On Sun, 21 Apr 2024, Michael Wechner wrote:
Thanks for the pointer to the Generative Tooling rules, which I was not
aware of so far.
At the bottom it says, that the ASF does not tell developers what tools
to use, but I think it would be useful to useful to have some concrete
examples, which would make the rules more clear.
(Not a lawyer, not an official ASK response)
There's nothing special about LLMs and this, other than perhaps the speed
with which you can make mistakes... When including other people's code,
it's all about license compatibility and attribution
The ASF started when a bunch of people started sharing patches for a web
server, with attribution and code under a compatible license. The
foundation grew during a period where it got easier to find code + code
snippets online, including much that wasn't under a compatible license.
Rules didn't change, other than clarifying processes for checking licenses
and what was/wasn't compatible.
You weren't, and still aren't, allowed to copy + paste large chunks of
someone else's code without a compatible license and suitable attribution.
Using a LLM to read all the internet and suggest the code to copy doesn't
change that. Well, other than the well-documented issues with getting LLMs
to cite their sources...
LLMs have loads of great uses, including helping you learn new things,
decoding error messages, finding common patterns, rubber-ducking etc.
They're even worse than many internet forums for suggesting large chunks
of code of unclear provenance to copy+paste
It doesn't matter if it's ChatGPT, Github Co-pilot, a local LLM, someone
on StackOverflow, or a YouTube video that's giving you some code you want
to copy. 3 characters are almost certainly fine, 3 pages are almost
certainly not, a general idea is often fine, and you absolutely need to
engage your brain before committing to ASF repos!
Otherwise, if you do still think more rules / examples / etc are needed,
you'll be wanting legal-discuss@
https://lists.apache.org/[email protected]
Cheers
Nick
