"Theodore Tso" <[email protected]> writes: > On Fri, Jul 31, 2026 at 12:22:00PM -0500, Aigars Mahinovs wrote: >> > Instinctually to me, there's so little to be gained from automating the >> > writing of ~15 lines of code that I'm not very worried about this. >> >> You know the old joke about the TV repairman with a hammer? >> >> ... >> - The 2$ is for hitting it with the hammer, 90$ is for knowing where >> exactly to hit >> >> Same with AI-generated contributions, especially bugfix patches and >> security fixes. The most useful of them tend to be way smaller than 15 >> lines of code, but can take massive effort to actually find the right place >> and the right change. > > Exactly. An AI-generated contribution which adds something such as: > > spin_unlock(&sbi->s_error_lock); > > to a return path, or adds a missing > > sbi->s_ea_inode_cache = NULL; > > after s_ea_inode_cache is freed might fix a very impactful bug, > including potentially a high severity security bug. But **how** could > such a line be considered a copyright problem? That makes about as > much sense as claimimg that someone can copyright a four chord song. > You can make any claim you want. But you might get laughed out of > court afterwards....
Is this really what we're discussing though? I can see why one would want an AI policy not to bar on copyright grounds something that is not copyrightable in the first place. That's reasonable. But I don't think it's what people really mean when they're concerned about copyright. We've all seen the "I 'rewrote' X in Y and released it under the more liberal Z license" projects out there. That's the type of stuff that attracts much of my copyright conern, at least. > If someone wants to make a luddite-like claim that it might put your > job at risk and so therefore AI is as evil as the mechanized looms > that caused artisans to lose their jobs at the dawn of the industrial > revolution, sure, we could have that discussion. But please, let's > not insult our fellow DD's intelligence by claiming that such bug > fixes are uncertain with respect to copyright. I think this characterization of the situation is unfair. Because a particular example isn't one where copyright should be a concern, then surely the people worried about copyright are just luddites who lie and pretend that they're worried about copyright? Please assume good faith :-(
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