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VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

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Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#641

Post by detaro »

dmitriv wrote: post #531
p-e-w wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate you acknowledging that this was a mistake, but as you surely know from your own experience with other people’s mistakes, some mistakes are so egregious that they cast doubt on the intentions of the people involved even if they are corrected later. To me, “let’s add false attribution to every commit by default without informing the user” falls squarely into that category. I don’t think I’ve ever worked in…

If what you described would make it to our PR queue, it would definitely not pass the gates. The idea was to track AI-only changes and add the trailer when such changes were detected AND the setting was enabled. Obviously, we didn't want to attribute all changes to AI. There is a bug in change detection (which slipped through testing), which led to even non-AI changes being tracked. And thus we have this problem. The…

> (which slipped through testing)

In another comment you say you caught it in testing and didn't think it needed fixing, which is it?

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#642

Post by imron »

alemanek wrote: post #409
dmitriv wrote: post #268

I am the person who approved this PR and would like to acknowledge and apologize for the mistake of turning this feature on by default without sufficient upfront validation. There was no ill intent by evil corporation, but rather a desire to support functionality that some customers expect of VS Code w.r.t. AI-generated code. As folks mentioned here - many similar tools do this as well. Obviously, it should not be on…

Changing the default behavior for all of your users with no notification is pretty unforgivable. Even if this feature worked correctly, it obviously doesn’t, this should at minimum be a prompt after upgrade to let the user confirm that this is what they want. But honestly should be opt in for those that want it. To have it silently just start adding marketing copy to git commit messages is pretty bad. To have that ad…

> Changing the default behavior for all of your users with no notification is pretty unforgivable

How else is a poor programmer gonna hit their KPIs and get that promo?

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#643

Post by dmitriv »

sandeepkd wrote: post #589
dmitriv wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The change was about helping teams ensure AI-generated code is attributed in commits - nothing to do with copyrights and the like. If you don't have to take my word for it - query VS Code repo for changes and issues that went into implementing this and you will see.

Thanks for jumping in the conversation. Logically it does makes sense to attribute the authors correctly, however in this context it might be helpful if you can provide any details about the users complaining that their PR's are being marked as co-authored even when they have not used the copilot? Is that intentional or a missed check in the implementation. Also for layman readers like me who might not be actively in…

The fact that non-AI changes are attributed to Copilot is a bug. The intent was to allow customers to add attribution of AI-generated code. As with any bug, it was not intetional.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#644

Post by lppedd »

dmitriv wrote: post #539
somebehemoth wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the constructive criticism is best directed at whatever process you are following. That process allowed a very visible user facing change in a widely used piece of software. How did this change make it to production without some process catching the impact of this change? Was there really no internal discussion from a code review at least? This seems hard for me to believe. I expect more from Microsoft.

Fair point. We did catch it internally in testing (as we use VS Code for all our work, so some folks did stumble on it), but I think we underestimated the impact and should do a better job at that.

Thank you. My personal opinion is the idea of weekly releases should be discarded. It's too easy to release broken stuff in non-insiders updates.

I think many people agree here.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#645

Post by WhyNotHugo »

estimator7292 wrote: post #211
makeitdouble wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> greed Is a greed/not greed scale really useful to discuss company behaviors ? I wanted to say I get what you mean, but even thinking about the company I root for the most, I can't think of a point where they're not driven by their desire to make a lot more money. If your point is that there's good and bad ways to seek money, I'm not sure it's properly encompassed by "greed", which I interpret as the intensity of a…

Approximately everybody would like more money. Greedy people put the desire for more money above the welfare of the business, themselves, and other. Greedy people literally put their desire for more personal wealth above the very lives of others. Greed/not greed is a very fair way of putting it. One can operate a business that requires profit without wanting to destroy everyone and everything that stands in the way o…

> Approximately everybody would like more money.

For me (and many others), money is a means to an end. I don’t want money per se, I want housing and food and things that money can buy.

But for a few, money is the goal. They want money for the sake of more money. They don’t need more. That’s greed.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#646

Post by lukan »

IshKebab wrote: post #588
zelphirkalt wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then they apparently posted an alibi "I'm sorry" here. Or maybe it is genuine, but the choice is between incompetence and fake "I'm sorry". Where is QA?

As far as I know VSCode doesn't really have QA. I'm not sure it even has tests, which makes it very surprising that it works as well as it does!

Because it is dogfood?

(Meaning the devs use it themself, that is great incentive to fix things)

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#647

Post by duskdozer »

theK wrote: post #559
isityettime wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people who think of themselves as able-bodied never think to poke around in the Accessibility sections of their settings menus. But it turns out that accessibility options are for everyone; people should really think of and evaluate them as first class tools more often

Or,are we just getting older and these things suddenly matter?

Possibly a factor, but I also think these issues are becoming much more widespread, leaving us less able to tolerate them than when they were less common.

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#648

Post by lukan »

jstanley wrote: post #576
sillysaurusx wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic does by default. I had to put “no co-authored by lines in commits, ever” into my global settings. That’s pretty close to “included when it wasn’t used (or even enabled)” since it’s opt-in by default and you have to explicitly say no. It’s not even clear where to turn it off, I just rely on the AI to figure out not to do it.

Maybe I misunderstand you, how is Claude doing commits where you don't use Claude? That is a very different case to VS Code which is something you can in fact use without Copilot.

That is not what dmitriv claimed. He said this was a bug, the behavior should have been to add it only when AI was involved, which indeed, is what claude does by default.

(Both is not fine with me)

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#649

Post by Dylan16807 »

lelanthran wrote: post #516
Dylan16807 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bot (and therefore microsoft) doesn't get any copyright at all.

> The bot (and therefore microsoft) doesn't get any copyright at all. But then neither do you, for every commit that was marked with copilot.

What makes you say that?

If a monkey uses a typewriter, there's no copyright.

If I use a typewriter with a monkey, I get copyright and the monkey doesn't.

Why would the monkey need copyright for me to get copyright?

Re: VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage

#650

Post by quectophoton »

avd201 wrote: post #237
rsynnott wrote: post #26

One fascinating thing about the whole AI phenomenon is how incredibly hostile it is to _standards_. Whether something works properly, or is ethical, or is true, no longer matters at all; all that matters is "pls use our AI". Microsoft spent literal decades rehabilitating their reputation. And then set fire to the whole thing in an offering to their robot gods. And it's not just them. There was a time that Google care…

The thing the annoys me the most (to use polite language) is that product design went off the window with the AI craze. You could probably ship actual products that actual people would want to use, but instead everyone wants to turn everything into a chatbot, as if chatbots are the pinnacle of user interface, the crabs of software, the purpose, goal, and telos of technology. It drives me nuts.

A text input field for entering your command line(s), with a text log for the output, does indeed seem to be the crabs of software. Usually with some abstractions that allow you to write longer scripts[1] and just refer to them by a short name or alias, and compose those scripts together from your command prompt.

You could say it's the terminal[2] user interface.

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/script

[2]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terminal

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