On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 10:02 PM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > Among other things, I'm curious about what the FSF would say
>   > about the *models* the LLMs use. Are they "just data", or should we
>   > treat them more like object code? What does an LLM that fully adheres
> to
>   > FSF principles actually look like?
>
> I've been thinking about this, and my tentative conclusion is that
> that precise question is not crucial, because what is certain is that
> they are part of the control over the system's behavior.  So they
> ought to be released under a free license.
>
> In the examples I've heard of, that is never the case.  Either they
> are secret -- users can only use them on a server, which is SaaSS, see
> https://gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html --
> or they are released under nonfree licenses that restrict freedom 0;
> see
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html
> .
>
> As I recall, we don't have a rule against features to interface
> servers whose code is not released, and we certainly don't have a rule
> against code in Emacs to interact with nonfree software _provided said
> software is well known_ -- that is why it is ok to have code to
> interact with Windows and Android.
>
> ISTR we have features in Emacs for talking to servers whose code
> is not release.  But does anyone recall better than I do?
>

There is the "excorporate" package on GNU ELPA that talks to exchange
corporate servers (although perhaps there are free variants that also speak
this protocol?). There's the "metar" package on GNU ELPA that receives the
weather from the metar system.  A brief search didn't find any code for
that, but it might exist.

The other interesting find was "sql-oracle", as well as other nonfree
similar sql servers in the main emacs lisp.  It is a server, although the
interface used is local and mediated by a program. But it is an interface
to a nonfree utility software.  There is no warning given, but a message in
`sql--help-docstring' asks the user to consider free alternatives.


>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
> Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>
>
>