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GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

githubcopilotinvestigation.com

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Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#451
post #400

Here's the thing about GitHub that most people do not realize. I find this funny because of all the talk of following license agreements, very few have taken the time to read the terms of service for GitHub. from their terms of service: "Short version: You own content you create, but you allow us certain rights to it, so that we can display and share the content you post. " emphasis mine. that's what they call the "S…

> but you all were already mad anyway ... This seems to be the line of argumentation agreed upon by several waffling pro-GitHub posters. Many comments have some variation on that diversion from the issue. > GitHub gets their own rights to your code. This is preposterous and false. GitHub has the right to display the entire work, properly attributed and licensed, to others. No new licenses are given, no dual-licensing…

> No new licenses are given, no dual-licensing takes place, no code-laundering is permitted.

I suggest you read the terms of service again.

here, I'll link directly to the license grant: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#452
post #432

Why would anyone want to stop Copilot is beyond me. Reinventing the wheel, millions of time a day, is an atrocity. Millions of (wo)man hours, wasted, every single day, on writing solutions to problems that have already been solved. There is a partial solution to this, and it's making people angry, it's crazy. If you put your code publicly on the internet, you should expect that people will reuse your code at some poi…

It says why in the linked post. People aren't doing open source for free; they do it for the community. But Copilot is there to extract value from it, giving nothing back, not even credit.

If that's the only issue, I can't see the difference when I search for something on the web, copy the code and paste into my solution. There's no attribution, there's no giving back, nothing. Because I'm the community that you are saying the code is supposed to benefit.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#453
post #432

Why would anyone want to stop Copilot is beyond me. Reinventing the wheel, millions of time a day, is an atrocity. Millions of (wo)man hours, wasted, every single day, on writing solutions to problems that have already been solved. There is a partial solution to this, and it's making people angry, it's crazy. If you put your code publicly on the internet, you should expect that people will reuse your code at some poi…

It says why in the linked post. People aren't doing open source for free; they do it for the community. But Copilot is there to extract value from it, giving nothing back, not even credit.

Can't open-source programmers improve their own open-source code with Copilot? Does the inherent improvements that all Copilot offers just not apply to people who write open-source code?

I understand that there is a balance, but as an open-source advocate who would love better tools to make their open-source projects better I'm lost as to why this point doesn't counter the "giving nothing back" we hear so often.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#454
post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to use my code, without ever knowing I wrote it? You want to use my hard work, regurgitated anonymously, stripped of all credit, stripped of all attribution, stripped of all identity and ancestry and citation? FUCK YOU! Training must be opt in, not opt out. Every artist, every creative individual, must EXPLICITLY OPT IN to having their hard work regurgitated anonymously by Copilot or Dall-E or whatever. If y…

I just don't understand this at all. I publish my code as open source when I can because I want others to find it useful, either by using the software that I wrote or by reusing the code. If I didn't want that, I wouldn't publish the code. But I do want it, so I'm glad there's a way for people to access it more easily. I understand the argument from an artist's perspective much more, since they don't really have the…

Simply being public doesn't mean it's in the public domain - this applies to movies, art, code, etc.

One example of restrictive but public licenses include requiring others to share their source code if it's derived from yours, allowing individuals to use a product but not allowing business to use it (businesses can use it under a different - likely paid for license), or requiring attribution or acknowledgement that they used your code.

There is an argument for fair use if it counts as a substantial derivative, which is a different discussion from why people make it publicly viewable without making it flat out public domain.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#455

Why would anyone want to stop Copilot is beyond me. Reinventing the wheel, millions of time a day, is an atrocity. Millions of (wo)man hours, wasted, every single day, on writing solutions to problems that have already been solved. There is a partial solution to this, and it's making people angry, it's crazy. If you put your code publicly on the internet, you should expect that people will reuse your code at some poi…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#456

It's hilarious how when I express displeasure about AI image generators looking likely to take a huge bite out of my profession of "artist" and playing extremely fast and loose with fair use, I get told that it's completely inevitable now and I should either retrain as a prompt engineer or go join the buggy whip manufacturers, but now that this is clearly violating programmer copyrights, you folks are starting to get…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#457

Why would anyone want to stop Copilot is beyond me. Reinventing the wheel, millions of time a day, is an atrocity. Millions of (wo)man hours, wasted, every single day, on writing solutions to problems that have already been solved. There is a partial solution to this, and it's making people angry, it's crazy. If you put your code publicly on the internet, you should expect that people will reuse your code at some poi…

I don't want to stop copilot. I put my code publicly on the internet precisely so people can use it, and not just as a user either, they can repurpose it, incorporate it into their software, whatever they want to do. It's called free software for a reason, and i mean it when I say it.

But they have to abide by my fucking license.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#458

It's hilarious how when I express displeasure about AI image generators looking likely to take a huge bite out of my profession of "artist" and playing extremely fast and loose with fair use, I get told that it's completely inevitable now and I should either retrain as a prompt engineer or go join the buggy whip manufacturers, but now that this is clearly violating programmer copyrights, you folks are starting to get…

Unless the image generators routinely generate specific works produced by you (or other artists) then it’s not a directly comparable situation to Copilot.

Like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32573523

> I just got a Dall-E render with a very intact "gettyimages" watermark on it.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#459

It's always interesting to see the buzz that occurs when Copilot is brought up as a topic. This place is called "HackerNews", yet routinely people forget that a "hacker" is somebody using technology to overcome novel problems. Doesn't GitHub Copilot fall into this category? Why is there such an outcry over a technology that has been in the public's hands for less than a year? I'm almost certain that the team responsi…

Plenty of people approve of individuals doing things they disapprove of large corporations doing.

For example, I wouldn't care if a small YouTuber used a copyright song in the background. I would care if Disney stole a small YouTuber's original song and used it in a movie.

This is entirely consistent within my ethical framework: scale and power matters.

Re: GitHub Copi­lot inves­ti­ga­tion

#460
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

First off, that's a library of pedagogical implementations, so I wouldn't even want to copy it -- I'd prefer a library focused on performance. Second, it's linear algebra, there are alternative implementations and libraries out there. Third, it's covered by the LGPL, so I'd be perfectly happy to link to the library. Fourth, I'd look up a pseudocode description and go from there. In no case would I sit down with anoth…

"In computer programs, concerns for efficiency may limit the possible ways to achieve a particular function, making a particular expression necessary to achieving the idea. In this case, the expression is not protected by copyright."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Compari...

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