to prove in court and not that the AI came up with a similar approach on its own. ReactOS never got sued despite its similarity to Window's code. Also not all Wine code is related to reverse engineering.
- shakna 3mo ago
  They might not have been sued, but ReactOS was certainly threatened. There was a large audit to ensure nothing was infringing. [0] [0] https://reactos.org/wiki/Audit https://reactos.org/wiki/Audit
timschmidt 3mo ago
The remedy for unintentional infringement is generally to remove the infringing code and cease distribution. That used to be a serious issue when rewriting the offending code might take years. But these days? Rewriting any offending code is a matter of specifying the interfaces and setting Claude / Codex to work. Risk of incorporating derived code might go up with accepting LLM submissions, but cost of recovering from them seems to have dropped accordingly, at least on the technical side.
- m4rtink 3mo ago
  Replace one set of LLM tainted code by a different bunch of LLM tainted code - perfect a and totally solid from any legal perspective! (The paragraph above is a sarcasm.)
  - 15155 3mo ago
    Is this concept of "LLM tainted" enumerated in a statute or potentially borne out of actual case law somewhere?
  - timschmidt 3mo ago
    Perhaps you've never maintained any serious open source software. A line-by-line source code audit for license compliance including some ripping-out and re-writing of non-compliant code was the first thing I did when taking over maintainership of Repsnapper nearly 20 years ago. Was required to get it into Fedora. I don't see how the presence of LLM generated code changes that kind of work at all.

by worble 3mo ago

Chaosvex 3mo ago

On the other hand, it'd be absolutely fascinating to see how that'd play out. The ramifications could be huge.

hackingonempty 3mo ago

More reason to ditch C, C++, and C#!

cwillu 3mo ago
The language wine is written in is irrelevant, the source is still tainted.

cwillu 3mo ago

For reference: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Clean-Room-Guidelines https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Clean-Room-Guide...

cedws 3mo ago

Tech companies shouldn’t be able have it both ways and say that copyright doesn’t apply to LLM-generated code only when it benefits them.

bigstrat2003 3mo ago
And yet, they likely will be able to. The law doesn't have much hold on the rich.
Ferret7446 3mo ago
They likely won't, once precedent setting judgements start coming out

charcircuit 3mo ago

That would be something Microsoft would have to prove in court and not that the AI came up with a similar approach on its own. ReactOS never got sued despite its similarity to Window's code. Also not all Wine code is related to reverse engineering.

shakna 3mo ago
They might not have been sued, but ReactOS was certainly threatened. There was a large audit to ensure nothing was infringing. [0] [0] https://reactos.org/wiki/Audit https://reactos.org/wiki/Audit

timschmidt 3mo ago

The remedy for unintentional infringement is generally to remove the infringing code and cease distribution. That used to be a serious issue when rewriting the offending code might take years. But these days? Rewriting any offending code is a matter of specifying the interfaces and setting Claude / Codex to work. Risk of incorporating derived code might go up with accepting LLM submissions, but cost of recovering from them seems to have dropped accordingly, at least on the technical side.

m4rtink 3mo ago
Replace one set of LLM tainted code by a different bunch of LLM tainted code - perfect a and totally solid from any legal perspective! (The paragraph above is a sarcasm.)
- 15155 3mo ago
  Is this concept of "LLM tainted" enumerated in a statute or potentially borne out of actual case law somewhere?
- timschmidt 3mo ago
  Perhaps you've never maintained any serious open source software. A line-by-line source code audit for license compliance including some ripping-out and re-writing of non-compliant code was the first thing I did when taking over maintainership of Repsnapper nearly 20 years ago. Was required to get it into Fedora. I don't see how the presence of LLM generated code changes that kind of work at all.