[kwlug-disc] Copyright avoidance as a service

[Chris Irwin]

So one of my concerns with "AI" tools (quotes for Khalid) is using them 
to break copyright/copyleft licensing concerns.

This is no longer theoretical: Python's Chardet relicensed from LGPL to 
MIT recently. This was done by asking AI to reimplement the older LGPL 
code, then claiming to be released from the license legacy of that code. 
The author of that older LGPL code disagrees.

     https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/06/ai_kills_software_licensing/


What does this mean for a hypthetical company who wants to use an FLOSS 
library, but in commercial closed-source code. There's a service for 
that, apparently:

     https://malus.sh/

     Finally, liberation from open source license obligations.

     Our proprietary AI robots independently recreate any open source 
     project from scratch. The result? Legally distinct code with 
     corporate-friendly licensing. No attribution. No copyleft. No 
     problems. 

It claims to be an AI-based "clean room".

Interestingly, I guess this can swing both ways:

     https://mahloughs.xyz/

     Legally turning closed-source projects into open-source through 
     clean-room de-obfuscation. No theft. Just logic liberation.

That project claims to analyze closed-source software, and provide 
open-source code as output. It appears to be a direct response to malus. 
(I'm not sure if this is a real thing, it's got a wait list, and 
apparently works based on you sharing GPU-compute for them to do this 
work)

-- 
Chris Irwin

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
   web: https://chrisirwin.ca