Technology

So, first, that’s definitely satire. Look at the names of things, like Definitely Real, Inc.

Second, I think open source will continue to thrive, we just need to ensure AI slop is avoided.

For my own projects (and anyone else’s if they’d like), I’ve written a very comprehensive human-only contribution policy:

https://sciactive.com/human-contribution-policy/

If projects adopt policies like these, we can safely guard open source projects from the slop.

didn't court recently rule that AI works couldn't be patented or copyright protected? Meaning if malus.sh is for real anyone using that service should be ironically donating results to public domain, OR anyone leaking produced code to public can't be held liable. 🤷‍♂️

When I look at this website, which seems to be intended as a serious project and not a joke, to me it kind of feels like it would be the end of FOSS… https://malus.sh/ Is it just me?

This is satire but its satirizing something very real.

It might be the end of GPL-type licenses. But, at least as far as I've understood it, the point of copyleft was to use copyright against itself in the first place, because copyright sucks, and at the end of the day we don't really want copyright OR copyleft. They're both asserting "ownership" of stuff that honestly belongs in the public domain free to all humans to use (in an ideal world, that doesn't contain evil corporations that are considered people for some reason). We already know copyleft open source has been widely abused in proprietary software. This is not new nor surprising. We gave them the richly deserved middle finger whenever we could find out they did it before, and we hate it, but it was never "the end" of open source software because making it publicly available is precisely the defiance we are ultimately aiming for and we will always do that no matter how much they steal it and make it closed source.

People making closed source software are the enemy, and our war of freedom against them continues regardless of what tactics they use to demean our efforts while they make their closed source software. We will never let them win. They think they've found a new way around the GPL, that's a shame, but so be it. The arms race will continue, but open source will not go away, because the point of it has nothing to do with meekly relying on the law to allow open source to exist, that's just a method that has been used, with some success, and allowed a lot of people to turn it into a livelihood, and it will be a terrible shame to lose that.

Those things are not the true goal of open source though. The intention of open source, is to not let proprietary, hidden software dictate the fate of humanity and we will do it for as long as we have to. We'll do it if we're protected by copyleft, we'll do it if we're not. We'll still do it even if they make it illegal, and we'll call it reverse engineering, hacking, and piracy if we have to. Because the information and code that humanity relies on must be free, not owned.

It strikes me as a joke/sarcastic jab at the industry.

Tired of putting "Portions of this software..." in your documentation? Those maintainers worked for free—why should they get credit?

...and suddenly your entire proprietary codebase must be open sourced. The horror!

Through our offshore subsidiary in a jurisdiction that doesn't recognize software copyright

I'm surprised anyone could take the site seriously.

The other side of that is that any leaked proprietary code could also be reverse engineered and vibe coded

Some will argue that what we do is exploitative, that we are extracting the ideas from open source while leaving behind the people who contributed them. To this I say: yes, that is a reasonably accurate description of our business model. It is also a reasonably accurate description of every company that has ever used open source software without contributing back, which is to say, virtually every company that has ever used open source software. We are simply being honest about it, and charging a fee for the privilege.

I don't think it's satire.

If it's not satire, then calling it "malice" is too on-the-nose.

Wait, this makes no sense. Just ask your AI to write the libraries you need rather than clone an existing project

I wonder if it can also convert binaries. Put a copy of Oracle through it and watch the shenanigans.

Also wonder whether they can generate movies the same way. Put in a DVD and a completely new movie comes out, with the same plot, characters, etc., but with all the names and dialogue changed and the actors are replaced by deepfakes that look different.

Fwiw look up "derived work".

IANAL❤️

(I haven't even read the post, I just found funny whatever that mean)