Coding Agents Could Make Free Software Matter Again

Re:Coding Agents Could Make Free Software Matter Again by tpmoney on Monday March 30, 2026 @11:29PM (#47582426)

> If that is the case, then copyright holds no weight any more. I should be allowed to train an LLM on decompiled firmware (say, Playstation, Switch, iPhone) in countries where decompilation is legal - then have the LLM produce equivalent firmware that I later use to build an emulator (or competing open source firmware).

It's funny you mention that, because one of the biggest fair use cases that effectively cemented "fair use" for emulators is Sony Computer Entertainment Inc v. Connectix Corp.[1] where the copying of PlayStaion BIOS files for the purposes of reverse engineering and creating an emulator was explicitly ruled to be fair use, including running that code through a disassembler.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_I....

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Re:Coding Agents Could Make Free Software Matter Again by zephen on Tuesday April 07, 2026 @05:53PM (#47681821)

That's a bit different.

- The ROM was used to build the emulator (which didn't include the ROM but was only able to use it like any other hardware)

- Then the ROM was used to derive a specification and do A/B testing on (similar to Phoenix BIOS), and a different team coded a replacement ROM

There is no cleanroom inside an LLM.

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