Apparently chardet got Claude to rewrite the entire codebase from LGPL to MIT?

[jzb@hachyderm.io]

@Foxboron @joshbressers @scy Open-source projects that have sought to be compatible with proprietary software, e.g. Samba trying to be compatible with Windows SMB, etc., have (if I'm not misremembering) taken a "clean room" approach and outright stated they do not want any code from any developer who had even looked at the MSFT code for fear of being accused of infringement.

The copyrightability of LLM output is not relevant here - the only question is whether a court would consider the original license infringed upon in the creation of the output.

As I understand it, though, this is a reimplementation of a codebase by the same contributors -- Dan Blanchard seems to be the primary maintainer before and after the rewrite, so ISTM he'd be able to relicense the project regardless of whether it was passed through an LLM first.

It will be interesting when this happens because a company or person decides "I don't like copyleft, so I'll just run this through the LLM wash until I get a functional copy". But this doesn't seem to be that.

[scy@chaos.social]

@jzb @Foxboron @joshbressers Maintainers can't just change the license without asking each and every contributor for their approval. In open source projects, contributors usually keep their individual copyright, except when the project has them sign additional terms, or assign copyright to the project or something.

[jzb@hachyderm.io]

@scy @Foxboron @joshbressers I mean, they _can_ if they rewrite the code in question.

So here - *if* one of the LGPL code contributors is offended by the license change they could look at the new codebase and see if the new code resembles their contribution. Then they'd have to challenge it.

But projects have been relicensed without seeking permission from every contributor and/or by removing contributions if they cannot get approval. I'm not aware of any cases where a contributor has successfully challenged such - but there's always a first time.

[foxboron@chaos.social]

@scy @jzb @joshbressers

Depends.

If you have a permissively licensed project, you can change the source to GPL by just using a poison pill approach.

This is what Forgejo did as an example.

Forgejo is now copyleft, just like Git

(forgejo.org)

This works as the MIT license terms are met.

The other way would not work.

[scy@chaos.social]

@Foxboron @jzb @joshbressers You're right, I should've worded that differently.

They can change the license, if the current license allows it.

Still, everyone keeps their individual copyright.

[tmcfarlane@toot.community]

@duckattack @Foxboron great talk. but generating all the video with sora is both surface level clever, and then just massively offensive to the creators that have been fed to sora.

[brie@do.crimes.brie.gay]

@hannah@moonserver.yorha.nexus @Foxboron@chaos.social

yep, "has changed to a significant degree" is what I was trying to cover by "sufficiently different"

I'm not a lawyer either, but I like learning about legal details, especially copyright. As far as I understand, it isn't very well defined how much source code needs to change to be considered a separate work. This question might not be answered at all until someone goes to court over similar questions (at a sufficiently high level), or there are laws about this.

And this is only for the US's copyright system, but I definitely do not understand how US copyright and other countries copyrights intersect, so I am not going to try to speculate at all

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@Foxboron @scy This means that anything "new" (i.e. nothing) the "AI" brought to the work is not a creative work that you can hold copyright to just because you were the person prompting/using the "AI".

It does NOT mean that the copyright on whatever the AI plagiarized is void. But that's how the industry will try to spin these rulings. We need to point out this distinction and fight their attempts to mislead in order to seize and enclose our work.

[alper@rls.social]

@Foxboron Might as well rewrite it in rust or zig while he’s at it.

[daryll@mastodon.social]

@Foxboron If AI product, such as code, can't be copyrighted (which seems to be the way the supreme court is going) then I would think it can't be licensed. It's that true?

[douginamug@mastodon.xyz]

@Foxboron https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/SUVS7G-lets_end_open_source_together_with_this_one_simple_trick/ didn't watch this talk yet, but seems relevant!

EDIT: just watched it. Note: _loads_ of genAI video... feels like my brain is a bit broken. But entertaining. Goes through the history of copyright (from books in the 1700s) through to cleanrooming in the 1970s and then strongly makes the point that cleanrooming is "almost free" now.

True to the talk title, the talk offers no solutions, ending with "this is the end of open source as we know it"

[nf3xn@mastodon.social]

@Foxboron Supply chain attack. How do you dispute that with pypi though?

Say you wanted to submit your own chardet, say if you had vibe coded a version from some MIT license back to LGPL.

Become the chardet

[jn@boopsnoot.de]

@Foxboron "Ground-up" in the sense of "run through a grinder"

[macronaut@mas.to]

@Foxboron given the current environment and context of slop peddling techno fascists; I see this as more an avenue of overwhelming and discouraging people from contributing/creating open source software (OSS) than anything else.

OSS is the next step*; which is primarily done by actual people, on their own time, without compensation!! This honorable act is what these techno fascist slop peddlers hate so much.

*First being the hardware RAM/HDD crisis we are in currently.

[leonardof@bertha.social]

@Foxboron If it's in the US, I'm under the impression that code written by an LLM is public domain. That is, supposing it's not illegal as it should be

[skyr@chaos.social]

@Foxboron @scy chances are high that LLM bros suspect it is, that's why they are cutting deals with Big Music. Unfortunately, there's no global-encompassing multi-billion dollar corporation protecting open-source...

[lindsey@recurse.social]

@jn @Foxboron That's exactly the sense that I read it in, and it took me a minute to realize that's not what they meant

[rootwyrm@weird.autos]

@Bubu @Foxboron oh, and I forgot to mention, it's also guaranteed to have numerous instances of code copied verbatim from other projects. Meaning it is also both infringing and subject to other licenses which are likely to include LGPL, GPLv3, and so on.

[froge@social.glitched.systems]

@Foxboron@chaos.social the most hilarious part is that it's not even really MIT licensed, most of this is AI output with no way to distinguish it from human output, in a lot of nations this is machine produced text and just isn't legally valid for anything

he literally doesn't have the authority to relicense this as MIT no matter how much he wants to, because he's not the copyright holder of the code, a machine created most of it

[paul@oldfriends.live]

@thomasjwebb Right now, that is how SCOTUS is leaning regarding AI generated output. They refused to interfere with a patent application and "artist" copyright, leaving it up to the copyright and patent offices to decide, which they said no. Some guy used AI to create a beverage holder and light beacon using AI. When the patent was denied, he tried to copyright the AI created "artist" renditions to get around the patent.

@Foxboron @scy

reuters.com

(www.reuters.com)

https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-449.html