[colmmacc]

The four essential freedoms of the Free Software movement are ...

1. The freedom to run the program as you wish 2. The freedom to study how it works and modify it (which requires access to source code) 3. The freedom to redistribute copies to help others 4. The freedom to distribute modified versions, so the whole community benefits from your improvements

To my mind ... GenAI coding make all of these far more realizable, especially for "normal people", than CopyLeft ever has. Let's go through them ...

Want to run a program as you wish? Great! It's easier than ever to build a replacement. Proprietary or non-free software is just as vulnerable to reimplementation as Copyleft is.

Want to study a how a program works and to modify it? This is now much more achievable.

Want the freedom to redistribute copies to help others? Build your own version! It may not even be copyrightable if it's 100% generated (IANAL).

Want to distribute modified versions? yes! see previous.

I dunno; seems like generative coding can be as much a liberator as any kind of problem.

[skydhash]

Unless your idea of software is reduced to the set of todo app, I don’t see how your points hold. AI won’t give you Blender, Inkscape, Kicad, Emacs,… And the algorithms behind those are not secrets, it’s the cohesive vision behind the whole system that is hard.

People will still pay for Matlab, SolidWorks, and Maya because no one who need those will vibe-code a solution. And there’s plenty of good OSS versions for the others.

[alterom]

Sorry, but this seems to be so off-base (as well as naively optimistic) that I am having difficulty responding to this.

But I'll try nevertheless.

- >Want to run a program as you wish? Great! It's easier than ever to build a replacement.

Non-sequitur. Building a replacement does nothing for being able to run a program as you wish.

Nobody else is able to run your program as they wish unless you release it with a Copyleft license.

- >Want to study a how a program works and to modify it? This is now much more achievable.

Reverse engineering is more achievable.

Modifying a program, without having its source code, documentation, and a legal right to do so guaranteed by the license is (and always be) easier compared to not having those things.

- >Want the freedom to redistribute copies to help others? Build your own version! It may not even be copyrightable if it's 100% generated (IANAL).

So, that's not about redistributing copies. That's about building an alternative option.

I can download an Ubuntu image and get Libre Office on it with a click.

Go vibe-code me a Microsoft Excel running on Windows 11, please, and tell me it's easier.

- >Want to distribute modified versions? yes! see previous.

You're not even trying here.

One can't legally modify and redistribute copyrighted works without explicit permission to do so.

You keep saying "...but vibe coding allows anyone to create something else entirely instead and do whatever with it!" as if that is a substitute for checking out a repo, or simply downloading FOSS software to use as you wish.

- >I dunno; seems like generative coding can be as much a liberator as any kind of problem.

Now, that statement I fully agree with.

Generative coding is a liberator as much as any kind of problem is.

Headache, for example, is generally a problem. It's not a great liberator.

Neither is generative coding.

Now, you probably didn't intend to say what you wrote. And that's exactly why generative coding is not a panacea: the only way to say things that you mean to say is to write precisely what you mean to say.

Vibe-coding (like any vibe-writing) simply can't accomplish that, by design.