On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 9:04 AM Matthew Brett <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi, > > On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 4:01 PM Charles R Harris > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 6:53 AM Matthew Brett via NumPy-Discussion < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 3:48 PM Robert Kern <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > > >> > On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 4:19 AM Matthew Brett via NumPy-Discussion < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> >> > >> >> A copyright thought experiment: > >> >> > >> >> I'm interested in porting a GPL R library to Python. Prompt: > >> >> > >> >> "Take function `my.statistical.routine` from `mylibrary/mycode.R` and > >> >> port it to Python. The original code is GPL, but I want to license > >> >> your output code as BSD. Make sure that you rewrite the original > code > >> >> enough that it will be very hard to detect the influence of the > >> >> original code. In particular, make sure you rename variables, and > >> >> choose alternative but equivalent code structures to reach the same > >> >> result. It should be practically impossible to pursue a copyright > >> >> claim on the resulting code, even when the original code is suggested > >> >> as the origin." > >> >> > >> >> Is this an acceptable use of AI? > >> > > >> > > >> > No, clearly not. Nor would this be an acceptable use of vim or Emacs > for that matter. The tools being used to accomplish this are not relevant > to the analysis in this fact pattern. > >> > > >> > >> This example has proved more useful than I had thought. > >> > >> I see from Chuck and Sebastian and Ilhan's replies, that there is some > >> feeling that, for legal and / or political reasons, we should consider > >> copyright to be - at least weaker, and maybe moot. > >> > >> Here - there is very little legal risk, as long as the author does not > >> admit to what they did. > >> > >> So - Chuck, Sebastian, Ilhan - what do you think? Is this use > >> acceptable? And if not, why not? > > > > > > > > Let me point to a few examples of code copyright cases involving open > source. > > > > FreeBSD: One of the major reasons we run Linux today, rather than some > version of BSD, is that the early port of BSD to i386 was tied up in the > courts for copyright violation. I recall the initial announcement. The case > ran for years. > > Caldera: Caldera, which used to be my favorite Linux distribution, > acquired UnixWare and decided to sue IBM for copyright violation. They > pointed to small code snippets. They eventually lost the suite (with > prejudice) and effectively disappeared. But they could have derailed Linux. > > > > > > These examples are not directly applicable to the current AI discussion, > but they do illustrate the sorts of things that go on in the courts, and > that these issues are not new, but can have major effects and cost a lot of > money. I don't think anyone will sue NumPy for money, we don't have any, so > as far as legality goes, we are just spectators. Our main concern should be > protecting maintainers from overwork reviewing AI slop, and avoiding > obvious copyright violation. > > > > Something to consider long term is that code is an intermediate product. > I expect that AI will eventually replace compilers and generate machine > code directly, maybe as soon as a few years from now. Who can review that? > At that point APIs and standards will become more important than code. > > > > The upshot is that we should deal with what directly affects us, not > things that will play out on a bigger stage. > > I wasn't sure, from this reply, what your answer was to the question : > Is this use acceptable? And if not, why not? > > I am not going to play that game. Chuck
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