Thread

Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

391 points · 454 comments · lladnar

podgietaru · 1785957048 · focus · HN ↗
The article just straight up doesn't mention the context of the Github Thread, which is about the guy lifting ideas from other engines and copy-washing them.
"Do you genuinely believe changes like cd170a4 make the code somehow not derived from Reckless anymore? It appears to me like it's just trying to obfuscate its origins, to make it easier to appeal to plausible deniability. The reality is, coda 100% has code derived from AGPL or unlicensed engines in it, and pretending otherwise won't convince anyone other than maybe yourself. This, combined with the fact you conveniently moved the plagiarism roadmaps to a private repo mere days after people started raising concerns about it, reads to me like you're not at all concerned with actually using code fairly, and much more with being able to claim that you are, backed up by these nonsense "cleanup" commits."
1. samatman · 1785959323 · focus · HN ↗
  Keeping in mind that I'm going strictly off the commit[0], a bit-packing layout is very much the kind of thing which is not subject to copyright in the first place. Neither are algorithms. Ideas, in general, are not subject to copyright: expression is.
  So "lifting ideas from other engines", as you yourself put it, is entirely licit, no matter how you do it. _Should_ you credit others when so doing? I err on the side of yes, on that question. _Must_ you? No, there is no such requirement, this is not academic publishing. Does it constitute violation of license? Absolutely not. Straightforwardly, no. Furthermore, it _should not_, we would not like the result of that.
  Think: SCO suing Linus Torvalds over his use of a.out: and winning. It would be bad. Even though I understand the reasons for it, it's still eerie to me to see hackers coming down hard on a side of an issue we spend decades passionately defending the other side of.
  As I lead this post with: maybe there's something in the repo which is infringing, it's quite possible that commit doesn't tell the whole story. If so, keep in mind that I don't know that, and am able to change my opinion in the face of new evidence.
  Based on what I _have_ seen, no: you do not get to lock down a bit-packing pattern just because you're the first to come up with it. Nor should you have that right.
  [0]: <a href="https://github.com/adamtwiss/coda/commit/cd170a4ea9993cf82461007656e4a782394c5507" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/adamtwiss/coda/commit/cd170a4ea9993cf8246...
  1. anematode · 1785960640 · focus · HN ↗
    You'll notice I didn't mention copyright, and that's because I don't think it's relevant. I think your analysis is correct. Keep in mind too that Stockfish – the engine I work on, although I wasn't at the time – was the subject of a high-profile defense of the GPL in Germany: <a href="https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/our-lawsuit-against-chessbase/" rel="nofollow">https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/our-lawsuit-against-che.... That case was different as it involved wholesale copying of the source code, rather than porting ideas. Ideas shouldn't be copyrightable.
    But copyright and plagiarism are orthogonal, and questions of morality are much more tied to the latter. It would be illegal (in the United States) for me to publish a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but not immoral. It was not immoral, in my view, for Aaron Swartz to try to liberate JSTor articles.
    That doesn't make plagiarism acceptable, either. And therefore, I'm willing to call it out when I see it.
    samatman · 1785961729 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    anematode · 1785962335 · focus · HN ↗
    It's a dog-eat-dog world, eh? :)
    Anyway, I don't see how this relates to the original discussion. Nor do I think the irony is particularly deep: As far as I'm aware, Deep Blue didn't plagiarize Kasparov, and indeed alpha-beta search is quite different than how humans calculate. But yes, I'd have been very demoralized if I were Kasparov, although he seems to be doing well now.
    Edit: Regarding being mean-spirited, sorry to say, but I don't particularly care for the feelings of someone who has been repeatedly dishonest and used LLMs to respond to people engaging in good faith. That latter path has been exhausted now.
    To co-opt your conflation of legality and morality: free speech, mf!

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