Hacker News Reader

> > Plus Automatic1111/stable-diffusion-webui has no formally published license, making its codebase a tangled web of legal nightmares.

> It sounds like you’re proposing that someone should create their own fork. That’s always an option, and I encourage everyone to.

That is actually not an option as there is no license on the first-party code in this repository (the only licenses I've seen being of a few third-party dependencies listed in html/licenses.html), so it isn't even clear to me you can legally clone it ;P... forking it would seem extremely problematic.

Who is going to come after you for cloning or forking? What are the real dangers here?

Edit: As far as I can tell, the repo maintainers are far too busy writing code and creating to care what anyone does with the code. It will change 10 times in the next 8 hours.

Not true. It is an option by virtue of the fact that is a public repository. (If you fail to specify a license on a public repository, the terms that apply are not the default "all rights reserved [by the owner/creator]" that prohibits anyone else from using/displaying/performing or making their own copies. Instead, the terms that apply are the default terms that are specified in the GitHub TOS that you agree to--terms that, in fact, do allow forking.)

I don't think it's that simple. GitHub themselves say [1]:

> You're under no obligation to choose a license. However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work.

Yes, it does note immediately below that "if you publish your source code in a public repository on GitHub, according to the Terms of Service, other users of GitHub.com have the right to view and fork your repository". But that doesn't mean it's open source. You probably can't/shouldn't create derivative works with your forks. And you definitely wouldn't be allowed to just use this code in a commercial product, for example.

[1]: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-reposi...

> GitHub themselves say [1]

Irrelevant. You're quoting docs.github.com, which is neither authoritative (docs are written to GitHub's documentation standards, not by their legal team), nor is it always up-to-date or well informed for the non-legal matters where it ventures to comment about the state of GitHub's products/services.

> that doesn't mean it's open source

Strawman. The question is "can you fork/copy?", not "is it open source?". The answer to the former is "absolutely yes, unequivocally". Anyone saying otherwise is wrong.

> Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control).

> If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking). You may grant further rights if you adopt a license. If you are uploading Content you did not create or own, you are responsible for ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under terms that grant these permissions to other GitHub Users.

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

I read that as saying that all public GitHub repos can be copied and republished on GitHub, but that doesn't include the right to _modify_ the code. The latter could only be granted by a license. Of which, there is none on Auto's work. And there's none known for any of the work of other contributors.

So while you can "fork" it, it's not forking it in the FOSS sense.

> It sounds like you’re proposing that someone should create their own fork. That’s always an option, and I encourage everyone to. But what else is the proposal here? Forcibly move the repo? It doesn’t really make sense.

I like how you realize exactly what they're proposing, but proceed build a strawman that the comment didn't propose so you can forcefully tear it down.

In general it doesn't seem likely that in the long term AUTOMATIC1111's project will sfay the defacto SD interface.

We're already seeing more polished efforts like InvokeAI and various desktop clients, the field just moves so quickly that of course, the least structured interface with little to no interest in licensing concerns and the like is able to integrate new features very quickly.

But there will be points where things stabilize, if only temporarily, and that's where we should see alternatives start to make ground.

Hmm. Is it strawmanning?

I meant to explore the logical possibilities, but in hindsight that does sound cheap. Apologies. For what it’s worth, all of the recent AI art deplatforming has me a bit jumpy. It did seem like a possibility that people might call for certain repos to be taken down, but I meant to phrase it as more of a question.

In fact, my comment reads as a cross-examination, which I’m disappointed by. I’ll try harder to write more thoughtfully.

As for automatic, no doubt he’ll be surpassed someday. But ML is one of the few remaining “Wild West” areas of code, before everything has been productized and polished. I hope he gives the competition a good run.

> For what it’s worth, all of the recent AI art deplatforming has me a bit jumpy.

Same. It's been a thrill for me as a programmer to finally have an augmentation that allows me to do art and express myself creatively. And equally scary that people are trying to take that away. That's perhaps why I'm so adamant on calling out the racist associations of Auto's repo. The last thing AI art needs is more bad press. But it's also why I was careful to point out that I wasn't criticizing Auto's work, as I'm not for removing code except under extreme circumstances. I use the project every day. I just want something better.

I also don't particularly have strong feelings about Automatic1111 as a person, since they're quite young from what I understand and I was also edgy when I was younger.

I'm not suggesting someone take control over Automatic1111's repo; that's absurd not to mention illegal.

> So, concretely, what do you feel should be done?

I'd rather see a more professionally maintained competitor, like InvokeAI, surpass.

"Professionally maintained" reads a lot like gate keeping... What is objectively better about InvokeAI's implementation?

How does it read like gate keeping when being used to describe an alternative project leader that makes makes fun of George Floyd for no apparent reason (edit: whoops I totally forgot, never mention race on HN, it makes the extremely diverse user base react viscerally to your woke BS commentary), openly refuses to respect the licenses of code they decided nick, insists it's not meant to be open source...

It'd be one thing if the dude was just prickly to work with or something, but it's unprofessional behavior by even the lowest standards.

-

InvokeAI on the other hand is being more open with their development, and making good effort towards having some sane licensing setup.

I'd say even just separating the project from personal accounts with racially charged game mods goes a long way for professionalism, but maybe you'd say that's gate keeping?

UI is subjective but it's not hard to call InvokeAI's more polished since again, the bar is so low with A1111's interface

That's a fair criticism, it might be me gatekeeping.

To explain myself, these are specifically my pain points with Auto's repo:

1) No stable releases or versioning. This makes it difficult to use, as any given pull of the repo could be in a broken state. A better alternative is to, at the very least, tag known working commits.

2) Lack of testing; this is related to above. Even basic tests that would stop things like LDSR from randomly breaking would be a huge boost in usability.

3) Easier to use UI. This isn't a huge thing; Auto's UI is fine, though some better guides and documentation would be nice. But InvokeAI's UI and default settings are much better, in my opinion.

4) Lack of an official Dockerfile. It's nicer to have things in one place, especially to keep them in lockstep with code changes.

5) Association with racism.

When I said "professionally maintained" I didn't mean to imply maintained by a business or some other sort of gatekeeping. Though I can see how it read that way, and I appreciate your comment on it.

Instead I just mean things like the above, which other projects are getting right. They just don't yet have the feature set of Auto's project.