AI Rewrite Smashes chardet's LGPL Shield; Devs Clash Over Copyright and 'Stolen' Open Source
The chardet license changed from LGPL to MIT after an AI rewrote the code. This move detonated arguments over derivative works, copyright ownership, and the core tenets of copyleft licensing.
The fight splits over legal status. Some users, like Paragone and zogrewaste, claim the AI output is an 'illegal derivative' because it was trained on the original LGPL foundation. They warn license stripping risks. Conversely, others argue for MIT's permissiveness, stating GPL restrictions 'stifle modern open-source development' and that proprietary use is inevitable regardless of licensing structure.
The core fault line is control: whether the code change invalidates the original license or whether the need for corporate flexibility outweighs copyleft guarantees. The legal cloud hangs heavy, complicated by the outlier point that generative model output might not even be copyrightable.
Key Points
#1AI output is illegally derivative.
Paragone and wholookshere insist the rewrite, based on the original source, remains subject to the LGPL, suggesting an 'illegal derivative' without proper foundation.
#2GPL restrictions are stifling development.
The permissive camp, including vapeloki, argues GPL stifles necessary modern development, citing the practical need for MIT-style licenses.
#3Loss of open-source integrity.
zogrewaste warned that changing the license without buy-in allows corporations to 'strip away the licensing requirements' of foundational open-source code.
#4The fundamental legal hurdle of AI authorship.
sacredbirdman introduced the critical legal possibility that courts already deem generative model works uncopyrightable, undermining the ability to license the new code.
#5Copyleft protects against commercial capture.
DFX4509B argued that abandoning copyleft licenses risks allowing the project to be closed-sourced later, which GPL3 explicitly bans via tivoization.
Source Discussions (3)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.