This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright
People > Companies ❤️ - programming.dev [Unofficial]
April 21, 2026
submitted by cm0002 to opensource
12 points | 2 comments
https://www.404media.co/this-ai-tool-rips-off-open-source-software-without-violating-copyright/
> Malus, which is a piece of “satire” but also fully functional, performs a “clean room” clone of open source software, meaning users could then sell, redistribute, etc. the software without crediting the original developers. But I have a hard time with the “clean room” argument since the LLM doing the behind-the-scenes work has already ingested the entire corpus of open source software – and somehow the output of the LLMs isn’t considered a derivative work.
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