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doall | 4 years ago
> In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?
> Only when the program copies part of itself into the output.
As I understand, you need an explicit clause when you copy part of GPL code. Not sure for GPLv3. Anyway, I also recommend consulting a lawyer.
alok-g|4 years ago
In this case, unless shown otherwise, the assumption should be that the program is copying parts of itself to the output. Whatever the program is generating is likely to carry pieces which are a part of the program ... unless it is evident that the code being output is generated entirely from a separate part which is not under GPL.
The situation for Github Copilot [1] may be different where each output by it may be argued to be novel, however, even there the answer is not fully settled [2].
[1] https://copilot.github.com/
[2] Excerpt from [1] above: "Does GitHub Copilot recite code from the training set? GitHub Copilot is a code synthesizer, not a search engine: the vast majority of the code that it suggests is uniquely generated and has never been seen before. We found that about 0.1% of the time, the suggestion may contain some snippets that are verbatim from the training set. ..."