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Legal Issues with 3.0 #16

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@pzauner

Your 3.0 plan is to study Pastiera’s code referenced in 2.x Physiboard, turn what you learn into a specification, rebuild the same product from that specification, and then claim in LICENSING.md that every line of 3.0 is yours to license commercially. Calling the specification “the only bridge” does not make it independent of the work used to write it.

Two issues come to mind here: a) if an AI agent produces substantial parts of 3.0 autonomously, the output does not automatically give you a new copyright to license; and b) if the agent is effectively translating or refactoring protected parts of Pastiera, changing every line does not automatically remove the rights in the underlying work.

While I do not agree with every broad claim Chan-jo Jun makes about AI-generated software, I agree with him regarding his concern about machine rewrites of existing code. This applies 1:1 to the process you propose. An instruction to an agent to keep its eyes on a specification is neither evidence that a human authored its output nor that the output is free of rights in the software from which that specification was prepared.

Pastiera includes copyright-protected contributions by its authors, including mine. What, concretely, will support your claims of independent authorship and the right to offer a commercial licence for the whole of 3.0? Why pursue this route instead of working with us upstream?

AI transparency: I used an AI assistant to help draft this comment. I reviewed and edited the text myself.

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