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This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright (www.404media.co)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/foss@beehaw.org
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Malus, which is a piece of "satire" but also fully functional, performs a "clean room" clone of open source software, meaning users could then sell, redistribute, etc. the software without crediting the original developers. But I have a hard time with the "clean room" argument since the LLM doing the behind-the-scenes work has already ingested the entire corpus of open source software -- and somehow the output of the LLMs isn't considered a derivative work.

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[–] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's satire which brings attention to the problem. Read the reviews on the site.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    It's satire, but also fully functional. And they take money.

    So, it's a bit like your boss saying: you're fired! LOL. Hahahaha. It's a joke! Laugh! But, also you are really fired.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    “It works,” Mike Nolan, one of the two people behind Malus, who researches the political economy of open source software and currently works for the United Nations, told me. “The Stripe charge will provide you the thing, and it was important for us to do that, because we felt that if it was just satire, it would end up like every other piece of research I've done on open source, which ends up being largely dismissed by open source tech workers who felt that they were too special and too unique and too intelligent to ever be the ones on the bad side of the layoffs or the economics of the situation.”

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