LLM policy

[Greg Troxel]

"Regina Obe" <lr at pcorp.us> writes:

I'm going to try to be brief about the larger CoC discussion.

> For example if we think that everyone refers to people, does that mean I
> can't bring my video camera to an event.

It means that the CoC does not say it's improper for an event to say no
cameras.  It means that you have no basis for a CoC complaint when there
is such a rule and you don't like it.  It means that cameras are not
entities receiving protection.

Sort of related, fairly typical CoC (conference specific) says everyone
(humans) has the right not to be recorded, or invasively recorded.

> Just like other things allowed in, that camera deserves to not be mutilated
> by someone who happens to not like cameras.

The standard view is that it is improper to destroy other people's
things.  This is generally law, so the CoC is redundant.  You are of
course welcome to your view that "[object] deserves", but I see that as
very unusual and not generally accepted.

> Ultimately the purpose of a code of conduct is to help increase the value of
> our work for the world in the most efficient way and to welcome valuable
> resources into our community.

Some think that, and some see it as a codification of a group norm of
courteous and non-discriminatory behavior because that courtesy is
morally correct independent of whether it helps the project's value or
it doesn't.  (The reality is uglier, but I'll leave it as theory.)

>> LLMs are only being talked about specifically because essentially
>> everything else you are calling about as bad is near-universally
>> considered not ok.  For example, if we had people who were
>> interacting wtih postgis in order to gain trust and plant a
>> vulnerability (xz style), then we'd say that wasn't ok, and we would
>> almost certainly not be having a debate.
>
> I fail to see the difference here.

I just meant that there are behaviors outside our existing norms, and we
don't talk about them much because we all agree the behaviors are not
ok.

LLM use is under discussion because some think it is outside existing
norms or that it should be outside norms, and some think it's ok.

> Agree, except we don't allow any stolen work period whether it be LLM or
> someone who stole code from another project that doesn't allow code copy.

Then, I think we agree that under *the project's existing rules*

  1) any code which was not written by the submitter must be identified
     as such, with a stated author/authors, and submitted only if all
     those authors have consented to licensing the contribution under
     the project's license.

  2) LLM-generated code is not acceptable, unless it was generated

     a) by a model using only training data that is licensed for LLM use
        *which includes permission to reuse without attribution or any
        licensing text*, and includes only data for which there is true
        consent, not via a fraudulent claim of expected-not-to-be-read
        clickthrough license as part of some larger service

     b) (probably, but arguably the existing rules do not prohibit
        antisocial behavior by contributors) not produced by an
        organization that engages in abusive scraping.  Arguably abusive
        scraping is a CoC violation as it is harassment of humans who
        manage other web systems, and/or vandalism.

Because there are not any code-generating LLMs that meet 2(a) it follows
that LLM contributions to the project are not allowed.

This should then be straightforwardly clarified, as those that like
using LLMs seem to be willing to adopt differing interpretations of
existing rules.