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MBCooktoday at 1:58 AM1 replyview on HN

If we assume an u licensed or MIT licensed test suite, an LLM could develop from that and documentation and you’d get something you could license MIT.

IMO, IANAL, etc.

And we’ll ignore the question of what the fact the LLM has certainly seen the git code during training means.

But the test suite would have to stay under the original license. And if you use a GPL test suite as they kernel to develop a program from can you license it non-GPL? I’d question that personally. Same acronyms above apply.


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joshkatoday at 2:11 AM

This is the exact thing I'm not sure about. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48470397 where I posit a simpler question: if a `test_sum()` function is copyrighted, does writing a `sum(a, b)` function infringe on the copyright of the software product that `test_sum()` is a part of. I'd say no. There's another part of the GPL that applies here:

> A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.

So assuming that sum(a, b) is non-infringing and not combined to form a larger program (i.e. the tests aren't compiled into the grit code), then the GPL explicitly doesn't apply to this use

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