I can't help but feeling like if we're just going to be talking about copyright, we've jumped the shark. [LWN.net]

I can't help but feeling like if we're just going to be talking about copyright, we've jumped the shark.

Posted Mar 26, 2026 20:00 UTC (Thu) by koverstreet (subscriber, #4296)
In reply to: I can't help but feeling like if we're just going to be talking about copyright, we've jumped the shark. by Heretic_Blacksheep
Parent article: Vibe-coded ext4 for OpenBSD

> Who put the lawyers in charge? Everyone in a given society. That is, the majority of any given democratic or republican system of governance. That's not a useful debate to have. When you live in a society, you have to live by that society's rules or face the consequences even if you disagree with the rules. As a traditionally persecuted minority in the country I live in, I'm quite familiar with the risks of opposition to The Rules.

I can't get behind this "we all agreed to the rules and we all must follow them" line of thinking, with not a thought given to how they're serving the free software worlds and the commons.

I want a healthy free software ecosystem, and I don't see how this helps.

And I think you're taking a narrow and pessimistic view of the legalities of LLMs, and I honestly can't make any sense of it. If there are going to be legal issues with using LLMs trained behind closed doors, that's an issue for the entire software world, not just open source - and honestly if that ever came to pass it'd be a far bigger issue for the corporate world. Corporations might sue each other for infringement, but open source projects?

But given how the eagerly the rest of the world is charging (headfirst, with nary a care in the world) into LLM driven development, somehow I do not think that's the issue that's going to bite the open source world. I think that particular ship has sailed.

The only issues on my mind are - how do we teach AIs to write good maintainable code? How are we going to collaborate?

to post comments

I can't help but feeling like if we're just going to be talking about copyright, we've jumped the shark.

Posted Mar 26, 2026 22:21 UTC (Thu) by Heretic_Blacksheep (guest, #169992) [Link] (2 responses)

I didn't say "We all must follow them" I said "When you live in a society, you have to live by that society's rules or face the consequences even if you disagree with the rules." There's a gulf of difference. One can have a debate on the justice of those rules and laws, but ask anyone that has openly defied those laws and been arrested, marginalized, or otherwise attacked as a matter of protest whether there are consequences to doing so.

However, I don't believe the wider issue is a topic for LWN. I put the comment there because the OP questioned who put the lawyers in charge. The answer is obvious. The society did, for good or ill. That's just the world we live in.

I can't help but feeling like if we're just going to be talking about copyright, we've jumped the shark.

Posted Mar 26, 2026 22:37 UTC (Thu) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (1 responses)

> The society did

Wrong. Individuals do this.

I can't help but feeling like if we're just going to be talking about copyright, we've jumped the shark.

Posted Mar 26, 2026 22:40 UTC (Thu) by koverstreet (subscriber, #4296) [Link]

yeah, and I think "the society has decided!" has become an excuse to shut off critical thinking...