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AI’s Unpaid Debt: How LLM Scrapers Destroy the Social Contract of Open Source (www.quippd.com)
submitted 6 days ago by yoasif@fedia.io to c/programming@programming.dev
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TL;DR: The big tech AI company LLMs have gobbled up all of our data, but the damage they have done to open source and free culture communities are particularly insidious. By taking advantage of those who share freely, they destroy the bargain that made free software spread like wildfire.

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[-] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

"If you didn't want people in your house then don't have doors" buddy... That's not how anything works.

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works -3 points 5 days ago

If you put a fucking sign on your door saying "come on in!" then don't be angry when people do?

[-] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

We do hang signs on the doors but they say something sightly different

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_license

Public domain licenses are truly as you describe, but copyleft licenses are far from that. There are also many "source available" licenses which aren't open at all. Just because you can read a book doesn't mean you can print and sell it.

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 days ago

Who is wholesale copying OSS code and releasing it under a non-compliant license with an LLM?

[-] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 2 points 4 days ago

Uh... Lots of people? That's kinda the problem. Maybe use a search engine. There are plenty of cases of LLMs 'laundering' copyleft code into (often) proprietary codebases. And that's just the most blatant and brain-dead obvious example; the use of GPL code to train commercial models is a bit more subtle and nuanced but no less nefarious, and the laws are currently unequipped to handle that part at all.

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

You don't need an LLM to find and copy GPL code. The LLM isn't adding anything new here.

[-] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 2 points 4 days ago

Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize you had the intelligence of an LLM. The conversation is now over. I hope you have a pleasant day.

this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
133 points (99.3% liked)

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