Time will say how laws will evolve about that. I just hope this won’t end up with each line of code having it’s own copyright or sources hidden in numeric bunkers. For now being cautious is probably the safer bet.
Name calling, even if in tongue in cheek, is not really helpful.
Haiku’ current policy says:
Copyright Policy
As an open-source project, all contributions to Haiku should be under an open-source license, preferably the MIT license (exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis.) Copyright of contributions may also be assigned to “Haiku, Inc.”, but this is not required.
The Haiku project cannot accept contributions (e.g. code, documentation, translations, etc.) which are under ambiguous or incompatible licenses. (This includes most content produced with the use of LLMs.)
Perhaps a similar policy should be discussed for Haikuports.
I think this is a very good policy and would welcome seeing the same also on HaikuPorts ![]()
How exactly? What’s the first thing you see when you open GitHub or VS Code? Copilot! Or what do you see when you open Firefox? AI is already part of our lives, and there’s no escaping it. There are only two options: either accept this reality and learn to live with it, or stick your head in the sand.
Nobody’s forcing you to use AI when you code, seriously. But ignoring the obvious is just foolish. The world is changing, and you need to face reality adequately.
Personally, I like writing code using only Pe, BeBook, and headers from development/header/os, but I don’t have any prejudice against AI. I really don’t care whether code is written with AI assistance or not – as long as it works. It’s foolish to fight progress, whether you like it or not.
So if Mozilla or LibreOffice start actively using AI for writing code (I think this is already happening), will you stop using them and remove them from Haikuport? That’s stupid.
It’s funny how every few years people tell me to accept something and live with it,rather than making my own choices.
Nevermind,when I was very young everyone said I absolutely need Facebook or I don’t exist in social life - I never registered there and my life is fine.
In the 2010s everyone said I absolutely need Whatsapp or I can’t contact anyone - Turns out people still read and write SMS if they must,and I could happily escape that crap also.
People wanted to let me think you can’t live without any Google stuff - I’ve banned that awfully evil spyware company from my life many years ago and I’m happier and more independent than ever before.
And today people try to force AI into my life,and again I’m telling you that I live my life totally fine without all that useless nonsense.
I’m writing my code in Genio,look into the official documentation of libraries to understand how they work,or I look into the source code or ask in forums and chats.
Feel free to live in a world totally controlled and dominated by M$,but I don’t wish to live in such a distopia.
Nevermind,this is Haiku,not Windows,and Haiku users never asked for an Copilot button.
BTW,I deleted my Github years ago,think that VS Code is probably the worst code editor out there and use LibreWolf rather than Firefox because it doesn’t try to force AI stuff on me.
But wait, aren’t you trying to impose your choice to reject AI on me by implementing restrictive policies in haikuports?
In same time, companies offering AI are also known to not really be open source friendly and to like suing people for copyright infringement. This whole thing is a lawyers conspiracy. More people using AI, more lawsuits, more money. ![]()
By the way, Nadel mentioned that 30% of Microsoft’s code is already written using AI. I suspect the other companies whose software you use aren’t much different.
I don’t think the tool is the problem. If you train an AI on code that you have written or respecting licences, it’s ok. Surely Microsoft has enough of that. AI are something new and some clear rules are still missing before they are accepted by everyone.
sure, as it is meant to ![]()
AI has become part of our lives in many areas of society, both in business and in our private lives.
I now use AI almost every day at work. Without the help it provides us, the workload would be impossible to manage.
I also use AI in my private projects. If something in my code doesn’t work, I ask why and, in the vast majority of cases, I get the correct answers, either with examples or by having my code repaired live. This is extremely impressive and I have learned a lot from it.
Just for fun, I’ve also considered letting my entire project be “optimized” to see what comes out of it.
This is a project that has grown over a very long time, and of course I didn’t comment anything at the beginning. Maybe AI can help me standardize and comment everything a bit. I don’t see how that would mean it’s no longer my code.
Just my 2 cents.
I think it makes sense to have that policy for Haiku, since it’s good to be on the safe side here, until law makers have adapted to the new situation.
For HaikuPorts, I don’t think such a policy makes any sense at all. You can easily take down any package that has legal issues, and, you cannot really control “foreign” packages either.
LOTE, last time I looked at it, is meant only for bleeding-edge development on nightly installations. Perhaps Besly or Fatelk would like to become the default destinations for less-than-official packages.
BeSly is very strict about licensing.
I tried to get BeAIM added there,but they rejected it because the history of the code isn’t entirely clear and there was no license specified before I took over.
I totally understand that they don’t want to get into legal trouble,just saying that it’s unlikely they would accept AI stuff for the same reason.
Hmm, and FatElk is based in the litigation-prone USA.
Anyone have some server space in China? Venezuela?
A luddite is a person opposing technology. Do you really think people rejecting A"I" as the next big thing are opposing technology? What exactly is “technology” for you? Bullcrap pushed by Micro$oft or G00gle? Seriously?
You probably think we are troglodytes and you are “better” because you embraced “the future”. And your argument about that is… absolute garbage like VS Code pushing another garbage, namely Copilot. Complete with excessive spyware, of course - but I forgot, even said spyware is part of the “future”, I guess.
Seriously, it that is the future according to you, I am very happy to reject it, together with its messiahs, apostles, and advocates. But it’s not the future, really. I tested and trained A"I", and I keep doing it just out of curiosity. Never for serious work. Whoever trusts it is a fool. Period.
Feel free to enjoy yet another bubble pushed as “the future”.
I can think of a third option: laughing at people enthusiastically embracing everything new (therefore “better” or “the future” by definition). Such crap is typically pushed with aggressive advertisement, so that people bite. Today it’s A"i", tomorrow it will be something else, equally advertised as the “next big thing”.
Micro$oft doesn’t need A"I" to make crappy software. They can do it without A"I" - they did it for decades now. They are wasting their money pushing crap makers they don’t even need, as they are equally capable to make crap themselves.
I profoundly despise AI (because of companies behaviour, mostly), and I don’t use it myself, but rejecting these contributions only because the developer used AI is absurd.
I think the policy makes little sense for Haiku, too, because in the end, if a developer used an AI tool without telling anyone, no one could tell, like if a developer copied GPL code without telling anyone, no one could tell.
Since AI tools are included in many IDEs, many developers could use those tools already.
We could already have AI-made code in Haiku without knowing.
Next we reject contributions done with VS code ?
And if Genio included a LLM to aid with code generation, would you exclude Genio from Haikuports ? Or reject any PR made with Genio?
We could always revert the code if legal issues arise, anyway.
Moreover, I don’t think we ever voted on the policy.
There was a thread on the mailing list, why did you not respond there?
Besides that your argument makes no sense, we don’t accept gpl code because it is incompatible. We can apply your argument to it aswell and now accept gpl code just because someone could have lied and we might have some?
Sorry, but we have to assume good faith contributions, not people willingly violating our policies and weaken them based on that.
The justification is clear and obvious, if you can’t prove your code is MIT you can’t contribute it, if you use a random AI tool you can’t prove it. If you trained it yourself on your code then you can use it (barring quality concerns)
Where did I say that ?
I said you can’t tell AI generated code from human generated code, just as you can’t tell GPL code from other code.
So if I use AI tools without telling anyone it’s ok.
Thanks for proving my point.
By the way: as X512 say, if Mozilla or others start using AI, would you exclude those applications from HaikuPorts ?