I just did something similar to bring mainline Linux to my Daylight DC-1 [1] [2], although possibly more difficult since I had to start from scratch.
I can guarantee the same amount of work, without AI, takes probably 10x or more time (I did it in the past w/ the Google Pixel C [3]).
Unfortunately it looks like pmOS is against AI [4], so I'll likely switch away from pmOS and never contribute a single line in the future.
Too bad, I was a huge fan [5].
Because one of the biggest hurdles to porting the Linux kernel and device-specific software to more hardware and making existing hardware work better is one of the things that "AI" can (seemingly, caveat) do surprisingly well?
Not to say PM (or any other project) should/shouldn't use AI. There are plenty of other salient reasons to reject AI. But given (from what I remember) postmarket's goal is basically saving as many phones from becoming ewaste as possible, well, an LLM could actually be a formidable way to get more hardware than ever running.
Except nothing about AI produces properly open source code? You can't prove it didn't pull from closed source code, no more clean room approaches if everyone just wants to bow to the LLMs.
Even beyond all the other ethical issues I don't see how the open source world accepts this.
Same reason/way projects like ReactOS/Wine and friends exist in a world where source code from early 21st century Windows is literally sitting in a bunch of 6+ year old Github repositories, I guess. Or any number of other proprietary codebases. Legal limbo, effectively.
I'm not saying that's an equivalent problem to LLM taint, but it's not exactly unrelated, either. It may be the case that all LLM output is tainted, but it's also likely the case legally that you can't meaningfully prove that contributions from random people to FOSS aren't tainted.
Legally proving that an LLM hasn't pulled from proprietary software is probably in the same ballpark as proving some Wine contributor hasn't looked at any of those Github repos.
I dunno how ReactOS/Wine manages that threat/exposure. But I'm pretty sure both have fairly liberal contributor policies. They're not Compaq reversing the IBM PC BIOS.
Yes, the difference here is that most projects don't have to accept that (level of) risk, while ReactOS/Wine don't have a choice. But they do still trudge on regardless.
denysvitali · · focus · HN ↗
I can guarantee the same amount of work, without AI, takes probably 10x or more time (I did it in the past w/ the Google Pixel C [3]).
Unfortunately it looks like pmOS is against AI [4], so I'll likely switch away from pmOS and never contribute a single line in the future. Too bad, I was a huge fan [5].
[1]: <a href="https://daylightcomputer.com/product" rel="nofollow">https://daylightcomputer.com/product
[2]: <a href="https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416
[3]: <a href="https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation
[4]: <a href="https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/development/ai-policy.html" rel="nofollow">https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/develop...
[5]: <a href="https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/
officeplant · · focus · HN ↗
Why would you think one of the more beloved projects for linux mobile phones would be pro-AI?
spijdar · · focus · HN ↗
Not to say PM (or any other project) should/shouldn't use AI. There are plenty of other salient reasons to reject AI. But given (from what I remember) postmarket's goal is basically saving as many phones from becoming ewaste as possible, well, an LLM could actually be a formidable way to get more hardware than ever running.
officeplant · · focus · HN ↗
Even beyond all the other ethical issues I don't see how the open source world accepts this.
spijdar · · focus · HN ↗
I'm not saying that's an equivalent problem to LLM taint, but it's not exactly unrelated, either. It may be the case that all LLM output is tainted, but it's also likely the case legally that you can't meaningfully prove that contributions from random people to FOSS aren't tainted.
Legally proving that an LLM hasn't pulled from proprietary software is probably in the same ballpark as proving some Wine contributor hasn't looked at any of those Github repos.
I dunno how ReactOS/Wine manages that threat/exposure. But I'm pretty sure both have fairly liberal contributor policies. They're not Compaq reversing the IBM PC BIOS.
Yes, the difference here is that most projects don't have to accept that (level of) risk, while ReactOS/Wine don't have a choice. But they do still trudge on regardless.