jbz

🤖 AI Code is Hollowing Out Open Source, and Maintainers are Looking the Other Way // @quippd

ï½¢ This is a fast path to open source irrelevancy, since the US copyright office has deemed LLM outputs to be uncopyrightable. This means that as more uncopyrightable LLM outputs are integrated into nominally open source codebases, value leaks out of the project, since the open source licences are not operative on public domain code ï½£

https://www.quippd.com/writing/2026/04/08/ai-code-is-hollowing-out-open-source-and-maintainers-are-looking-the-other-way.html

#llm #opensource #vibecoding

AI Code is Hollowing Out Open Source, and Maintainers are Looking the Other Way

TL;DR: The advent of AI based, LLM coding applications like Anthropic’s Claude and ChatGPT have prompted maintainers to experiment with integrating LLM contributions into open source codebases.

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Show threadadingbatponder  ðŸ‘¾4h ago
@jbz @quippd Great explanation. A patent is more appropriate than copyright (which as the link says does not work when LLM has done the job) because then re-coding in other forms is not going to change the infringement. If the code's technical purpose is patented then the owners of the patent can prevent those who seek to use it in a non-permissive manner from bringing it to market and let those who follow the copyleft philosophy use it for free. Of course patenting each step is too expensive.
Show threadyoasif2h ago
@adingbatponder @jbz @quippd I'm not sure that I love software patents, since they can lock people out of building interoperable alternatives to patented works. I think copyright is the right level of intellectual property protection for software - too bad it is being disrespected so widely (not just for software, obviously).