Replying to
@Gargron@mastodon.social
I defend the FSF stance in general, but I reject this hypothetical. FSF vs AI-generated issues can be dealt with from a different perspective.
IN GENERAL Institutions function best when they stay within their proper domain. A hospital treats a wounded criminal without judging their crime; a public library lends books without vetting the patron's ideology. GNU Emacs is an infrastructure provider for free code, not an international human rights court. FSF philosophy is based on four freedoms and is artifact-centered. In its favor, it can be said to represent institutional neutrality and epistemic humility that should govern large, global public goods. Freedom 0 is treated as symmetric. Anyone can use, anyone can contribute.
IN THIS HYPOTHETICAL extreme, knowingly accepting stolen or coerced goods is hardly a neutral act even in the artifact-centered sphere of ethics. It is like accepting a donation of books into the library knowing that they were stolen. At minimum, the FSF should attribute credit to the slaves and refuse credit to the slavers if the work is already done.
IN AI/LLM-GENERATED CODE CONTEXT FSF should reject copyright assigned to them because it can't be copyrighted, it subverts the FSF's legal shield "Prompts are Not Authorship". In US, EU, and other jurisdictions AI-generated output can't be copyrighted. See US: https://mathstodon.xyz/@maxpool/117140242185472991 and EU https://mathstodon.xyz/@maxpool/117128107757895678
#GPL #FSF #copyright #ethics #philosophy
