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GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

githubcopilotinvestigation.com

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Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#261

Post by mkr-hn »

arrosenberg wrote: post #215
beachy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github does plenty of stuff that you can't do. e.g. the contributions graph as just one example that comes to mind. That's not unfair, and not the basis for a lawsuit, it's just business. > Copilot is not only making money off of open-source, they are making money off of open-source in a way others can't. Of course! That's why MS paid squillions to buy Github.

Its anticompetitive and illegal (if the government ever decides to start prosecuting people under those laws again).

There's a sizable fully adult cohort in tech who are young enough to, at best, have vague memories of Microsoft's antitrust troubles and not get why this is such a big deal. Tech history education could be better.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#262

Post by Andys »

jacooper wrote: post #191
Andys wrote: post #173

If you're against Copilot as developer, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Locking up code under non-permissive licenses stymies the pace of code development and increases the costs of progress dramatically. We all stand on the shoulders of others before us. Including the organisations that stand to benefit the most from aggressive licensing.

Not my problem. I put my time and my effort to open source a program for free and I want to make sure that my code creates an incentive to create more free software, by using a copyleft license.

Oh, so you're saying Copilot doesn't actually go far enough. It should not only give you code snippets but enforce particular licensing of the code it is helping you create?

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#263

Post by tiborsaas »

ipaddr wrote: post #2

Doesn't really explain how co-pilot is stealing your community. I've used co-pilot and it works great until you are past boilerplate than it falls apart.

It doesn't, it's just a very easy to relate to argument.

Generating snippets of code has nothing to do with a fully functional software package/product/service and an organic community around it.

One might argue that a community could be more easily formed thanks to co-pilot because it increases developer productivity and lower the effort to contribute so OS projects actually benefit from co-pilot. If this sounds far fetched, then probably the first case is also similar.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#264

Post by rafaelero »

klllai wrote: post #187
Andys wrote: post #173

If you're against Copilot as developer, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Locking up code under non-permissive licenses stymies the pace of code development and increases the costs of progress dramatically. We all stand on the shoulders of others before us. Including the organisations that stand to benefit the most from aggressive licensing.

Copy & paste isn't "standing on the shoulders of others". It is more like being an intestinal parasite.

If Copilot was just a "copy and paste" tool very few people would find it useful and you wouldn't be here whining. So don't worry, Copilot is not just copying and pasting.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#265

Post by thorncorona »

olliej wrote: post #90

I feel "stealing your community" is lawyer hyperbole, but people also seem ok with what MS is doing with copilot, and I am not. If you think what copilot is doing is ok, and there is nothing wrong with it, I'd love it if you could go through this small thought exercise, and see if it impacts your view at all: Say you write a bunch of code, and release it under GPL. For the sake of argument imagine it is something com…

> Another person is trying to solve this problem in some commercial software. They find your code, copy-paste it into their project, then sell their software and don't release the source, or even acknowledge you.

Let's be honest, copy-and-pasting happens all the time. In software, in engineering, in marketing, in everything. Whether people acknowledge it or not.

Everyone looks at Stack Overflow all the time. You do it. I do it. Nobody reads the licensing terms. We all produce software with reskinned and taped together functions. A collage is still unique, creative, work despite being glued together with other people's art.

Most songwriters will write a song with a part like someone else's song.

The products you buy at a store are rip-offs of someone else's product.

Everybody stands on the shoulders of giants before them. Such is learning, such is life. Get over it.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#266

Post by anothernewdude »

rockemsockem wrote: post #128

What do people think the future looks like where publicly available resources on the Internet (art, code, etc) aren't fair use for training ML models? Where you have to opt into models or can opt out (and many wind up doing so)? OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, et al will STILL train such models that can do all the same things, but it will be much harder for non-industry-backed individuals to navigate the legal minefield w…

I foresee licenses that contain 'upon training an AI network with this code, you give us an irrevocable license to your source code and IP' clauses.

Assuming they will even get off the ground with their copilot system not suggesting vulnerabilities and license traps already.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#268

Post by spywaregorilla »

klyrs wrote: post #163
rockemsockem wrote: post #128

What do people think the future looks like where publicly available resources on the Internet (art, code, etc) aren't fair use for training ML models? Where you have to opt into models or can opt out (and many wind up doing so)? OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, et al will STILL train such models that can do all the same things, but it will be much harder for non-industry-backed individuals to navigate the legal minefield w…

> "look I prompted CoPilot for this piece of code that I already knew about and it spit it right out" https://twitter.com/docsparse/status/1581461734665367554 An english description plus three characters of a function name is enough to coax CoPilot into distributing LGPL-licensed code out of context, without a proper license. That's neither "emotional" nor "cherry-picked", it's a clear-cut license violation.

Suppose you wanted to do what some code does, then you see this LGPL code. What can you do? Adjust variable names and play with line spacing and comments until it feels different?

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#269

Post by mmastrac »

bigiain wrote: post #110
mmastrac wrote: post #20

I think the test for whether an AI is infringing or not should be: Can this AI regurgitate the vast majority of the creative aspects of an original/novel piece of software with minimal prompting, to the point where the output code looks mostly and directly cloned to a reasonable person trained in the art?

_Maybe_ software is fundamentally different to other "creative works" which rely on copyright protection, but it's not immediately clear it is, and as far as I know it's certainly not a "special edge case" as defined in copyright law in general. So "Can this AI regurgitate the vast majority of the creative aspects of an original/novel piece of software" is not the test that, for example, the music industry uses when…

FWIW, in this case I was trying to feel out what I think is a good fit for copyright in general. I think the same test could be applied for books, music, art, etc.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#270

Post by batmanturkey »

deworms wrote: post #139
smt88 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copilot wouldn't be shut down or neutered because "a few vocal people" protested against it. It would be because it's illegal and violates the licenses, desires, and intentions of the thousands of workers who wrote the code in its corpus. You act like Microsoft is trying to do a public service and people are angry about it. The reality is that they're taking billions of hours of work and using it to build a product t…

Quoted post unavailable.

Your assertion thst copyright doesn’t matter and that people should “get used to it” is… pretty incorrect on the former (surely there are still pending copyright suits on earth circa 2022) and ill-conceived on the latter (I’ll just rob your house while you sleep and you should just get used to it)
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