Re: GCC AI Policy Announcement

> >> What happens if a patch contains a non-trival amount of code that
> >> cannot be copyrighted because it was assisted by AI?
> > The open questions around this are why the GNU project issued
> > provisional guidance to reject significant contributions developed with
> > an LLM.
> >
> > If it is copyrightable, then who owns the copyright? If it's based on
> > the training data, then the contributor may not have the rights to
> > share such a patch, and it cannot be legally redistributed under the GP=
L
> > (or any licence).
>
> That is one of the clearer points right now - LLM-generated code cannot
> be copyrighted.
>
> If somebody significantly modifies LLM-generated code, then that person
> gains copyright (which would also be fine).
>
> And if anybody ever finds that training data fed to an LLM lead to
> copyright on the generated code... this would be such a huge upset
> of the software and other industries that anything about GNU software
> and gcc would pale by comparison, by so many orders of magnitude
> that it would be ridiculous.
>
> It seems that the risk assessment leading to the current policy is
> at variance with what everybody else's risk assessment, and frankly,
> I do not think that this is justified.
>

As just one other voice: I agree with Thomas here.

> And this policy, if it is held up over a long period of time,
> has the potential of significantly holding back gcc's development,
> both in absolute terms and in relation to its competitors, for
> example LLVM.
>
> I have an e-mail in my inbox with some details of a very worthwhile
> project, where gfortran lags behind other compilers by large factors
> in speed. There is a LLM-generated prototype which would run
> afoul of the current rules, so it seems that avenue is currently
> closed. Oh well, then gfortran will continue to lag behind other
> compilers.
>
> To put it bluntly: The current policy is based on a risk assessment
> that nobody shares, and risks losing significant development speed
> over the competition.
>

I have visions of the EGCS fork, where someone forks the current gcc, accep=
ts
any and all LLM-generated patches, this then beats/supersedes the =93real=
=94 gcc,
and then everyone starts to move to this other fork, creating an absolute m=
ess
of the ecosystem.

> Best regards
>
>         Thomas