GitHub Copilot is generally available

Post by mtlynch » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 6:06 PM UTC

neysofu wrote: post #174

candiddevmike wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That money isn't going to the folks who wrote the code to begin with though. I think that's where "it should be free" has merit, GitHub is making money on the backs of others.

Why should the money go the to code authors in the first place? All training data is available under permissive licenses. Assuming you're not overfitting on specific code sequences (which would require attribution - and yes, I'm aware Copilot is not immune to this problem and it needs fixing), I'd say this is fair play.

Post by tiborsaas » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

2fast4you wrote: post #198

bluelightning2k wrote: post #100

My unpopular take: most comments here are super entitled. To paraphrase: "sure it's minblowing and the biggest productivity gain in years, but I want it FREE". Yes. You got used to it being free. And now it's not. But $10/mo is a steal. It's more than fair and far, far less than they could get. And no. They don't owe you anything. In fact, they probably host your code (often free), and less directly provide your IDE…

> ...it's minblowing and the biggest productivity gain in years... I wouldn't go that far. It's a pretty big help in repetitive/boiler plate code and it's pretty good at intelligently transforming data, but I've found it gets in the way more often than it helps for every other case.

Post by baumandm » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 6:10 PM UTC

presentation wrote: post #121

matthewmacleod wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It is completely valid, understandable, and reasonable to have a variety of different feelings and views about how specific code and specific licenses are used. This is particularly the case when we see the emergence of new technologies that use it in different ways. Different people may have a wide variety of equally valid views about how it is incorporated into that system. There's nothing inconsistent, confus…

I think the issue is not that it’s trained on open source code but that it’s trained on code whose licenses may not permit it. If you license your project in a permissive way then I don’t see a problem.

Post by causi » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #167

causi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The only reason it hasn't been utterly dogpiled by lawyers is that far fewer people care about code than other forms of IP. If I made an AI assistant called PhotoStar to help with digital art and it just attaches Big Bird's face onto a character in my children's book I'm going to get sued. "Hey now, I just hit paste , the software pressed copy by itself" is not going to hold up.

But if you made DALL-E and it just remixes images sourced from a broad scan of the Internet, filtered through several layers of machine learning indirection, you're all good.

Post by wtetzner » Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #183

candiddevmike wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That money isn't going to the folks who wrote the code to begin with though. I think that's where "it should be free" has merit, GitHub is making money on the backs of others.

That's how any business product works. Whenever a company releases a new product, the income doesn't go to the employees; It goes to the company, who will then pay those employees.