Unless patented, are we not in a situation in which all publicly accessible code can be laundered through LLMs? If I find a source available code, I can just launder it?

ComradePenguin@lemmy.ml · 1 day ago

Unless patented, are we not in a situation in which all publicly accessible code can be laundered through LLMs? If I find a source available code, I can just launder it?

Ephera@lemmy.ml · 1 day ago

Yeah, but you also have to be aware that companies rarely care to (fully) comply with licenses to begin with, if their own code isn’t publicly accessible.

Basically:

If they actually open-source their own code, they have to fully comply (though the worst consequence is often just having to open-source your own code, which it already is, so it might not always be the highest priority either).
If they build a frontend, they generally do want to comply, because someone might be able to decompile the software and prove that licensed code is used inappropriately.
If they build a backend or build tooling or the like, GPL and AGPL is often still prohibited due to the high impact, but other than that, complying with licenses is seen as reducing risk for something that’s pretty unlikely to affect them. The chance of them being sued for code that no one sees is just practically 0, so it’s usually treated as an acceptable legal risk to not give a fuck.