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All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

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Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#121

Post by whimsicalism »

lukeplato wrote: post #93
neom wrote: post #87

Curious what the consensus is on how GH should have approached this to avoid such blowback. Best case scenario, they explained in advance on the GH blog they're going to be doing some work on ML and coding, and they'd like people to opt into their profile being read via a flag setting/or put a file in the repo that gives permission like robots.txt? Second best case scenario, same as first but opt out vs opt in, and l…

They should have only used code from projects that included a license that allow for commercial use or made their model openly available and/or free to use

How does attribution work then?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#122

Post by fragileone »

jensensbutton wrote: post #98

Wouldn't it be the people publishing code written with Copilot that (potentially) violate any licenses? It doesn't seem to be that the tool violates anything, though it may put the _user_ at risk of violating something. Like, don't use it if you're worried about violating licenses, but I don't see how Microsoft could get in trouble for the tool. It doesn't write and publish code by itself.

Microsoft are violating the licenses already when they initially show you the generated code without attribution and ignoring other license restrictions. How you use it yourself is separate from that.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#123

Post by whimsicalism »

neom wrote: post #111
BlueTemplar wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code (co)created with Copilot has to follow all the licenses of the source (heh) code. This generally means at the very least automatically including in projects getting help from Copilot a copy of all the licenses involved, and attribution for all the people the code of which Copilot has been trained on. (Not sure for the cases where there is no license and therefore normal copyright applies, but AFAIK this isn't th…

So I guess then, the first thing they should have done, is trained it to understand licenses, and used that as a first principle for how they built the system?

Is it a derivative work of GPL licensed work if it is trained on the license? Is the GPL license text under GPL?

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#125

Post by _Understated_ »

lukeplato wrote: post #103
_Understated_ wrote: post #92

Ok, my curiosity has been fired here... I have conjured up two scenarios here: Let's say I use copilot to generate a bunch of code for an app, something substantial, and it regurgitates a load of bits and pieces from many sources it got from GitHub, I'd assume there won't be any attribution in it... it will be as if Copilot made the code itself (I know it sort of does but lets not split hairs!). I'm guessing the prev…

Copilot is a commercial paid service that generates money for Microsoft

Yeah, that bit I realise but the point I was getting at is this: if I take someone else's code, use chunks of it in my app, say that it's mine and make money from it is that not illegal? Or, at least in violation of the license?

Superficially at least, Copilot (from my understanding) is "copying" code, letting me use it in my app, and making money from it.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around it.

Let's be clear, I am not a lawyer, but it seems... strange!

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#126

Post by Spivak »

bananapub wrote: post #26
Yoric wrote: post #13

Out of curiosity, how do we define license violation in that case? I, as a human being, have trained by reading code, much of which is covered by licenses that are somehow not compatible with code I'm writing. Am I violating licenses? Asking seriously. It's really unclear to me where law and/or ethics put the boundaries. Also, I'd guess it's probably country dependent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design sometimes? it's enough of an issue that companies explicitly avoid it by having two teams.

Clean room design is a technique to avoid the appearance of copyright infringement. If the courts were omniscient and could see into your mind that you didn't copy then there would be no need. Why this is relevant is because we can see into the mind of copilot. Whether what it does it considered infringement I think will come out in the details.

If the ML model essentially is just a very sophisticated search and helps you choose what to copy and helps you modify it to fit your code then it's 100% infringement. If it is actually writing code then maybe not.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#127

Post by wpietri »

_Understated_ wrote: post #92

Ok, my curiosity has been fired here... I have conjured up two scenarios here: Let's say I use copilot to generate a bunch of code for an app, something substantial, and it regurgitates a load of bits and pieces from many sources it got from GitHub, I'd assume there won't be any attribution in it... it will be as if Copilot made the code itself (I know it sort of does but lets not split hairs!). I'm guessing the prev…

I think you're right. Especially given that Copilot can reproduce significant blocks of code: https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309

Famous code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root#Overv...

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#128

Post by MayeulC »

rvz wrote: post #94

It's been admitted again. This contraption by GitHub is really causing chaos in the open source world and has been trained upon all public GitHub code; essentially those who have their code hosted there publicly, gave them permission to train copilot on their code. Now they are complaining about it after all these problems [0]. I warned against hosting source code on GitHub and going all in on GitHub Actions, mainly…

Well, if you write software under a free license, you can't really prevent someone from uploading the source on GitHub...

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#129

Post by laurowyn »

Could this be the beginning of the true test of open source licenses? My understanding is that there has never been a ruling by a court to give precedence to the validity or scope of any open source license. I can see a class action suit coming on behalf of all GPL licensed code authors.

Re: All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot

#130

Post by BlueTemplar »

ssivark wrote: post #64

Calling it “public” code feels like doublespeak. It’s most definitely NOT public domain code — it only happens to be hosted on GitHub and browsable ( but not copyable ) by people. “Source available for viewing” is very different from “public property” as the phrase is commonly understood: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_property

Interestingly, it is copy able... but only on GitHub ! ("forkable")

That's some nasty walled garden terms... I wonder how much these kinds of ToS are actually legal ?

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