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GitHub Copilot is generally available

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Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#751

Post by [deleted] »

blip54321 wrote: post #614
IncRnd wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since people and github are contemplating repeatedly infringing, is there an avenue to increase these damages? This seems like repeated and willful infringement.

It's not willful by the users of copilot. Damages would be low since it's easy to show that users have no intention of infringing, and in most cases, aren't aware they're infringing. If liability sits somewhere, it's with copilot, github, and Microsoft. A lot of that might come down to bedside manner. Right now, github isn't super-polite to people whose code it used. That's probably a mistake. They'd be a unsympathet…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#752

Post by rmbyrro »

stale2002 wrote: post #742
rmbyrro wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - The benefit to you (10 minutes programmer time) That's an incomplete view. You're judging the value by the time it'd take to rewrite it. The real value is in knowing what to type and why. When Co-pilot suggests you a GPL code, it's main value is the knowledge , not the typing. That piece of knowledge may have taken a LOT of effort from an OSS team to acquire. Depending on the context, this knowledge would be wort…

> Depending on the context, this knowledge would be worth millions. Worth a lawsuit. But it probably won't be worth millions of dollars. And that is why the lawsuit wont be worth it. > That piece of knowledge may have taken a LOT of effort from an OSS team to acquire. Anything "may" be possible. But it probably won't be worth that much.

> Anything "may" be possible. But it probably won't be worth that much.

I'd suggest to get more information about the repercussions associated with appropriating GPL code into proprietary closed source.

This is a big deal. You may have to license your entire codebase under GPL if you incorporate GPL code and distribute it.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#753

Post by rmbyrro »

blagie wrote: post #706
rmbyrro wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're providing Copilot for free for OSS maintainers.

OSS maintainer here. No. They're not. They're advertising that they are. They are providing it to a very small set of high-profile OSS maintainers some opaque algorithm picked out. Having high-profile adopters is just good business.

Perhaps they chose maintainers from OSS projects they scanned?

I'm not defending Microsoft's market tactics, for obvious reasons, but we do have to consider that anyone can publish whatever insignificant code as OSS and become an "OSS maintainer" out of nothing.

They have to draw the line somewhere. Nowhere they draw will make everyone happy.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#754

Post by rmbyrro »

jlpqu wrote: post #716
blagie wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSS maintainer here. No. They're not. They're advertising that they are. They are providing it to a very small set of high-profile OSS maintainers some opaque algorithm picked out. Having high-profile adopters is just good business.

Exactly. They are bribing the project leads so they can then say that scanning is approved and voluntary.

Didn't OSS maintainers already voluntarily approved such uses when they published their work under an OSS license?

One fundamental aspect of being open source is not limiting the purposes of use. If we now say that "code-generation AI training" is not allowed without prior approval (in addition to the license itself), then it's not open source anymore...

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#755

Post by rmbyrro »

bovermyer wrote: post #718
rmbyrro wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't your forgetting issue something that spaced repetition would solve while also building confidence in yourself?

Spaced repetition doesn't help with the use case of needing to recall lots of little details spread across a wide number of knowledge domains. You'd spend more time trying to remember everything than on actually doing useful work. Also, that little "building confidence in yourself" rider that you added suggests that you think the OP doesn't have confidence in themselves. Careful about those assumptions; in this case…

> Also, that little "building confidence in yourself" rider that you added suggests that you think the OP doesn't have confidence in themselves.

They certainly do have confidence, but it doesn't hurt building upon it. I don't think confidence is a discrete 0 or 1 variable. It's a continuous variable, from 0 to infinity.

By the way, I made a question, not a statement. I welcome the argument on whether it's worth the time to memorize the stuff Autopilot can autocomplete. That's something to measure and debate.

> Careful about those assumptions; in this case it comes across as a little patronizing.

Thanks for the heads up. This is important. But I didn't make any assumption. It seems maybe you made an assumption about me making an assumption?

If that's the case, don't worry as I did not feel patronized.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#756

Post by jameshart »

Klathmon wrote: post #745
jameshart wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m already terrified how many developers have been working on proprietary code bases with copilot, having an extension in their editor upload all their employer’s proprietary code to Microsoft, who then share it with OpenAI - then they’ve taken code OpenAI and Microsoft sent back to them, of unknown authorship, and added it into their code. And now those devs are going to have to go to their boss and explain all the…

I mean if your code is already hosted on Github, your builds done by github actions, and/or issues managed by github issues, it's not like giving MS that same code back is going to increase "liability" at all.

Setting aside the possibility that not all code is actually hosted on GitHub; If your code’s hosted in a GitHub account owned by your company, under terms vetted by legal… but then you sign up personally for copilot and in that capacity you upload the same code to GitHub under terms and conditions your corporate legal team have no visibility into? You might have a problem.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#757

Post by rmbyrro »

alexeldeib wrote: post #704
rmbyrro wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't your forgetting issue something that spaced repetition would solve while also building confidence in yourself?

I find it’s less about actually forgetting and more about all the mundane details I usually bounce around a codebase to find. What’s the third argument to that function again? Oh, copilot autocompleted it correctly. It’s not always right but it’s right enough it’s a big timesaver.

> Oh, copilot autocompleted it correctly.

That assumes I once had the knowledge of what is "correct".

I just don't quite remember it right now. Then I rely on Autopilot to complete it.

Sometimes I may not feel sure enough to judge whether Copilot is right. I'll need to dig the documentation anyways.

Other times I'll feel sure. But in how many of those I'll be wrong? And what will be the consequences?

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#758

Post by eat_lemons »

anon2020dot00 wrote: post #14
zelphirkalt wrote: post #9

Does Copilot already display the licenses of the code it might insert/suggest, or assure the developer, that the inserted/suggested code is not a verbatim copy of existing code? How can developers be sure, that they are not violating licenses by using Copilot?

My sincere question is what if a developer looks at some GPL code, and then that developer encounters a situation in a corporate project where-in he uses the GPL code from memory, is that already a violation? So to avoid a violation a developer needs to perform a mind-wipe?

There are many instances of people not even being able to see the code in question, see clean room engineering

An example for wine/proton/reactos developers from a moderator on the forum about the leaked windows xp code:

"You look at the code? You worked for MS? No dev for us! It's that easy."

https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20189

There are many instances of large lawsuits where just seeing the old code made you in eligible to even touch the new code

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#759

Post by rmbyrro »

blagie wrote: post #705
rmbyrro wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't your forgetting issue something that spaced repetition would solve while also building confidence in yourself?

No. Spaced repetition is a good tool for learning vocabulary. It's not a silver bullet / holy grail / MacGuffin / etc. There's a community of people obsessed with spaced repetition. None of them seem to have accomplished spectacular feats of learning. There's a good reason for that. (The flip side, however, is that many people who have accomplished spectacular feats of learning DO often use spaced repetition, but amo…

Could you please help me understand further? I found this a bit contradictory:

> None of them seem to have accomplished spectacular feats of learning

> many people who have accomplished spectacular feats of learning DO often use spaced repetition

---

Second note:

> Spaced repetition is a good tool for learning vocabulary.

This might be a misconception? The first ever published paper about spaced repetition was about vocabulary.

But research has shown its merits are valid for many other types of knowledge.

By the way, memorizing coding vocabulary is arguably similar to human language vocabulary.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#760

Post by eat_lemons »

kromem wrote: post #451
matsemann wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it perhaps be you not coding for a living (and being lower in skill as you say) that make you think it's worth it? For me the bottleneck is seldom typing. And while Copilot can sometimes dish out some more advanced stuff, I still have to verify it and understand it. Since I can basically solve every problem I encounter day-to-day, Copilot's contribution is not that useful.

I code for a living and have done so for over a decade now, and I completely agree with their analysis. Does it save you $10 worth of your time within a month? Comments here are wildly uninformed. I see comments complaining about copyright that seem to have no awareness of either fair use doctrine prior law as it relates to partial usage nor the details regarding how infrequently Copilot generates identifiable verbat…

Counterpoint look at the bios lawsuits that IBM won against people who had just seen IBM's code

Or the windows xp leak and how that is a mess for wine/proton/reactos devs

There is no concept of fair use in code copyright

Copilot is 100% a ask for forgiveness later sort of project

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