I feel like the author is missing a huge point here by fighting this. The entire reason why GPL and any other copyleft license exists in the first place is to ensure that the rights of a user to modify, etc a work cannot be ever taken away. Before, relicensing as MIT - or any other fully permissive license - would've meant open doors to apply restrictions going forward, but with AI this is now a non-issue. Code is now very cheap. So the way I see this, anyone who is for copyleft should be embracing AI-created things as not being copyrightable (or a rewrite being relicensable) hard*.

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red_admiral an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Depends on who wants to take what away.

If I release blub 1.0.0 under GPL, you cannot fork it and add features and release that closed-source, but I can certainly do that as I have ownership. I can't stop others continuing to use 1.0.0 and develop it further under the GPL, but what happens to my own 1.1.0 onwards is up to me. I can even sell the rights to use it closed-source.

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Maken 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The user is the end-user of the product. If the relicensing means that someone down the line receives a close-down binary application that he cannot modify, that's a violation of the user's rights.

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red_admiral an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That is still true, but it was more relevant back when "user" meant "programmer at another university". The "end-user" for most software is not a programmer these days.

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skeledrew 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But it's a non-issue as said user can just have AI reverse engineer said binary. Or reimplement something with the same specs. That's what it means for code to be cheap.

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duskdozer 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It may be "cheap" at the moment. Let's revisit when the AI companies decide they need to regain a little bit of the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they're creating.

	▲	skeledrew 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		China is always waiting for this. And the US won't allow China to get all the users who'd emigrate over increased costs, so the costs will remain low. They'll have to find ways to recoup that don't involve raising the cost of code.

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philipwhiuk 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Code is only cheap with AI because AI ignores the law.

	▲	skeledrew 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Laws change, and it's also law that now says AI-generated works can't be copyrighted, which makes everything even cheaper.