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GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

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Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#251

Post by dwheeler »

tyingq wrote: post #76

"We found that about 0.1% of the time, the suggestion may contain some snippets that are verbatim from the training set" If it's spitting out verbatim code 0.1% of the time, surely it's spitting out copied code where only trivial things are different at a much higher rate. Trivial things meaning swapped order where order isn't important, variable/function names, equivalent ops like +=1 vs ++, etc. Surely it's launder…

It's not just the GPL. Almost all open source software licenses require attribution; without that attribution, any copy is a license violation.

Whether or not the result is a license violation is tricky legal question. As always, IANAL.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#252

Post by pjfin123 »

ralph84 wrote: post #153

I get the sense that GitHub wants this to be litigated so the case law can be established. Until then it’s just a bunch of internet lawyers arguing with each other.

Why would you want to? For many open source developers having models trained on your code would be desirable.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#253

Post by bastardoperator »

goodpoint wrote: post #27

What is more concerning is that the training kernel belongs exclusively one private company. Microsoft. It can become a massive (and unfair) competitive advantage. Furthermore, Copilot will not work with less popular languages and also prevent popular languages from evolving.

Is this true? Looks like they're using the OpenAI Codex which is set to be released soon:

https://openai.com/

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#254

Post by CharlesW »

rbarrois wrote: post #239

An interesting impact of this discussion is, for me: within my team at work, we're likely to forbid any use of Github co-pilot for our codebase, unless we can get a formal guarantee from Github that the generated code is actually valid for us to use. By the way, code generated by Github co-pilot is likely incompatible with Microsoft's Contribution License Agreement [1]: "You represent that each of Your Submission is…

> This means that, for most open-source projects, code generated by Github co-pilot is, right now, NOT acceptable in the project.

For this scenario, how is using Co-Pilot generated code different from using code based on sample code, Stack Overflow answers, etc.?

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#255

Post by fredros »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #235
brundolf wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was somewhat worried about that until I saw this: https://twitter.com/nickjshearer/status/1409902649625956361?... I think programming is one of the many domains (including driving) that will never be totally solved by AI unless/until it's full AGI. The long tail of contextual understanding and messy edge-cases is intractable otherwise. Will that happen one day? Maybe. Will some kinds of labor get fully automated be…

64-bit floats should be fine; I think that tweet is only sort-of correct. The problem with floats-storing-money is (a) you have to know how many digits of precision you want (e.g. cents, dollars, a tenth of a cent), and (b) you need to watch out if you're adding values together. Even if certain values can't be represented exactly, that's ok, because you'd want to round to two decimal places before doing anything. Is…

Storing money as float is always a bad decision. Source: been working for several banks and faced many of such bugs.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#256

Post by sanderjd »

pjfin123 wrote: post #250

I think this would fall under any reasonable definition of fair use. If I read GPL (or proprietary) code as a human I still own code that I later write. If copyright was enforced on the outputs of machine learning models based on all content they were trained on it would be incredibly stifling to innovation. Requiring obtaining legal access to data for training but full ownership of output seems like a sensible middl…

Reposting a summary of my reply: if you memorize a line of code and then write it down somewhere else without attribution, that is not fair use, you copied that line of code. If this model does the same, it is the same.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#257

Post by willseth »

jordemort wrote: post #84
rjp0008 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet this as applicable as the Facebook posts of my parents friends something like, 'All my content on this page is mine alone and I expressly forbid Facebook INC usage of it for any purpose.'

I'm not sure why it would be any less binding than any other license term, except for possibly the ToS loophole that invokestatic points out below.

It's not binding because the other party hasn't agreed. You agree to terms when you use the site. One party can't unilaterally change the agreement without consent of the other party.

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#258

Post by mikewarot »

I think the argument has merit. Unfortunately it won't be decided on technical merit, but likely in the manner expressed in this excellent response I saw on Twitter:

"Can't wait to see a case for this go in front of an 80 year old judge who rules something arbitrary and justifies it with an inaccurate comparison to something nontechnical."

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#259

Post by wg0 »

If I read a lot of GPL code, absorb naming conventions, structures, patterns, tricks and later when it comes down to writing a P2P Chat server, I happen to recall similar patterns, naming structures, conventions and many of the utility methods are pretty much how they are in the GPL code bases out there.

Now is my produced code is also GPL derivative because I certainly did read through the code base to be able to write larger programs?

Re: GitHub Copilot as open source code laundering?

#260

Post by Avamander »

willseth wrote: post #257
jordemort wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why it would be any less binding than any other license term, except for possibly the ToS loophole that invokestatic points out below.

It's not binding because the other party hasn't agreed. You agree to terms when you use the site. One party can't unilaterally change the agreement without consent of the other party.

Someone might have published a project I've contributed to, on GitHub. There's no permission.
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