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GitHub Copilot is generally available

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Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#681

Post by account42 »

dahart wrote: post #607
lsh123 wrote: post #555

I assume that Copilot uses open source projects on GitHub to “learn” what to suggest. Some of these projects might be under, say, GPL v3. A developer uses Copilot for a commercial project and Copilot insert a complete function from a GPL v3 code into this project. Someone notices this and sues the commercial project for breaking GPL v3. Will GitHub pickup the tab?

> Someone notices this and sues the commercial project for breaking GPL v3. I know what you mean, but silly nit pick since you mentioned “commercial” twice - GPL v3 does not prevent commercial use, it only requires copies to be open source. For someone to notice the project has copied code and not be inside the company, the code would (probably) have to be open source. So, this hypothetical is less likely to happen t…

> I know what you mean, but silly nit pick since you mentioned “commercial” twice - GPL v3 does not prevent commercial use, it only requires copies to be open source. For someone to notice the project has copied code and not be inside the company, the code would (probably) have to be open source. So, this hypothetical is less likely to happen than your comment makes it sound.

The are plenty of source available or open core projects where use of GPL-ed code would both be visible and incompatible with the licensing.

> Oh yeah, and I just remembered that GitHub’s Terms already carve a necessary exception to whatever license you use in your project, to allow Github to host & display your code. I assume those terms already include some CoPilot coverage…?

Letting github host and display the code is compatible with open source licenses but is very much different from letting third parties incorporate that code into non-open codebases.

> If not, and if they aren’t legally covered already (which I bet they are), then they could change the terms to stipulate that hosting code on GitHub bars people from suing over incidental amounts of automated copying. Main point here being that the GPLv3 license on your project is neither the only nor the primary license governing GitHub’s relationship with your code.

GitHub TOS can only possibly give them authorization from those directly uploading code to GitHub. They don't give github any additional license for code that was uploaded by a someone else (for example a mirror bot) becose that someone does not have the rights to give out that license.

And even if they write in their TOS that they can do whatever they want it does not mean that they can actually legally do whatever they want - even moreso when retroactively changing those terms.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#682

Post by saimiam »

ALittleLight wrote: post #646
scifibestfi wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be your estimate for how much time it saves?

One example of Copilot saving time - the other day I was trying to remember how to access a value from a map in Go. This doesn't take much time - alt tab to browser, ctrl + t for a new tab, type in "golang get value from map", click on a stackoverflow result, scroll down, glance at the result, alt tab back to IDE, and do it. With Copilot, Copilot knew what I was trying to do and suggested the right code to me and I a…

I don’t think the average brain works like this. If you know you have a piece of code to deliver or are in flow, I don’t think you’d willingly start browsing HN just because you went to SO to c&p some boilerplate code.

I find that if my brain is willing to be distracted, it’s made some sort of calculation saying that the cost of being distracted isn’t going to have a significant bearing on deliverables…and I’m pretty sure I’m no better or worse at estimations than anyone else.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#683

Post by ascorbic »

runeks wrote: post #672
ascorbic wrote: post #655

I've been using the beta since last year and I love it. I think most of the people complaining about it either haven't used it, or are judging it on its most verbose guesses. That's not what I use it for mostly. For me, it's just a really, really good autocomplete. It's best for things with common patterns and APIs. But hey, they're common so I write them a lot. Boring stuff like creating a Response object, adding th…

How much time would you say it saves you per day? Ie. how much more productive does it make you? I’m curious whether we’re talking 5% or 30%.

Well I'm not coding all day so closer to 5%, but for anyone earning over $200/month that should be worthwhile.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#684

Post by saimiam »

haspok wrote: post #664
Uehreka wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the desire to ask that question, but it also feels like the main thing Copilot saves me is energy, which can’t be quantified in a very useful way. You’ll just have to take our words for it. Like, writing a really boring unit test might only take 60 seconds, but if Copilot can do it for me (even if I have to quickly scan it for correctness) that saves me… well something other than 60 seconds. It sure feels like…

Why write that boring unit test at all? If it is not only boring, but also automatically generated, then what value does it add to the code? I would argue it actually _decreases_ the value, because you now have that much more code to maintain and understand. 90% of unit tests people write are garbage according to my experience.

This take is too reductionist. Every website ever has a boring unit test called “Is it up?” where you check if the site is still working after a deployment.

Boring and repetitive but of infinite value if you can detect early that your deployment broke something.

If a boring/boilerplate unit test like this can deliver value, other b/b unit tests are probably going to similar impacts and hence, saying they all “decrease” value is reductionist.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#685

Post by account42 »

zarzavat wrote: post #595
Longlius wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willful copyright infringement for monetary gain can be prosecuted as a criminal act in the United States (and many other countries including Japan) and it's highly possible Github themselves can end up in hot water for facilitating this.

You and I have a different understanding of “willful”. If you’ve used copilot you’ll know that the vast majority of the time it’s not infringing anybody’s copyright, it’s creating code that is highly unique to the problem you are trying to solve.

All output of machine learning algorithms is derived from the training set. There is no creativity, just lots of complexity. What that means legally has yet to be fully determined.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#686

Post by account42 »

tedunangst wrote: post #535
presentation wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't make purchasing decisions based on the value they create but rather based on some ingrained assumptions about how expensive software is supposed to be. VSCode and many other complex pieces of software are free, autocomplete is built into my OS, and those subscription consumer software that does have a price usually are priced very low—so relative to those, $10/month feels like a lot (even though I h…

You'd think "very smart" programmers would be equipped to do basic cost/benefit analysis. If it costs $900 and provides $1000 in value, that's $100 more than not buying it.

You'd think "very smart" programmers would be equipped to consider additional factors such as the cost of getting reliant on a tool controlled by a single vendor as well as the effects on other things that they care about. You'd think they also understand that people are not machines and reducing a task by a certain time does not neccessarily mean that they can get that much more work more done overall.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#687

Post by jlelse »

jwpapi wrote: post #386

I’m honestly shook at all the comments here. I don’t make any money coding and I’m probably in the lower 25% of HN readers in terms of skills, but I’m more than happy to pay $10/m. I would pay Github $10/m for what they already give me. What is your time worth? You should easily get $60/hr, so you need to save 12 minutes per month to make it worth. I would pay that for all my employees. CoPilot is not a replacement f…

$60/hr? Maybe in the US, but really uncommon even in western countries like Germany.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#688

Post by wilde »

The thing I like about Copilot is that it breaks the “static friction” I have when I’m sitting down to work on my side project. It makes me more likely to get started.

That said, launching a dev tool without Orgs integration seems dumb. I work for a FAANG and so can’t use this professionally. It’s a totally different price calculation for “programming as entertainment”. Is this worth more than Netflix to me?

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#689

Post by matsemann »

skinnymuch wrote: post #669
matsemann wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're just doing the same: reading something that's not there and accusing me of insinuating stuff...

> “I find you having to write 3 long paragraphs of bullshit about that to be the truly astonishing thing here” What I wrote applies. An argument could be yours is diff because of specifying it is bullshit. Yet that’s what most responses are about. A mix of statements like: “why do you care so much”/“lol you care so much” or “wow you really wrote that much” or “your long writing is all BS and excuses”. I don’t want to…

> What I wrote applies

No, it doesn't. I didn't write the type of come-back you're arguing against. I didn't write "lol you care so much" or anything to that effect. You're just making up straw men.

DantesKite wrote "I don't think that's true." when I explained what I meant about a comment, and then spent three paragraphs twisting my words and making up a story about what I wrote. Which is dishonest, I know what I meant better than they. Me pointing out that they spent three paragraphs arguing in bad faith isn't me saying what you're accusing me of.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#690

Post by account42 »

LegitShady wrote: post #148
nimbius wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from Microsofts standpoint the shot across the bow for open source licenses is clear: do you have enough lawyers and experts to convince a gerontocracy of the legislative branch of the US government that its not "okay because its AI" because if you dont, then thanks for the code nerd.

it sounds like a good basis for a class action lawsuit, where the class are the people who own the licensed code whose license microsoft is ignoring.

Can't wait to get my three fiddy for my open source repos.
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