Post #2900934

2026-04-15 23:57 UTC

@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org @ossguy@fedi.copyleft.org I have to admit that I am pretty surprised by this post. Not in terms of being welcoming to newcomers, which is something I have advocated for and made the center of all of my FOSS work. However, the post says the following: > I encourage all of us in the FOSS community to welcome the new software developers who've adopted these tools, investigate their motivations, and seriously consider cautiously and carefully incorporating their workflows with ours. While the sentence which follows acknowledges that "seasoned software developers understand the benefits and limitations of LLM-assisted coding tools", there are two big things I expected at least acknowledged: - Many maintainers are facing *burnout* over the situation. However, I agree that addressing this in terms of norms is something we can consider - The biggest thing I am surprised to not see addressed at all is the licensing and copyright implications (cotd)

Replies (1)

@cwebber@social.coop 2026-04-16 00:00

@bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org @ossguy@fedi.copyleft.org The surprising thing about saying "seriously consider cautiously and carefully incorporating their workflows with ours" is that it doesn't address at all my *biggest* fear: the copyright status of LLM generated contributions seems currently unsettled. I know there's been assertions to the contrary floating around: the Supreme Court deferred to a lower court in the US. However that is not the same thing as the Supreme Court making a specific decision. And internationally, the copyright situation of output is even murkier... it will take a long time for this to settle. Does Conservancy not think this is the case? I would be surprised if so, but perhaps you all have an interpretation that I am not currently aware of. If there *is* concern, then we hit a serious risk: we may be seeing many contributions with legal status which has *yet to be determined* entering seasoned codebases. And this worries me a lot.

Open ##2900935