Comment by lumb63 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lumb63 | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me that regardless of the outcome of this case, some developers do not want to have their code used to train LLMs. There may need to be a new license created to restrict this usage of software. Or, maybe developers will simply stop contributing open source. In today’s day and age, where open source code serves as a tool to pad Microsoft’s pockets, I certainly will not publish any of my software open source, despite how much I would like to (under GPL) in order to help fellow developers.

If I were Microsoft, I’d really be concerned that I’m going to kill my golden goose by causing a large-scale exodus from GitHub or open source development more generally. Another idea I’ve considered is publishing boatloads of useless or incorrect code to poison their training data.

As I see it, people should be able to restrict how people use something that they gave them. If some people prefer that their code is not used to train LLMs, there should be a way to enforce that.

> I certainly will not publish any of my software open source, despite how much I would like to (under GPL) in order to help fellow developers.

I think this is a rather radical approach. You're undermining the OSS movement because you dislike Microsoft (I do too). I think adding a clause or dual licensing your work is more effective at stopping big-tech funded AI crawlers than just not adhering to open source.

You can host your code on sourcehut or Codeberg (Forgejo), you don't NEED to host it on a Microsoft owned platform.

I love the OSS movement. But the OSS movement is dependent on developers making a living somewhere else. If Microsoft effectively replace our class or at least a big part of it with AI, OSS becomes mostly irrelevant.

Not everyone is multi-generationally rich or absurdly frugal. Most people like having good jobs.

There is, as far as I am aware, nothing to stop Microsoft from crawling any other site’s code. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Things like “copyright” didn’t seem to stop OpenAI.

I am personally happy to share all my public code to support the development of better models. While I believe the benefits of contributing to open source outweigh the drawbacks, and I don't foresee a "large-scale exodus from GitHub", it's ultimately up to individual developers to decide how their code is used.

I get the sentiment but remember that OSS has always come with the caveat that someone you do not approve of benefits from your code. That part isn't really new with LLMs (which I'm definitely not a fan of). Really this goes for productive pursuit where you do not have total control of your clients. I think it's better to focus on how your work benefits those you want to benefit than to worry about how leeches also profit.

"I don't license as open source because $something which I don't like could use my code" is a pretty common note over time but, despite almost always coming with a warning of the end of some large open source segment, is rarely impactful in any way. Some people probably will use a special license and most won't care except for when they run across projects using said one offs and it becomes a pain to integrate licensing models.

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