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* Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem
@ 2024-06-18  8:37 MSavoritias
  2024-06-18 14:19 ` Ian Eure
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 70+ messages in thread
From: MSavoritias @ 2024-06-18  8:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: guix-devel

Hello,

Context:

As you may already know there have discussions around Software Heritage
and the LLM model they are collaborating with for a bit now. The model
itself was announced at
https://www.softwareheritage.org/2023/10/19/swh-statement-on-llm-for-code/

As I have started writing some packages I became interested in how I
might actually stop my code from ever reaching Software Heritage or at
the very least said LLM model. Every single package in guix is added
there automatically.

I sent an email on Friday and I got an answer back that such consent
mechanism hasn't been implemented and I was shown the legal terms.
instead what I am supposed to do is:

After guix has my code, my code will be automatically in Software
Heritage and the LLM model. So I am supposed to opt out seperately with
both of them to ensure that my code wont be used for future versions.
This of course means that my code will stay forever in Software
Heritage and the LLM model (or some version of it at least).

The reasoning that was given was that code harvesting happens anyway
and we give an opt-out. I am guessing its opt-out and not opt-in
because they would have less code but this is speculation of course :)

This is against our desire to make it a welcoming space and also
against the spirit of our CoC. Specifically because authors do not know
this happens when they submit packages to Guix. So it is all done
without consent.

Next Steps:

So what can we do as a Guix community from here?
Communication/Writing wise:

1. Add a clear disclaimer/requirment that any new package that is added
in Guix, the person has to give consent or get consent from the person
that the package is written in. This needs to be added in the docs and
in the email procedures.
2. Make a blog post of our stance towards Software Heritage and the
code harvesting they are doing. This post will write in environmental
and ethical grounds why Guix is against this and mention specifically
Software Heritage. This is done to separate and mention that we do not
like what is happening in case anyone comes asking, and hopefully give
public pressure to Software Heritage.
3. Exclude all Software Heritage merch, stands, talks, people in
official capacity, logos, or anything else that participates in social
events of guix and write it in some rules we have. also write in
channel rules that Software Heritage is offtopic same way Non-Free
Software is offtopic.
4. There doesn't seem to be any movement on the side of Guix towards:
- Accountability in an official capacity of SH for the terrible
  handling of the trans name incident and a plan to make it easier in
  the future.
- The LLM problem that was mentioned in this email.
So with that said I urge anybody who has been in contact with them in
an official Guix capacity to come forward, otherwise I can volunteer to
be that. Idk if we have a community outreach thing I need to be in also
for that. (we should if not)

The above make two assumptions:
1. That the Guix community is against LLM/"AI". Which for environmental
and ethical grounds we should be.
2. That we are a consent culture.

Coding Wise this has been talked about before some potential options
are:
- Communicate with Software Heritage to be able to give a "sign" that
the code that is sent should go or not in the code harvesting project.
- Remove all Software Heritage integration since its too hard to be
  ethical about it and built a better solution.

Conclusion:

To summarize from the steps I wrote above, it seems Software Heritage
makes it harder and harder for us to actually be an inclusive,
welcoming space we want to be. Idk what that leaves us, as I said I am
not part of any "insider" discussions. But it seems to not move that
much and its time to start doing actionable things in another direction.

MSavoritias


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 70+ messages in thread
* Re: Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem
@ 2024-06-18 17:12 Andy Tai
  2024-06-18 18:08 ` Ian Eure
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 70+ messages in thread
From: Andy Tai @ 2024-06-18 17:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: guix-devel

What is the role of GNU Guix in this? If Guix is mainly a referral
mechanism like web page links to the actual contents, the real problem
is not Guix but the use of free software which can be obtained  via
other mechanisms directly anyway to train LLMs if Guix is not in the
loop?


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 70+ messages in thread
* Re: Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem
@ 2024-06-19  7:52 Simon Tournier
  2024-06-19  9:13 ` MSavoritias
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 70+ messages in thread
From: Simon Tournier @ 2024-06-19  7:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Ian Eure, guix-devel

Hi Ian, all,

On Tue, 18 Jun 2024 at 10:57, Ian Eure <ian@retrospec.tv> wrote:

> Guix is continuing to partner with SWH in spite of their continued 
> support of these violations.

Quickly because I am in the middle of a busy day. :-)

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.


1. Legal.

These license violations are your interpretation of the law and to my
knowledge nothing have been in Court, yet.

Today, it does not really matter if we (or I) share this opinion.
Because for now, it’s just an opinion.

However, no one is a lawyer here and drawing a clear line is not simple.

Thus, FWIW, I would not jump in hard conclusions based on my own opinion
because today I am not confidant enough to emit a definitive legal
position.


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 think that LLM/IA is morally bad in climate change context; a moral
value outside free software, BTW.  By extension, HuggingFace appears to
me morally bad.

Then, is SWH morally bad because they did a partnership with
HuggingFace?  Is it morally bad to help SWH in harvesting source code?
Well, the answers do not jump to my eyes.

An analogy could be: Am I morally bad when I use my Github account to
report bugs of free software there?  Or when I contribute to free
software hosted on Github?  Let do not drift; I am just trying to expose
that moral questions are often more complex that yes or no.

All is not 0 and 1.  There is tradeoff and balance.

Back to SWH.  I consider that free software source code is part of human
culture and it must be preserved. Preserving source code is morally
good.

Thus, I think the mission of SWH is morally good.  Because their
partnership with UNESCO in order to collect and preserve this human
culture is morally good.  Then, helping in that mission appear to me
morally good.

Moreover, being able to rescue is also morally good.  For example, in
scientific context where the trust in scientific knowledge depends on
software that vanish.  This trust appears to me vitally important.

Therefore, it appears to me very harsh to jump in definitive moral
conclusion about the SWH initiative.


All that said, back to my busy day. :-)

Cheers,
simon


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 70+ messages in thread
* Re: Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem
@ 2024-06-28 18:01 Juliana Sims
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 70+ messages in thread
From: Juliana Sims @ 2024-06-28 18:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Ludovic Courtès, MSavoritias, ian; +Cc: guix-devel

Hey y'all,

I've avoided weighing in on this topic because I'm of two minds about 
it. Still, when members of the community raise concerns, it's important 
to take those concerns seriously. We must be careful how we address 
them because the opinions and concerns of any community member are as 
legitimate as those of any other.

This conversation has at times been contentious. People have not always 
used the most diplomatic language. And yet, there has been a thorough 
discussion of this topic. The conclusion appears to be that Guix cannot 
make changes in relation to SWH. It's clear there is no more room for 
productive conversation. I therefore echo Ludo's request to let this 
topic drop.

I want to express my gratitude for a community where people are able to 
express their concerns and have them taken seriously, regardless of who 
they are. Let's not lose that. Let's not forget that, even when 
passions are high, we all want Guix to succeed and have a healthy 
community, and we all work to that end as best as we can with the 
information and resources available to us.

Best,
Juli




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 70+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2024-06-28 18:03 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 70+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2024-06-18  8:37 Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem MSavoritias
2024-06-18 14:19 ` Ian Eure
2024-06-19  8:36   ` Dale Mellor
2024-06-20 17:00     ` Andreas Enge
2024-06-20 18:42       ` Dale Mellor
2024-06-20 20:54         ` Andreas Enge
2024-06-20 20:59           ` Ekaitz Zarraga
2024-06-20 21:12             ` Andreas Enge
2024-06-21  8:41             ` Dale Mellor
2024-06-21  9:19               ` MSavoritias
2024-06-21 13:33                 ` Luis Felipe
2024-06-21 17:51               ` Exclude checker with package properties [draft PATCH] Simon Tournier
2024-06-21 18:37                 ` Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2024-06-21 18:44                   ` Simon Tournier
2024-06-21 18:42                 ` Simon Tournier
2024-06-22 15:54                 ` Draft: dry-run + Exclude checker with package properties Simon Tournier
2024-06-20 21:27         ` Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem Simon Tournier
2024-06-18 16:21 ` Greg Hogan
2024-06-18 16:33   ` MSavoritias
2024-06-18 17:31     ` Greg Hogan
2024-06-18 17:57       ` Ian Eure
2024-06-19  7:01       ` MSavoritias
2024-06-19  9:57         ` Efraim Flashner
2024-06-20  2:56         ` Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2024-06-20  5:18           ` MSavoritias
2024-06-19 10:10 ` Efraim Flashner
2024-06-21  8:39 ` About SWH, let avoid the wrong discussion Simon Tournier
2024-06-21  9:12   ` MSavoritias
2024-06-21  9:46     ` Andreas Enge
2024-06-21 10:44       ` MSavoritias
2024-06-21 13:45         ` Luis Felipe
2024-06-21 14:15           ` MSavoritias
2024-06-21 16:33             ` Luis Felipe
2024-06-21 17:04               ` Msavoritias
2024-06-21 16:34             ` Liliana Marie Prikler
2024-06-21 16:51         ` Vagrant Cascadian
2024-06-21 17:22           ` MSavoritias
2024-06-21 20:51             ` Vagrant Cascadian
2024-06-22 15:46               ` MSavoritias
2024-06-22 17:55                 ` Breath, let take a short break :-) Simon Tournier
2024-06-24  7:30                   ` MSavoritias
2024-06-24 10:23                     ` Tomas Volf
2024-06-24 11:56                     ` Lets cut this off Efraim Flashner
2024-06-21 17:25           ` About SWH, let avoid the wrong discussion Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2024-06-22 13:06         ` Richard Sent
2024-06-22 14:42           ` MSavoritias
2024-06-22 19:53             ` Ricardo Wurmus
2024-06-24  7:55               ` MSavoritias
2024-06-24  9:13                 ` Ricardo Wurmus
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2024-06-18 17:12 Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem Andy Tai
2024-06-18 18:08 ` Ian Eure
2024-06-19 10:31   ` raingloom
2024-06-27 12:27   ` Ludovic Courtès
2024-06-27 15:30     ` Ian Eure
2024-06-27 16:48       ` Felix Lechner via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.
2024-06-27 16:58       ` Ludovic Courtès
2024-06-19  7:52 Simon Tournier
2024-06-19  9:13 ` MSavoritias
2024-06-19  9:54   ` Efraim Flashner
2024-06-19 10:25     ` raingloom
2024-06-19 15:46       ` Ekaitz Zarraga
2024-06-20  6:36         ` MSavoritias
2024-06-20 14:35           ` Ekaitz Zarraga
2024-06-21  8:51             ` MSavoritias
2024-06-19 10:34     ` MSavoritias
2024-06-19 14:41   ` Simon Tournier
2024-06-20  6:51     ` MSavoritias
2024-06-20 14:40       ` Simon Tournier
2024-06-21  9:08         ` MSavoritias
2024-06-28 18:01 Juliana Sims

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