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Saying Goodbye to GitHub

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Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#111

Post by friend_and_foe »

saurik wrote: post #104
friend_and_foe wrote: post #82

I abandoned github the day that they (and others, including people here) started arguing that their ToS trumps your code's license. That's absurd. It's authoritarian, it's hostile, it's an act of enmity. Fuck all that bullshit. I do business with no entity, period, that treats me with that level of disdain.

Yeah and it's like, nonsensical for the service: if you are working in open source, the reality is that a lot of the time you are working with software you don't own. I develop a lot of software, and the vast majority of it was open source... but I've only ever put two projects of mine on GitHub (and one only because I was working with some other people and I essentially got outvoted ;P). And yet, if you search for m…

Yup, and this contrived conundrum is proof positive of a truth: all code is licensed before the ToS is agreed to, whether published or not. Licenses override ToS, which means that Microsoft needs to remove all code on github either due to ToS violations, since their ToS directly contradicts all licenses, or because the licenses contradict their ToS.

What it comes down to is that the Github ToS is illegal.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#112

Post by pcthrowaway »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #94
pcthrowaway wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You agree to Microsoft's ToS before you can put any code on Github, regardless of the license. You can't opt-out of those terms, regardless of your license, just as you can't opt out of Facebooks terms which give them the right to use your content for their business or marketing purposes, even if the various chain posts that have spread there might claim otherwise.

If code with a license, say GPL, goes out somewhere else, by someone else (and therefore I don't have the right to change the license) and then I fork it, as per the license I keep the license and put it on github, and Github violates that license, aren't they violating the law? Don't they then have to remove that code? If that's the case then in that scenario the license supersedes the ToS right? Now imagine this: I…

> If code with a license, say GPL, goes out somewhere else, by someone else

If the code is GPL licensed, you can't relicense it under a non-FOSS license like you're talking about

> Don't they then have to remove that code?

Yes, if code gets uploaded whose license is incompatible with Microsoft's terms, they probably do have to remove it.

> Now imagine this: I write some code, license it, but don't publish it yet. It's licensed. Then I upload it to github. Does the license supersede the ToS? Doesn't github have to remove the code as a ToS violation

Again, yes, they probably do, and they also probably have an obligation to clean their training data of it. However, if you're the copyright holder of the code and you agree to their ToS before uploading, they might make the case that you agreeing to their ToS does grant them the license to use it in training data.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#113

Post by uuuguaii »

tlocke wrote: post #100
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't impact the current legality of a license, but it will affect future ones. Don't they? Even the most liberal licenses require that you at least keep the license and attributions. Which are exactly the parts that AI systems remove. I would have no problem with an AI system trained on GPL code if the output was still covered by the GPL.

The MIT No Attribution licence https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit-0/ doesn't require an attribution. It's the licence I choose for new projects.

That's very generous of you. Don't get angry though if I go ahead and re-publish all your code with your name replaced by mine. That's exactly what you are allowing me to do with such a license.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#114

Post by zelphirkalt »

rdiddly wrote: post #85
bruce511 wrote: post #11

I'm gonna get hated on for this, but I don't think "give back" is an open source concept. I'm not aware of any Open Source license,or Free license for that matter,that has a give-back clause. Source code is available to -users- ,not prior-authors. Some Open Source licenses can be used in proprietary code, (MIT, BSD etc) with little more than simple attribution. Those developers chose that license for a reason, and I'…

Yeah on the one hand, isn't opening your source all about not really minding what happens to it after that? It's intended to be copied and used. On the other hand something about the term "laundering" kind of resonated for me. It's kind of like automated plagiarism where you spread your copying out over millions of people. But plagiarism only has meaning as an offense when the thing being copied isn't intended to be…

If we go by how many people explain open source, you would be right, but if we go by how people who actually know what their licenses are supposed to do explain open source, then no. You give a license for a specific reason. One might be to allow others to copy, but there is usually a condition, and that is to leave the license information intact. If we go further towards free/libre software licenses like GPL or AGPL, then we have more conditions to it. For example that, if you distribute software using that code, you need to distribute the source of your software as well (a bit imprecise).

If you want to get a better picture of the situation, read up on the licenses and what they do, specifically the term "copyleft".

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#115

Post by layer8 »

rdiddly wrote: post #85
bruce511 wrote: post #11

I'm gonna get hated on for this, but I don't think "give back" is an open source concept. I'm not aware of any Open Source license,or Free license for that matter,that has a give-back clause. Source code is available to -users- ,not prior-authors. Some Open Source licenses can be used in proprietary code, (MIT, BSD etc) with little more than simple attribution. Those developers chose that license for a reason, and I'…

Yeah on the one hand, isn't opening your source all about not really minding what happens to it after that? It's intended to be copied and used. On the other hand something about the term "laundering" kind of resonated for me. It's kind of like automated plagiarism where you spread your copying out over millions of people. But plagiarism only has meaning as an offense when the thing being copied isn't intended to be…

This actually has been thought about before, in the context of remixes, collages, etc. The essential question is how much of the originality of the original work(s) constitutes the originality of the new/derived work. If it is little enough, then it’s okay. The issue with AI models is that they have no way of assessing originality and tracking the transfer of originality.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#117

Post by lionkor »

if someone misuses code people put a lot of time into, they may eventually get cease & desist and then sued, especially open source code under licenses like GPL.

I don't care for AI ethics, its simply a breach of copyright to take my code and reuse it somewhere (theres a lot of my code that isnt licensed at all on GH). Since OpenAI can't guarantee it wont breach licenses or copyright, it should simply not allow code questions, the same way it doesnt allow sexual or illegal content "just in case".

But wait, no, that one's too much of a money cow.

I'm sure it would happily reproduce 1:1 a piece of leaked source code some company owns, and OpenAI would tell you their hands are tied and theres nothing they can do.

Of course, when it comes to making sure it doesnt say "fuck" or any variation of it, that instead seems a high priority.

And people go defending it, as if theres nothing OpenAI could do. Yes people are also trained on code, but people generally dont have the capacity to remember 1:1 a 50+ line function, and if they do, they can likely remember the license, too. Its a non-argument.

And then, to top it all off, tell me with a straight face that people have not gotten in trouble for writing a similar enough work, e.g. in academia.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#118

Post by viciousplant »

bruce511 wrote: post #11

I'm gonna get hated on for this, but I don't think "give back" is an open source concept. I'm not aware of any Open Source license,or Free license for that matter,that has a give-back clause. Source code is available to -users- ,not prior-authors. Some Open Source licenses can be used in proprietary code, (MIT, BSD etc) with little more than simple attribution. Those developers chose that license for a reason, and I'…

Time will tell, and it's a destined trend for more devs close sourcing their code no matter what curious angle you are trying to justify large firms using AI exploiting money, and I doubt you are working for one of them.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#119

Post by bsder »

fariszr wrote: post #33

> The code that was regurgitated by the model is marketed as "AI generated" and available for use for any project you want. Including proprietary ones. It's laundering open-source code. All of the decades of knowledge and uncountable hours of work is being, well, stolen. There is nothing being given back. Leaving GitHub wont change that, OpenAI is training its models on every bit of code they can have, sourcehut, cod…

> Every time a project uses it, its a pain to deal with.

Sorry, but I consider that a plus.

One of the primary problems with GitHub right now is the "drive by" nature. Everybody is on Github because a bunch of idiotic big corporations made "community contribution" part of their annual review processes so we now have a bunch of people who shouldn't be on GitHub throwing things around on there.

Putting just a touch of friction into the comment/contribute cycle is a good thing. The people who contribute then have to want to contribute.

Re: Saying Goodbye to GitHub

#120

Post by cowl »

LASR wrote: post #37
ianbutler wrote: post #7

I tend to disregard articles that default to the "Stochastic Parrot" argument. These tools are useful now, I don't personally care about achieving actual intelligence. I want additional utility for myself and other humans, which these provide now, at scale. By a lot of measures many humans perform at just about the same level, including confidently making up bullshit. This post reads like one of the "Goodbye X online…

It’s pretty ironic that the argument that LLMs are stochastic parrots actually sounds like the actual parrot. I think we’re now way past that now with LLMs now quickly taking on the role of a general reasoning engine.

> now quickly taking on the role of a general reasoning engine

And this right here is why it's important to emphasize the "stochastic parrot" fact. Because people think this is true and are making decisions based on this misunderstanding.

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