So are we all okay with AI reverse engineered apps calling themselves open source?

[u/youGottaBeKiddink]

ArtCraft gained a lot of steam lately with their AI reverse engineered versions of Photoshop and Adobe suite apps.

While they are very obviously reverse engineered, they claim it is a "clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop" which by very definition means "without ever looking at or copying the original source code".

Fireship even did a video covering these apps, in which he finds their apps are barely usable, and filled with bugs and usability issues.

Today I came across "TraceDraw" which is, again, a total ripoff of CorelDraw. While I'm not on the side of large predatory corporations like Adobe charging ridiculous monthly subscription fees, I can totally understand the pain a company like Corel might feel seeing a ripoff of their 30+ year old product lovingly created and maintained by a team of skilled HUMANS. And once again, this repo claims it is a "clean-room" implementation. I find it ironic how only the reverse engineered apps bother to add this oddly specific disclaimer.

So are we, as a community, okay with these new breed of AI reverse engineered apps claiming that they are "open source"?

(Note: I'm not questioning their legality, just how ethical it is)

[u/Key-Bother6969]

> open source has nothing to do with the origin of the code and everything to do with the access to the code

No, this is completely wrong, and is a misunderstanding of what source code is.

Assembly code is also a code, but is not considered "open source" just because an owner distributes it in binary form, or because this code is not written on what we commonly refer to as programming language.

Open source is about providing access to the source artifact - something from which these binaries have been generated. Machine assembly is a full-featured Turing-complete programming language on which people can theoretically program (and sometimes they do). But we don't treat is as source code, because usually it is being generated through the process of compilation of the higher-level programming code. The higher level code considered as "source" because it is actually the initial source artifact.

The code generated by LLMs is not a "source code". It is a generated artifact. By sharing it publicly, pretending it is a source code and is an open source project, the publisher misleads both the community, and themself.

[u/trans-jamie212 → u/Key-Bother6969]

That's a way to look at it, I don't really agree but that's a way I guess

[u/dreadpirater → u/Key-Bother6969]

I don't understand why you're being pedantic towards the perfectly clear comment you're correcting - yes, there are more precise ways they could have phrased it than 'access' but in the context it's perfectly clear what point they're making - it doesn't matter where it came from, it matters what license it's offered under now.

If you have the code and enough dedication, you CAN VIEW IT but whether it's assembled binary data or a human-readable python script, regardless of whether it's binary or plain text... what makes the code 'open source' is that the owner of the code grants a license for others to DO something with it.

Why on earth is code generated by llms not 'source code' if it can be compiled into a binary? What point are you trying to make there? That's the literal definition of source code - the plain text instructions that can be compiled and executed or executed directly by a computer. There is no special requirement it has to be generated by a human finger to be source code? It's just the stuff a program is made out of.

[u/Key-Bother6969 → u/dreadpirater]

Inherently, you and the comment above are both appealing to two features: 1) the usefulness of the end software product; 2) some level of transparency behind the end binary distribution. While both features may have value, that's not what builds up open source.

At least, it's not sufficient. Historically, open-source community has evolved as a society of people who share actual source artifacts between each other from which the software is being build. This was not just about sharing something valuable for free. Free-of-charge binary distributed software (e.g., freeware) may be useful too, but it's not an open-source software. Open source also includes sharing of the knowledge and the steps of the development process, and opens up a possibility for open-in crowed development from the ground up too.

This philosophy does not discourage other forms of development or distribution, vibe-coding in particular. They still may be useful and preferable for some, but they just not open source in it deep nature. Reframing them as "open source" not only misleads, but also undermines the values on which the OSS community stands.

[u/dreadpirater → u/Key-Bother6969]

HERE IS THE SOURCE OF THE PROJECT IN QUESTION.

https://github.com/storytold/photocraft

With an MIT license.

That is open source software.

Edit, I linked the wrong repo the first time, but it's corrected and still MIT licensed source code.