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I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

thelig.ht

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Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#341

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

na85 wrote: post #290
xunn0026 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Back when free software was strong, it would have been a good thing for society since Microsoft was selling software in boxes on actual store shelves. Now 'the edge' is already mostly open source. All the lock-in and value has moved into either infrastructure or in software you don't even get to touch since it runs in the Cloud and you just provide IO to it.

I think in this new era of endless security breaches at cloud firms and M1-style processing innovation we'll see a slow but steady migration away from the cloud.

I used to think like this but the total cost of ownership of on-prem is substantially higher, and it has its own security implications too.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#343

Post by dcolebatch »

na85 wrote: post #290
xunn0026 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Back when free software was strong, it would have been a good thing for society since Microsoft was selling software in boxes on actual store shelves. Now 'the edge' is already mostly open source. All the lock-in and value has moved into either infrastructure or in software you don't even get to touch since it runs in the Cloud and you just provide IO to it.

I think in this new era of endless security breaches at cloud firms and M1-style processing innovation we'll see a slow but steady migration away from the cloud.

I’m going to take the other side of that prediction:

Endless security breaches will encourage firms to do “less IT” themselves and accelerate the adoption of SaaS solutions (and PaaS, with no/low-code etc.)

Also, perhaps not a massive driver but still, not for nothing: M1-style processing innovation (ARM) will see more developers creating for ARM servers, because they can, which will almost exclusively be run by the hyper scale cloud providers.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#344

Post by CameronNemo »

_ofdw wrote: post #155

Feels like everyone is missing the point: Copilot will ultimately serve to weaken the arguments in support of software patents and copyright. That can only be a good thing for society (though perhaps not for rent seekers).

The arguments are already weak. The judicial precedent, however, is strong. Microsoft will continue to publish proprietary ML models and profit off them, at the expense of the corpus authors (us lowly laborers).

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#345

Post by supergirl »

how well does copilot respect licenses? I'm willing to bet it accidentally ingested some GPL code and will be spitting it out at some point. would that be allowed by GPL?

also, someone could deliberately obfuscate the license text to fool it but still be clear enough for humans. something like "License: if you use this source code to train a bot then you must obtain a commercial license, otherwise MIT license applies". bot searches for "MIT" and thinks it's safe.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#346

Post by noobermin »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #177
_ofdw wrote: post #155

Feels like everyone is missing the point: Copilot will ultimately serve to weaken the arguments in support of software patents and copyright. That can only be a good thing for society (though perhaps not for rent seekers).

Surprised I had to scroll so far to find this, given how copyleft and straight-up anti-IP so much of the open source community is. I think a lot more people on this site (and in the FOSS community in general) would be on board with Copilot if it respected viral licenses, e.g. if it had a way of inferring that the code it was copying verbatim were GPL-3 and warned the user that including it in their project would requ…

Honestly, that would fix every issue with it. The laundering of the license is the issue.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#347

Post by lispm »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #281
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is certainly fascinating to see people start running away from " information wants to be free " and other Free Software principles full tilt when, all of a sudden, it's their livelihoods that are on the line. Unless my recollection is off, the GPL was never the goal of the original Free Software movement; it was merely a tool to get to the end state where all code becomes available for use by anyone for any reason…

Your recollection is off, majorly. I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. The entire movement essentially got started because Stallman gave Symbolics his (public domain) Lisp interpreter, then Symbolics improved it but refused to share the improvements. "No restrictions" has never been the goal and to claim that they're egoistic hypocrites who are just scared for their own livelihood because of…

Stallman did not gave Symbolics his Lisp interpreter.

Symbolics had a license for MIT's Lisp system.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#348

Post by Denvercoder9 »

krono wrote: post #296
jefftk wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have a lot of open source code that I love to share for things like education or private stuff, but if you want to use it for something real, you need to hire me. If you can suck all the code without even I noticing it, that's not fair Co-pilot aside, that's already how it works today. If you make something open source, I can use your code to power my business, and I'm under no obligation to hire you. It's great wh…

> If you make something open source, I can use your code to power my business "Open source" isn't a license. You're not allowed to just use any open source software that doesn't contain a license by default.

The conventional definition of "open source" is software licensed under a OSI-approved license.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#349

Post by okamiueru »

breck wrote: post #295
wcerfgba wrote: post #31

I'm glad that Copilot is bringing the grey areas of copyright into discussion. If I write a book and it is copyright, what's the smallest unit which is covered by that copyright? Each word is obviously not. Some sentences will be fairly generic and I will not be the first person to write them. But some sentences will be characteristic of the work or my own style. Clearly how we apply copyright to subdivisions of an o…

This. You realize it doesn’t make any sense. All ideas are shared creations, by definition. If you’ve created something that has meaning for other people, the meaning comes from the ideas you are incorporating into your own tree. There is no defending copyright. It is indefensible from first principles. It makes no logical sense. Though it sure has proven to be a profitable con.

I recognise your comments from several different threads, and I'm wondering if you might not be working against your own ideals. The GPL license is intended to persuade other sources to share their contributions when building on top, which I assume is what you would like to see happen. If everything is GPL then everything is open source, everyone can use anything, including training AI methods, etc.

The problem posed with copilot is in fact the opposite. By taking it to its logical conclusion, this might make it possible to disregard this effort and use GPL code on your private project.

Re: I do not agree with Github's use of copyrighted code as training for Copilot

#350

Post by CameronNemo »

teflodollar wrote: post #297
_ofdw wrote: post #155

Feels like everyone is missing the point: Copilot will ultimately serve to weaken the arguments in support of software patents and copyright. That can only be a good thing for society (though perhaps not for rent seekers).

If all copilot output was automatically GPL, I would think it’s fantastic. As it stands, it seems to undermine GPL the most.

They should really have trained models based on the license, so a GPL-2.0-only model, 2+, 3+, 3 only LGPL 2.1(+), CDDL, MIT, et cetera.

As it stands, the combined inputs leaves the model in the most murky of gray areas.

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