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Give up GitHub: The time has come

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Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#451

Post by yucky »

natefinch wrote: post #440
yucky wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound like the value of code creators is going to soon see significant downward pressure.

I'm sure that's what people said when they went from punch cards to assembly, and from assembly to C, and from C to Java.... and yet, here we are. Tools that let us write higher level code faster, just allow us to create more complicated software in a reasonable amount of time.

I think the argument is now it takes considerably less brain power to do, thereby increasing the labor pool and devaluing the output.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#452

Post by zzo38computer »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #445
zzo38computer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Fossil. It has some advantages: 1. Hashes are computed without adding any additional headers, so it will be the same as computing the hash normally. 2. The /raw capability is a good thing to have. 3. The deck format is not bad. 4. The command-line interface is less confusing than git. 5. It is written in C. It isn't perfect, but it is more than good enough. (If I do have to change it, I would do "Generalized Fo…

I've read this comment a few times and even unsuccessfully googled /raw and deck format, and this still sounds like GPT-3 to me.

Fossil does not call it the "deck format", although libfossil and Generalized Fossil both do so. The /raw interface allows accessing a raw file (including decks) by its hash or branch name, over HTTP(S).

See [0] for the Fossil deck format. (Generalized Fossil uses the same format, but any combination of cards is allowed, as long as there is exactly one Z card, and not more than one W card; they must still be in the correct order with no duplicates. There are many other details too (e.g. "subrepositories", which can allow you to optionally make decks unparseable in some subrepositories), most of which will not be mentioned in this comment, but I will say that it is mostly a superset of the ordinary Fossil format, except that ordinary Fossil allows cards to be in the wrong order in some circumstances (specifically, technote edits in some versions) that Generalized Fossil does not allow.)

See [1] for an example of the /raw interface (in this case, a mirror of one of my own projects; however, this will work on any publicly accessible Fossil repository). The name "trunk" at the end of the URL is the branch name; you can compute the SHA-1 hash of the returned file and substitute that in place of the word "trunk", and you will get a permanent link to that version. The lines starting with F are the files in that version; each line has the file name, and then the hash, and sometimes another field specifying file mode ("x" means executable). Substituting the hash of the file in the end of the URL will access the contents of that file. The line starting with P has the hash of the previous version; you can put that in the URL to access the previous version.

(In at least one case, I have used this /raw capability to download a single version of a Fossil repository. It is a simpler interface than using /xfer, if you do not have Fossil installed on your computer.)

[0] https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/fileformat.wiki

[1] http://chiselapp.com/user/zzo38/repository/freeheromesh/raw/...

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#453

Post by redredrobot »

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #370
_gabe_ wrote: post #175

This article doesn't compel me to give up github. It seems like it basically talks a lot about how proprietary software is evil and then complains about Copilot. Then it drops this: > GitHub's business model has always been “proprietary vendor lock-in”. How is this Github's business model? Unless you're using Github specific features like Github actions and workflows, it's fairly easy to switch to another Git based h…

> it's fairly easy to switch to another Git based host. > if you want to convince people to give up Github you should at least be prepared to give an alternative that offers a great deal of feature parity. These can't both be true. In fact Github is hard to switch away from, because of all the Github features. This is the lock-in. Github then monetizes this by charging for large files ( https://docs.github.com/en/rep…

They can both be true. It's can be easy to make the switch and still difficult to convince people to do it if the alternatives are simply crappier.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#454

Post by sangnoir »

nojito wrote: post #434
ssddanbrown wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of the code to its users vs Freedom of the users of the code

There's no difference. Freedom is freedom. Adding qualifications to it inherently makes it less free.

Whose freedom a license guarantees is a fundamental difference, as the freedoms can be in conflict.

Which is a freer society: one that restricts late night partiers from playing loud music in residential areas, or the one that does not?

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#455

Post by zzo38computer »

naikrovek wrote: post #320
josephcsible wrote: post #122

> If it is, as you claim, permissible to train the model (and allow users to generate code based on that model) on any code whatsoever and not be bound by any licensing terms, why did you choose to only train Copilot's model on FOSS? For example, why are your Microsoft Windows and Office codebases not in your training set? This is my favorite question about Copilot ever.

I want to know what stuff you guys are putting in public GitHub FOSS repos that you don't want replicated in any way... I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently. Each and every opponent of Copilot is the best developer ever, I guess? That said, I don't understand the choice to use GPL for any reason, so maybe I'm not equipped to under…

I think GPL is a good idea (and ensures that everyone is having the freedom from a modified version of the code, and other things that it protects users from), but there is some problem too, such as I think it can be complicated to deal with.

For this reason, I had idea to make up a new license (although I will not write most of my ideas here but will do so elsewhere). But, its main working would be: mostly you can do whatever you want (including omitting attribution and copyright notices) without worrying about the license, but you cannot use legal processes (such as lawsuits, DMCA, etc) to prohibit these freedoms to any downstream recipients (regardless of how many). The license would also ensure patents can be used freely, disclaimer of warranty (if the license is included in the copy and the recipient has not paid for the copy), and some other things to ensure freedom (although there can be some restrictions on the use of trademarks (e.g. to avoid false advertising), and some things to avoid working around the freedoms in certain ways). You can be forgiven any number of times, though; the license will not be terminated. Furthermore, for a practical reason of license compatibility, relicensing by GPL3 and AGPL3 (and possibly also CC-BY-SA 4.0, for works other than computer programs) are also allowed, as long as you have a copy of the source code and can satisfy the terms of those licenses.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#456

Post by natefinch »

yucky wrote: post #451
natefinch wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that's what people said when they went from punch cards to assembly, and from assembly to C, and from C to Java.... and yet, here we are. Tools that let us write higher level code faster, just allow us to create more complicated software in a reasonable amount of time.

I think the argument is now it takes considerably less brain power to do, thereby increasing the labor pool and devaluing the output.

That's still 100% true of the examples I mentioned. There's always a higher level to consider. When we moved to C, we could stop worrying about what registers we were using. When we moved to python/Java we could stop worrying about managing memory. When we moved to web frameworks we stoping writing the guts of our servers. And if anything, programmers have become even better paid, despite so many more people in the industry.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#457

Post by benwaffle »

longrod wrote: post #212

I find it very strange that the same HN crowd that loves open source and wouldn't touch anything proprietary with a 10 foot pole has so many reservations against moving off of GitHub. I am not generalizing here, just surprised. According to what I have seen in my short experience, HN should have ditched GitHub long since. Anyway... I have always been curious as to why the largest hosting for OSS isn't open source its…

The problem with a lot of other proprietary platforms is that you don't own your data, so it's not easy to migrate to something else. With git, it's trivial to `git push` to a different platform if you decide to move off of GitHub. And you can at least get your issues out via the API. I think for this reason, as well as network effects, is why many people here are more accepting of GitHub over other proprietary platforms.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#458

Post by justjosias »

naikrovek wrote: post #320
josephcsible wrote: post #122

> If it is, as you claim, permissible to train the model (and allow users to generate code based on that model) on any code whatsoever and not be bound by any licensing terms, why did you choose to only train Copilot's model on FOSS? For example, why are your Microsoft Windows and Office codebases not in your training set? This is my favorite question about Copilot ever.

I want to know what stuff you guys are putting in public GitHub FOSS repos that you don't want replicated in any way... I also want to know why people think their code is so special that no one else could have ever come up with it independently. Each and every opponent of Copilot is the best developer ever, I guess? That said, I don't understand the choice to use GPL for any reason, so maybe I'm not equipped to under…

Also note: Copilot violates the attribution requirements of permissive licenses like MIT as well. Even if you put your code on GitHub with the intent of it being freely used in proprietary software, attribution is still a fair demand.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#459

Post by janosdebugs »

natefinch wrote: post #441
sossles wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point does AI recreating patterns it has seen from reading source code count as a derived work? What if a human learns to code by reading only GPLed code, does all the code they write fall under GPL as a derived work now?

Some interesting reading: https://felixreda.eu/2021/07/github-copilot-is-not-infringin... https://fossa.com/blog/analyzing-legal-implications-github-c...

There's one thing I'm missing from all these discussions and posts: is the generated code even copyrightable? IANAL, but code snippets often fall under the "scènes à faire" doctrine (everybody would do it in a similar way), in which case it's not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc%C3%A8nes_%C3%A0_faire

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#460

Post by janosdebugs »

yucky wrote: post #438
natefinch wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a setting on GitHub that blocks any suggestions that exactly match code in the training set. I doubt you'd ever get in trouble for code that was similar in structure but different variables etc from existing licensed code (especially since most small snippets of code are not terribly unique to begin with).

It does sound like the value of code creators is going to soon see significant downward pressure.

The hard part about writing code isn't "how to write a for loop" and similar trivial things. Copilot make this process faster, but the hard part is still organizing your code so that it doesn't become a steaming pile of cowdung a few iterations down the line. That Copilot does not do for you.

So, unless you are a code monkey punching code into autogenerated skaffolding all day, your job is safe.

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