Re: Help building Pen.el (GPT for emacs)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2021 15:47:21 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Cc: mullikine@gmail.com, stefan@marxist.se, emacs-tangents@gnu.org,
>   rms@gnu.org
> 
> * Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2021-07-23 14:51]:
> > > According to online reviews chunks of code is copied even verbatim and
> > > people find from where.
> > 
> > That cannot be true.  It is nonsense to copy unrelated code into a
> > program and tell people this is what they should use.
> 
> I wonder how sure you are in that, did you do the online research? It
> is not about related or unrelated, I do believe that AI finds and
> generates related code. But 
> 
> Here are references disputing how "it cannot be true":

You take everything you read in these blogs for granted?  Did you
actually see the original code which these allude to?

> > > If code compiles or not is irrelevant. If one runs it or not is also
> > > irrelevant, code need not even run.
> > 
> > A feature or service that is based on this idea will never fly,
> > believe me.  Which program would want to have code pasted into his/her
> > program that would cause compilation errors or, worse, break it at run
> > time?
> 
> Of course people want code to fun. Just that copyright laws don't
> handle technical functionality. It is irrelevant if program works or
> does not work.

For copyright purposes, it doesn't.  But for the programmer who uses
the code it very much does.  So if these services give them code that
doesn't work they will not use it, and eventually will stop using the
services.

> > Once again, your assumptions are all wrong, so your conclusions are
> > also wrong.  Why not try one of these services and see what they
> > actually do, before you pass your (quite harsh) judgment on them, and
> > on the modern state of AI in general?
> 
> I can hear you how I am wrong, conclusions are wrong, though I gave
> you references enough to research it on Internet that will tell that
> there are possible serious licensing problems with such generated
> code.

See above.

> Question is very particular, specific and concrete:
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> 
> How does Pen.el and background AI services ensure of licensing
> compliance?
> 
> I would appreciate if you find solution to that or stay on that
> subject, as if I am wrong or right is not relevant, what I wish is to
> have assurance that it is free software. Prove me wrong by providing
> exact references in not only on country's law but also other
> countries' laws, the lows that make it legal, or how otherwise the
> legality of such code is justified and how users may get free
> software.

I'm sorry, but I don't work for you.  If you have problems with using
code from these services, then the onus is on you to do the research
and make up your own mind.  The discussion here is not about the code
these services give their users, it's whether and how Emacs can make
use of those services.  Emacs allows the user to write proprietary
code, and there's no legal issues when the user does that.  Emacs also
allows the user to copy someone else's code without permission, and
that's not a problem for Emacs when the user does that.

> As long as you don't tackle those subjects there is no legal solution
> for Pen.el and background AI to be used with assurance that software
> is truly free software.

You confuse "free software" with "software being used to write free
programs".  They are not the same.