Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2025 18:04:17 -0800 From: paige@paige.bio To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Provisions to the contribution guidelines for using LLM generated code Message-ID: <49B92974-E37A-4786-A456-E258D5A1D35E@paige.bio>
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Hi there,=20 As y=E2=80=99all have probably heard AI is the new big thing in town and = people are at a bit of a loss for what it means. Despite the news about = the stock market sell off that came in the wake of the new DeepSeek = thing, I=E2=80=99ve actually been playing around with this thing called = Claude for the past couple of weeks and I=E2=80=99m still not really = sure what to think of it. I think it=E2=80=99s really cool to say the = least, but I still have a lot of questions myself.=20 More specifically, I=E2=80=99m not really sure at what point does using = something like Claude to create something like a native ExFAT filesystem = become an issue of attribution;=20 https://github.com/paigeadelethompson/exfat/tree/main/sys/fs/exfat it presumably created this based on the parameters in it=E2=80=99s model = (presumably, it is not actually known how Anthropic=E2=80=99s models = work because as far as I know that information is proprietary.) I = vaguely understand how it is able to do this and to the best of my = knowledge, it doesn=E2=80=99t plagiarize code but it does generate code = based on facts that it can find in it=E2=80=99s own model about ideas = which are potentially subject to patent restrictions. For what this is = worth, I think that people are going to find this to be incredibly = valuable regardless of whether or not it produces an exact desired = result. What it doesn=E2=80=99t get right the first time is often the = subject of something being really damn close.=20 I=E2=80=99m really just dumbfounded by how much it actually can do that = I haven=E2=80=99t even tried to compile this code for this filesystem it = created; it didn=E2=80=99t take me more than an hour of saying =E2=80=9Cye= s=E2=80=9D following the initial "I'd like to make an ExFAT driver for = FreeBSD in C can you give me the best starting point possible?=E2=80=9D = To be honest I kinda had to fact check it a couple of times, it wanted = to do things like implementing extattrs which this filesystem patently = doesn=E2=80=99t have. But as soon as I asked it, it seemed to know = exactly what I meant:=20 "No, you're right - I apologize for adding unnecessary complexity. The = ExFAT specification doesn't include support for extended attributes like = other filesystems (e.g., UFS or ext4). The only attributes ExFAT = supports are the basic DOS/FAT attributes we already have defined=E2=80=9D= And then it proceeded to make changes to remove the stubs and so forth = (which it may not have done right but I haven=E2=80=99t gotten that far = yet.) In fact, I don=E2=80=99t really feel like I can realistically move = forward with this (because I=E2=80=99ll have to fork $20 to get more = time out of it) but also I just don=E2=80=99t really know whether or not = this is okay. Obviously I want to say yes, but I get the impression that = some people might not be okay with this, especially if what it creates = is not well understood or violates copyright laws.=20 "Under U.S. law, you cannot patent an idea, but you may be able to = protect your idea by bringing it to life.=E2=80=9D As far as I know the = licensing for ExFAT is a little bit of a gray area. It=E2=80=99s = Microsoft=E2=80=99s patent, there=E2=80=99s a GPL implementation that = exists but asides from that I don=E2=80=99t know if it=E2=80=99s = technically okay to make another implementation that is licensed any = other way. I assume so, but it=E2=80=99s not unimaginable that even = simply ingesting an ExFAT filesystem could come with some kind of = stipulation. And I=E2=80=99m sure some people might even think =E2=80=9Cwhy would = you, there=E2=80=99s a FUSE implementation for this already=E2=80=9D and = you know because FUSE is FUSE and this is an implementation of ExFAT = that uses VFS. Also ExFAT/fuse does have problems but it works (sorta) = in a pinch. I=E2=80=99d personally be more interested in improving = something that is part of core FreeBSD than I would anything having to = do with a port that I have to install in addition to the OS itself in = order to use it. The reason why it matters; I just really like ExFAT. Virtually = everything now has native support for it out of the box except for UEFI = (they should, surprised Microsoft hasn=E2=80=99t pushed the standard to = adopt it given that .WIM files can certainly exceed 4.3GB on modern = versions of Windows. It just makes good sense to me to use it, even = though it=E2=80=99s not a journaled filesystem. Using parchive is not = lost on me, but I=E2=80=99ve seldom ever truly needed it even with = ExFAT. Maybe I=E2=80=99m not even really trying to drive this to completion as = much as I just needed an example and am just wanting to understand are = people already doing this? Is it possible that people have already done = this and nobody is really aware of it? I=E2=80=99d like to think if you = can then you certainly should but where do you draw the line, and should = there perhaps be conventions for keeping track of code in FreeBSD that = is produced by LLMs? Maybe there already is and I just haven=E2=80=99t = found it yet but it wouldn=E2=80=99t come as any surprise if there = weren=E2=80=99t given this is all still kind of novel. Either way I=E2=80=99= m sure there are things much more substantial than ExFAT worth trying, = but there should probably be something of an understanding about what is = and isn=E2=80=99t okay. I wonder if what we don=E2=80=99t know about = proprietary LLMs like Claude could potentially be an easily overlooked = problem that could have legal consequences later.=20 In any case I=E2=80=99m sure people will figure it out, but if anybody = was looking for a cue to discuss this I mean.. it=E2=80=99d be really = useful to me if FreeBSD supported ExFAT out of the box (especially since = I can=E2=80=99t get to my offline archive of the ports and it=E2=80=99s = distfiles without it.) The only available implementations at present are = GPL=E2=80=94 so can we just like=E2=80=A6 generate an implementation = with Claude and license it BSD? I honestly wish that my friend hadn=E2=80=99= t insisted on showing me this kinda because I hoped to avoid something = that I know is certainly going to have repercussions for the way things = are currently done, but I can=E2=80=99t unsee this and I feel like = I=E2=80=99ve been =E2=80=9Cdoing it wrong=E2=80=9D my whole life.=20 -Paige=
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