Re: Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem

[MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me>]

On Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:54:30 +0300
Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 19, 2024 at 12:13:38PM +0300, MSavoritias wrote:
> > On Wed, 19 Jun 2024 09:52:36 +0200
> > Simon Tournier <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:
> >   
> > > Hi Ian, all,
> > > 
> > > On Tue, 18 Jun 2024 at 10:57, Ian Eure <ian@retrospec.tv> wrote:
>
> > > I think that LLM asks ethical and legal question that even FSF or
> > > EFF or SFC does not provide clear answers.  (And that probably
> > > the level where the discussion should happen.)  That’s not a
> > > light topic and we should not rush in one definitive conclusion.
> > > 
> > > Thank you for the rise of the concern some weeks ago.  It appears
> > > to me good that people had expressed their concerns.  And still
> > > does. Although I am reading there or overthere an aggressive
> > > tone; useless.
> > > 
> > > Again, people behind SWH are long-term free software activists
> > > and be sure that they do not take this concern lightly.  FYI,
> > > people of SWH are in touch with some people from Guix to speak
> > > about all that.  
> > 
> > That is a very good point actually and it is one I also raised in
> > the email I sent. That we have been told there are some discussions
> > but we haven't seen any results for over 6 months now. Hence me
> > asking for anybody that has approached SH in an official Guix
> > capacity to step forward. Otherwise as I said I can approach SH :)  
> 
> The relationship between SWH and Hugging Face is (IMO) off-topic for
> the Guix mailing lists.  I'm not surprised that the discussions are
> happening elsewhere.

Given that any code and package that is contributed to Guix goes to SWH
and Hugging Face I would disagree.

> > > 2. Ethical.
> > > 
> > > If we speak about ethical concerns, we need to be very cautious.
> > > We all share the same core of values about free software.  Then
> > > we all do not bound these values to the same point.  Some of us
> > > extend them to some topics, other restrict a bit.
> > > 
> > > Here the issue is that other values than the ones about free
> > > software are dragged in the picture to emit a position.  That’s
> > > where we need to be cautious because we need to embrace the
> > > diversity and do not morally judge what is outside our free
> > > software project.
> > > 
> > > About SWH, FWIW, here is my moral reasoning; as you see, it is
> > > far to be definitive.  
> > 
> > I agree that we probably won't find any definitive answer if LLMs
> > are bad or not. But that is also not the question posed here tho.
> > 
> > The question posed here was that *all* code that is sent from Guix
> > to SH is automatically transfered without consent to be used in an
> > LLM model. That is without said process being opt-in and without
> > said process being transparent.  
> 
> I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
> 
> Transferring the code is (legally) fine, using the code is (legally)
> fine, distributing the result is (I think) legally questionable.
> 
> If your concern is the code being transferred to the LLM owners, IMO
> that's already covered by the license of the code itself. As for what
> the LLM owners do with the code, (again I am not a lawyer) it should
> not make a difference if SWH gives them the code, they download it
> from Guix's infrastructure or get it straight from upstream.
> Redistributing the source code is allowed.

Idk if you read the email that was sent to Greg in the other thread.
Given that you replied there too I assume you did.
So given this context I am repeating again that is not about legal and
let me copy-past my reply to the legal argument:

Quote:
You seem to be arguing on a different thread or a point I never made. I
didn't talk about licenses or legal/state rules before you mentioned
them. What I have mentioned is that SH breaks our social rules and
expectations by feeding all code into an algorithm that will endlessly
output the same as original.

I am not interested what the states or licenses/copyrights allow or
don't allow in this case. What I care about is what we expect as a
community when we submit a package/code to guix and if that violates
our social rules and expectations. And from what I have seen and talked
with people it does indeed.

> > The second one could be solved by adding the disclaimer and making
> > the changes to commit packages as a i said. It can also be done I
> > was told by just stopping guix from uploading any new code to SH
> > from any package. which I would also be in favor.
> > The first one can be done with social pressure which is what the
> > blogpost and the talking and potentially the not including SH into
> > Guix go towards.
> > 
> > Whether LLMs are ethical or not has nothing to do with the question
> > posted above. Although personally I would push for not including
> > LLMs unless under strict criteria of environmental and ethical
> > sourcing. but that can come at a later time.
> > 
> > I would also like SH to see why opt-in should be the default at the
> > very least, and the process should be transparent to everybody
> > putting code into SH. Archiving source code is a good cause. This
> > is why I said to approach them in official Guix capacity :)  
> 
> One of our packages, dbxfs, left Github a while ago and continued
> development on a different forge. They adjusted their README to
> disallow hosting of their code on Github. Based on this restriction
> we have labeled later versions of the software as non-free and have
> not updated the package. IMO saying that source code cannot be
> uploaded to SWH would fall into the same category.

Good thing that is not what i suggested then. :)

Regards,
MSavoritias