infinity ag said:

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Logos Stick said:

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infinity ag said:

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Logos Stick said:

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infinity ag said:

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Dirt 05 said:

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How is this not copyright/patent infringement?

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It is. You cannot just replace Photoshop with a replica and sell it. If you tried it, Adobe will sue your pants off.
I guess it is okay for educational purposes and to experiment. Not to profit from.

But the AI sunshine-pumpers won't tell you that.

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He's not selling it. It's free.

Being free is irrelevant as far as copyright infringement. No idea what you are talking about.

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If it is free, they can still sue saying this chap is ruining their business by copying their IP.

Bottomline, you can't pull this stunt.

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LOL, that's what i said.

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Which is what I said earlier.

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You did not say that earlier.

You said this: "It is. You cannot just replace Photoshop with a replica and sell it. If you tried it, Adobe will sue your pants off."

This was not sold. AND is a conjunction. Selling it has ZERO to do with copyright infringement!

So far their photoshop knockoff is pretty good, it's done what I needed with little issue.

The PDF app has some bugs, there are certain letters from PDFs that I've exported from AutoCAD that don't render properly.

infinity ag said:

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WestHoustonAg79 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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You are missing the point, which is that the intellectual prowess needed to vibe code is not high.

Of course a person would need to understand Photoshop, or any other subject matter, in order to correctly instruct the LLM on what functionality to create. That goes without saying. A "B" level student who knows the ins and outs of Photoshop could do what this developer did.

That person doesn't need to be a cum laude engineer graduate, far from it.

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I built my ultimate work all-in-one app and I don't know the first thing about coding…

That was back earlier this year when it was 10x worse and before corporate America locked down the AI stuff. Isn't worth me going out to use that tool on my own bc you can now spin it up nearly one shot prompted.

Wild times.

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You had fun. Cool.

Now try selling the slop you created. Go ahead.

PS: I honestly don't know why I am defending filthy corporations and slimy CEOs since I hate and despise them so much.

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Why would he sell it? It's his own software that he built that increases his personal productivity and makes his job easier. He never wrote it to sell.

Also, the Dev in the OP is not selling what he did either! Get that thru your head.

Sort of missing the point of copyright around here. I understand the importance of protecting your marks and trade dress, but if there's no one monetizing your IP rights, you're just stuck spinning your wheels. Big difference between what's going on now (i.e. with this AI Adobe stuff) and what was going on many years ago (i.e. the "music industry" suing to shut down Napster).

Do Quickbooks next, so we can exile Intuit to the annals of history where they belong.

ThunderCougarFalconBird said:

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Sort of missing the point of copyright around here. I understand the importance of protecting your marks and trade dress, but if there's no one monetizing your IP rights, you're just stuck spinning your wheels. Big difference between what's going on now (i.e. with this AI Adobe stuff) and what was going on many years ago (i.e. the "music industry" suing to shut down Napster).

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Copyright protects a particular expression of an idea, not the idea itself. For software there are generally two theories of protection, on the actual code and the design of the interface. If the vibe coding just replicates the functionality, then there is no copyright protection over that. If the menus and UX are similar, that's where Adobe would have some claims.

I'm gonna make my own Texags and have a lib-based politics board!

GeorgiAg said:

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I'm gonna make my own Texags and have a lib-based politics board!

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We already got that. It's called Reddit.

They have also released versions of word, excel, PowerPoint, and autocad.

What is the difference between this new free thing and what's been available for a long time in the open source world like Gimp, Inkscape, LibreOffice, etc.?

This seems like some guy saying he's figured out a way to kind of approximate a free but kind of wonky Honda Civic when there's free Toyota Camrys sitting right there in the parking lot.

Logos Stick said:

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infinity ag said:

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WestHoustonAg79 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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You are missing the point, which is that the intellectual prowess needed to vibe code is not high.

Of course a person would need to understand Photoshop, or any other subject matter, in order to correctly instruct the LLM on what functionality to create. That goes without saying. A "B" level student who knows the ins and outs of Photoshop could do what this developer did.

That person doesn't need to be a cum laude engineer graduate, far from it.

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I built my ultimate work all-in-one app and I don't know the first thing about coding…

That was back earlier this year when it was 10x worse and before corporate America locked down the AI stuff. Isn't worth me going out to use that tool on my own bc you can now spin it up nearly one shot prompted.

Wild times.

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You had fun. Cool.

Now try selling the slop you created. Go ahead.

PS: I honestly don't know why I am defending filthy corporations and slimy CEOs since I hate and despise them so much.

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Why would he sell it? It's his own software that he built that increases his personal productivity and makes his job easier. He never wrote it to sell.

Also, the Dev in the OP is not selling what he did either! Get that thru your head.

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Well to be fair. At the time it was super rogue and not on our enterprise versions (they didn't roll it out until 4-5 months ago). It was during that Claude revolution wave Q1 and I just moonlit it bc it was way too much fun and so legit.

Woke up one day and was live* on a website.app with encryption and kinda recognized I was prob in no bueno territory without really recognizing it bc it just kept building on itself.

Part of me wanted to roll off and sell a semi custom version to all our competitors which could scale nationwide fast if you got with the large public's. But I knew AI was improving at warp speed. And to my point, you can spin up a simple version of the concept with a one shot prompt for $100 compute probably.

And for you risk averse nerds. I'm 90% sure they are aware of the rogue build and they all gave everyone a 30 day grace period to get their act together and prep for Claude and perplexity enterprise rollout. Thus I feel ok to vaguely share here lol.

ErnestEndeavor said:

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What is the difference between this new free thing and what's been available for a long time in the open source world like Gimp, Inkscape, LibreOffice, etc.?

This seems like some guy saying he's figured out a way to kind of approximate a free but kind of wonky Honda Civic when there's free Toyota Camrys sitting right there in the parking lot.

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Uhhhh, it was created entirely by an LLM. An LLM is not a human, it's a neural network. The way it works is that a human provides the specs and functional requirements to the LLM and it generates the source code. That source in this case was Rust. It was then compiled and linked to run on Windows, macOS, and several Linux distros. LLMs can produce in minutes code that would take a human hours or days to write.

Those free programs mentioned were created by humans who spent a whoooooole lot of time and effort creating them, as did Adobe when creating the originals. That's a large part of why they cost as much as they do. The humans who created them were also very intelligent. The intelligence level needed to vibe code a copy of an application is much, much lower. That means LLMs have effectively multiplied the number of "programmers" substantially. Anyone with above average intelligence and the will and knowledge of a subject can code it up.

This is like a Starbucks barista building an Accord in a day that took Honda engineers three months to build.

AI has solved the coding problem.

Never mind, doing more research

Now I'm seeing the claims that this was a clean room version and just vibe coded. I'm not sure I buy that at all.

ErnestEndeavor said:

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Now I'm seeing the claims that this was a clean room version and just vibe coded. I'm not sure I buy that at all.

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Of course not....it's out there, free, on the internet. No need to buy it.

Your first paragraph is a complete misunderstanding of how the process works. No one rubbed the bottle and made a software product pop out. And it's a strawman.

Decompiling code to make a copy of it is highly illegal. Adobe would have already taken action. That's part of the reason why vendors don't bother obfuscating code like MIDL (not that it would matter if they did). Decompiling is not what was done here. And if it were that simple (and not illegal), that would be even EASIER! Load the EXE and DLLs into the LLM, decompile it, gen the source, recompile it and fix any bugs and presto you have Microsoft Office desktop for free! LOL.

Moving the code to the server won't help because it was not decompiled in.the first place. And more importantly, it doesn't matter because regardless of how the bits are split, the features and functionality are clearly visible and able to be articulated to the LLM. By your flawed reasoning, a replica of a cloud app could never be vibe coded.

Your first post was about humans - who did not decompile the Adobe code - creating functional alternatives to Adobe products which are now free. They did so by observing and using the Adobe product and then coding it up. So you admit that a human can do it, then turn around and claim that a human instructing an LLM to do it can't be done. That is illogical.

ErnestEndeavor said:

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Never mind, doing more research

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Don't bother. The argument is bunk regardless.

infinity ag said:

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Logos Stick said:

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infinity ag said:

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Dirt 05 said:

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How is this not copyright/patent infringement?

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It is. You cannot just replace Photoshop with a replica and sell it. If you tried it, Adobe will sue your pants off.
I guess it is okay for educational purposes and to experiment. Not to profit from.

But the AI sunshine-pumpers won't tell you that.

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He's not selling it. It's free.

Being free is irrelevant as far as copyright infringement. No idea what you are talking about.

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If it is free, they can still sue saying this chap is ruining their business by copying their IP.

Bottomline, you can't pull this stunt.

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Holy Batman. Sorry to kind of double reply.

Are you in software? Sounds like you are and fighting the good fight. As you should. Not here to be a dick at all.

You bring up an important and interesting piece of the puzzle. I ld like point out two thoughts.

1. I agree with both you and logo at the same time. You can't just semi clone a software and ship it. You'd be up to your eyeballs in liability. But also the guy is trying to prove a point and offer it free. This will continue to happen.

AND unlike the open source "Napster" era if you will, this is a situation that will quickly be unenforceable. IMHO, I think you'll see IP laws change drastically over the next decade. Point below explains why.

2. The entire high level thought I see (again just my opinion), is that many aren't understanding the shifting landscape here. Early adopters and even mid level technical desk job types can replicate the work these paid for software programs WITHOUT the need for them.

Need to photoshop something… quickly get it done while another agent is filling out a change order, listing agreement, subscription doc (any industry).

The LLM doesn't do native? Throwing this pasteable prompt or what roles our weekly with my company… use the new skill already preloaded to your system that does that for you.

In short: I think you're thought of vibe coding up a ****ty replica version of something while I agree with your position, is just not going to matter soon. And prob very soon.

The function and task the software does can be replicated without being remotely structured or set up the same way. UI is about to change drastically for that matter.

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Now if you have a patent on PDF file format. Or other more realistic examples than that. I have no take. This isn't my space. But I feel strongly of the above.

Real world example:

CRMs-

Many different sub based companies. All are sprinting to inject AI and have the best connectors/plug ins.

You can go design and build your own spun up hyper customized version of one that is AI native in an hour and frankly a full day for anyone that's brand new to messing with AI.

Exactly built to what is intuitive to your biz. How your team operates. And will actually adopt it. With almost zero long term cost.

Is salesforce or HubSpot gonna sue their balls off? No. Even if they tried to monetize it.

It's not about cloning the code or actual software. It's the function of that monetized software will be able to be done without it. And now.

Holy Batman rant I'm done. Sorry.

Ugh ETA: I also feel you might be thinking that … ya but these free clones code sucks and isn't secure yada yada. Also fair. But I think my overall thoughts cover that. No one is worried if you're spun up custom build is secure. (Codewise* bc it's an internal tool with a custom UI that's locked down with an enterprise AI account). You don't need to outsource photoshop at all anymore.