Notices by Bradley M. Kühn (bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org), page 3

@amszmidt

Where is “here” for you? If you know of a jurisdiction where these issues have been settled already in their highest Courts, I very much want to read about it! Please send a link!

I apologize that I assumed you were talking about the USA — since you were talking about cases from the USA Ninth Circuit, I assumed (reasonably) you were talking about the USA.

Also, all major AI companies are in the USA, so what happens here is (possibly sadly) most relevant
@hajovonta @photex @downey

(2/3) … the monkey photo case has a very different fact pattern to any of the cases currently making their way through the Courts.

As I wrote when all this started back in 2022, #MIcrosoft is attempting to manufacture consent that the behavior of the industry is either permitted by fair use and/or produces only public domain works.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/feb/03/github-copilot-copyleft-gpl/
I hope folks won't just spread the industry's unquestioned rhetoric for them.

…

Cc: @amszmidt @hajovonta @photex @downey

(3/3) …
Likely, these issues will be highly fact-dependent. If we're lucky, some appeals Court will give us a “test” (perhaps building on the the Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test we already have for literal copying of software (See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison_test>), and that new test will be actually adopted by SCOTUS as well.

Until we get there, the answer to all these questions is: “Reply hazy, try again [in a new Court case]”.

Cc: @amszmidt @hajovonta @photex @downey

@amszmidt
(1/2)
As one of the leaders who has been Cc'ed on parts of this thread, the idea that I was too busy to read a thread I was cc'ed on for ≈1hr is pretty unfairly classified as “not listening”.

The idea that output of an LLM-backed generative AI system is public domain by default and in the general case is not supported by law or facts at this moment.

This issue (& many related issues) are being litigated heavily, none have been heard by SCOTUS …
Cc: @hajovonta @photex
@downey

@evan

I love that quote about how “only 100 people bought the original pressing of Velvet Underground's album. And every one of them started a famous band.”

Maybe your child will start a famous band, too?

Also, if you don't know it already, Lou Reed's 1989 comeback album, _New York_ encapsulates the broken politics of the 1980s (that brought us to the even more broken ones od today) perfectly musically.

@dalias I'll bite. How did they write up the citation for the Unabomber?

I'm starting to feel the #Epstein Related Work cringe (to coin a term to go alongside #EpsteinClass). I freeze up when I see someone citing the scientific work of people we now know hung out with Epstein.

I miss the 2019-2025 blissful ignorance when I could fool myself into thinking it was *just* Minksy who was, as the MIT report called him, “Epstein's best friend”. But it's so many of my once-heroes.

I saw the best minds of my generation hang out on a sexual predators' island. 😩

#UndoneCS

Note I don't blame people who need to cite prior work. & that's really the problem. The work is important, but hard to separate it from actions of the badly behaved person who did the work — particularly when they're your contemporaries.
I have always had a similar reaction to, e.g, Thomas Jefferson as the primary author of the _Declaration of Independence_ while owning other humans and refusing to liberate them.
But Jefferson was dead centuries before my birth. These folks were my colleagues.😬

A reminder to everyone that if you're awake (still middle of the night in USA), you can watch @undonecs gratis. Sadly it's a proprietary software streaming service, but the organizers worked really hard to organize the event. If I come next year, I'll volunteer to help do FOSS streaming next year.

https://fediscience.org/@undonecs/116274076967611227

This conference is covering topics that everyone should hear if you work in tech. Check it out!

#UndoneCS #FOSS #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #copyleft #GPL

The mental health toll of #Trump & his nihilist cronies — while small when compared to the murders they commit — is nonetheless palpable damage to all.

Since our Constitutional right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” has effectively been suspended, I'll focus exclusively on my #FOSS work. My whole adult life, I never outright ignored world news,but for my own mental health I must — at least until I've an idea on how to start a non-violent revolution.

I came to the upthread conclusion as I have been trying to work & my mind drifts over and over again to the 1983 song “Let's Start a War” by the British #punk bank, The Exploited. I hadn't actually *heard* the song in probably 12 years, so I thought listening to it 2x might help…
https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=krTlXSTYu9k
… but it did not.

What is the point, I decided, of trying to understand implications of these events if ∃ absolutely nothing I can do to solve the primary problem?

#Trump

@bortzmeyer overheard at #FOSDEM
> “There is a guy who does a lot of work to help the fediverse and to push people toward it. His name is Donald Trump.”

This statement contains multitudes b/c #TruthSocial is a fork of #Mastodon. Initially, $DJT violated the #AGPLv3, but AFAIK they now comply with the license. I examined the fork & they primary code they added was an advertising platform. Obviously it doesn't have federation turned on.

Cc: @jzb

#GPL #FOSDEM2026 #FOSDEM26 #copyleft #AGPL

Thanks @BrodieOnLinux for promoting #SFC's fundraiser yesterday:
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=WBHDB4RGqPg

We know this is a tough time to ask folks to donate, but pls help!

We hope folks can make a donation for this stretch match as we approach #FOSDEM. You can even come by our stand at FOSDEM & donate cash in EUR or USD, but if you'd like to donate by bank transfer or credit card, please visit https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer/ *NOW*.

You decide if #SoftwareFreedom Conservancy continues our work in 2026.

#OpenSource

Hey, weird Mastodon question to #AskFedi. If I post something "Followers only" and @-mention someone who *doesn't* follow me, do they get to see it? (What I am looking for *is* "my followers, plus anyone I explicitly @-mention), but not sure if that's what #Mastodon's "Followers only" does or not.

(I realize this is a bit "hey would you net.search this for me" too, but I just worked an 18 hour day so give me a break. 😛 )

@aral

AFIAK, SFC have the only #FOSS conference in existence that criticizes sponsors for their bad behavior each day in the opening remarks.

When was the last time #LinuxFoundation admitted publicly that their giant list of event sponsors are often bad actors? 2012, I think?

Some companies won't sponsors SFC events b/c they don't want to be criticized like this. #SFC's integrity is not for sale; if you buy ☕∀ our attendees, you gotta live with public-stated list of grievances.

cc: @karen

@skyfaller

As for LLMs, I do have some ideas of what #copyleft-@next can do to deal with the issue and how it impacts copyleft in general.

I'm hoping to work more on this after the #Vizio trial is over.

#SFC

@crk5 Thanks for this. I trained for ≈2 years in ASL — thinking I might become a translator. In mid-1990s — when I thought that it was impossible to get a #FOSS job & I was planning a career that would never mandate use of a computer. (ASL interpreter is a good choice in that regard.)
For years, I thanked people using ASL sign for thank-you, until a hearing person pointed out to me: in (as many deaf ppl call it) “hearing sign language”, ASL sign of thank-you often means ”🤬 you”.

Cc: @starlily

@starlily

My ASL teacher in the 1990s told us a story of one his clients asking him “do you also speak hearing sign language?” as they wanted translations for the various hand motions they saw hearing people doing all the time.

He reported the client was quite surprised to learn random hand motions for hearing people had all this contextual meaning and that it differed so much from ASL.

cf: how French Sign Language is closer to ASL than BSL is.

Cc: @crk5

@starlily

These days, my vocabulary has atrophied in ASL, so I basically only drop into ASL when I'm around hearing people and the situation makes it impossible for us to communicate (too far away, too loud an environment). I'm always suddenly reminded in that situation that hearing people don't actually know ASL, so even YES/NO, "it doesn't matter", "I need your help over here" and other basic signs are useless with most hearing people.

Cc: @crk5

It really does amaze and disturb me how many in the #FOSS community seem to idolize people who resort to pettiness, name-calling, and outright cruelty against their political opponents.

I realize that's the politics of our age, of course, I mean, I live in the USA.

I guess what I need to admit to myself is that FOSS politics are not actually any better than the mainstream politics in the Zeitgeist.

I wish we in FOSS could all find the better angels of our nature.