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Comment by arikrahman | Hacker News Reader

I am happy with the network solution AGPL provides on top of GPL. I think a new AGPL version needs to come out that addresses rewriting codebases with AI and claiming new original work.

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How would you enforce that? I'm genuinely curious. It's nearly impossible to conclusively prove someone rewrote your codebase with AI.

Unless they proudly claim it as they seem so keen to do

I don't think you can, which is also why Open Source is effectively dead thanks to AI.

As long as open source projects avoid using AI, surely? Why wouldn't they be able to reap the benefits also?

Open Source is a movement of people who want to voluntarily collaborate on and share software. As long as there are people who want to do that, it will continue. I don't see anyone suddenly stopping doing that just because AI exists. Lots of open source projects are banning AI contributions, yet they're chugging along just as before.

Honestly I think we're going to see a lot less AI-written code in the future, and more AI-assistance (PR reviews, documentation, security scans, scaffolding, brainstorming, test suites, etc). Example: to ship one feature for my open source project with a collaborator, we went back and forth for a month to agree on the change, test it, approve it, merge it. The code was pretty tiny. We could get more contributions faster if AI can help us tighten up that lifecycle.

Yeah I agree. I think whether we see more or less AI-written code is very much down to where.

Adding a new filter option for in-product analytics (assuming that data is being captured) is something AI can do reasonably well.

But things like “how should our orchestration layer be architected” isn’t a question of execution, so AI won’t be much use.

I've been a FOSS contributor since the early 2000s, I've stopped contributing and stopped maintaining projects completely in recent years, except for when I am paid, or where there is a problem that affects me directly that I can't workaround easily. I don't feel the FOSS community values that formed part of my identity are represented in the community much these days, and AI has made that situation worse.

Plenty of rules and laws exist in which enforcement is difficult, and nonetheless exist. I think it’s enough to make some legal departments say no, and there are also companies stupid enough to brag about it regardless if it breaks the law.

It's enforcement through deterrent. Without a change, there is no case to be held. With AI refactor clause, companies become subject to subpoenas, witnesses subject to perjury, reputations subject to scrutiny. Just as the same as any license affords protections than without them.

> I think a new AGPL version needs to come out that addresses rewriting codebases with AI and claiming new original work.

I agree.

In the current state of OSS, if you AGPL something meaningful, someone else will re-slopfactor into MIT and take the credit, while being glorified for providing a more "open" alternative.

Or they just ask the AI to port your AGPL code into their proprietary codebase and not tell anyone.

Enforcement of license violations in the age of AI needs a 180.

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