Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

I was banned from an OpenSource project [1] recently because I suggested a bug fix. Their „code of conduct“ not only prevents PRs but also comments on issues with information that was retrieved by any AI tool or resource.

Thinking about asking Claude to reimplement it from scratch in Rust…

[1] https://codeberg.org/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial/src/bra...

/ Suddenly i saw this: //Update regarding corporate sponsors: we are open to sponsorship arrangements with organizations that align with our values; see the conditions below.// They should know that beggars cant be choosers.

That must be so hard for you.

> 2. We will not accept changes (code or otherwise) created with the aid of "AI" tooling. "AI" models are trained at the expense of underpaid workers filtering inputs of abhorrent content, and does not respect the owners of input content. Ethically, it sucks.

Do you disagree with some part of the statement regarding "AI" in their CoC? Do you think there's a fault in their logic, or do you yourself personally just not care about the ethics at play here?

I find it refreshing personally to see a project taking a clear stance. Kudos to them.

Recently enjoyed reading the Dynamicland project's opinion on the subject very much too[0], which I think is quite a bit deeper of an argument than the one above.

Ethics seems to be, unfortunately, quite low down on the list of considerations of many developers, if it factors in at all to their decisions.

[0] https://dynamicland.org/2024/FAQ/#What_is_Realtalks_relation...

> "AI" models are trained at the expense of underpaid workers filtering inputs of abhorrent content, and does not respect the owners of input content. Ethically, it sucks.

These ethics are definitely derived from a profit motive, however petty it may be.

The bugs are on them. I‘ve fixed them in my fork but of course I‘ll migrate to a non-discriminating alternative.

That's not begging. That's a premptive rejection for people who think they can take control of the project through money.

I disagree with their CoC on AI. There are so many projects which are important and don’t let you contribute or make the barrier to entry so hard, and so you do best effort to raise a detailed bug description for it to sit there for 14 years or them to tell you to get fucked. So anyone who complains about AI isn’t worth the time and day and I support not getting paid as much if at all.

you disobeyed a code of conduct? that's not a good look.

You're assuming "respect" means "payment" but it could be as simple as "recognition."

Conversely, if the only motivation is profit, that's no ethics at all.

(and of course without non-profit motivations, none of the open source ecosystem would exist!)

Setting aside the categories of art and literature, training LLMs on FOSS software seems aligned with the spirit, if not the letter, of the licenses.

It does nothing to fix the issues of unpaid FOSS labor, though, but that was a problem well before the recent rise of LLMs.

I'm not sure it's very well aligned with the spirit of copyleft licenses.

> FOSS software seems aligned with the spirit, if not the letter, of the licenses.

Yeah, only if you look at permissive licenses like MIT and Apache, it most certainly doesn't follow the spirit of other licenses.

There is no "from scratch" for "AI". Claude will read the original, launder it, strip the license and pass it off as its own work.

Your fork works, so why are you so unhappy? You can always publish you diff to help other people if you really want to do so.

Indeed, LLMs cannot do truly novel thinking, and the laundering analogy is spot-on.

However they're able to do more than just regurgitating code, I can have them explain to me the underlying (mathematical or whatever) concept behind the code and write new code from scratch myself, with that knowledge.

Can/should this new code be considered as derivative work, if the underlying principles were already documented in literature?

They can regurgitate explanations as well as code. I'd strongly recommend doing actual research: you'll find better (less-distorted, better laid out, more complete) explanations.

"You used AI!" is now being weaponized by project maintainers who don't want to accept contributions, regardless of how innocuous.

A large C++ emulator project was failing to build with a particular compiler with certain Werror's enabled. It came down to reordering a few members (that matters in C++) and using the universal initializer syntax in a few places. It was a +3-3 diff. I got lambasted. One notoriously hostile maintainer accused me of making AI slop. The others didn't understand why the order mattered and referred to it as "churn."

I don‘t want others to get trappend, hence I‘ve unpublished my fixes. I‘ll also migrate to another software as I clearly have no time dealing with such exclusive politics. There is no point in discussing with stubborn and brain-washed people, the only solution is to move forward and warn others.

That’s the reason I posted my comment.

That particular CoC is a colossal red flag that the maintainers are utterly deranged. This might actually be the worst CoC I've ever seen. Any CoC is a red flag, but people often get pressured into it, so it's a sliding scale.

It's pretty funny that they say "We are not interested in input from right-wingers, nazis, ... or capitalists." and then say they're open to corporate sponsorships. If they want to be consistent they'd only be open to government or individual sponsors, not corps.

Yeah that’s what I was getting at

The "spirit" of FOSS licences the various sorts of ideas that lead to the GNU project and the FSF in the 80s, and all that user-freedom-fighting heritage.

I think even critics of the GNU project and the FSF would have to admit that as historically accurate. I can only presume, then, that your comment is based on a lack of awareness of the history of FOSS licencing.

Perhaps a read of this would be a good start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License