Copilot sells code other people wrote • Hacker News Board

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#621

Post by Guid_NewGuid » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #617

jppope wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form." $10/ month ... how much to you think this thing cost to build, and to maintain?

That's the whole point. Without the data, it would be worthless. Microsoft is not paying the full cost because it is ripping the data without asking consent. I'm not saying what they are doing is illegal per se, but it's definitely immoral.

But why is it immoral? All that code is still out there, if I had the time and the resources I could build a language model. Unlike commons in the real world (e.g. land, fresh water, etc) a code commons is purely additive. With the release of Copilot (which I don't intend to pay for or use) nothing has been destroyed, instead we'll get more code for less work where companies do pay for their developers to use it, some might even find its way back into the commons as new open-source code (whether more code of copilot generated quality in general is an unalloyed good is left as an exercise to the reader).

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#622

Post by tuckerman » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

Varqu wrote: post #607

sirsinsalot wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.

People (github in this case) do something to make your life easier so that you can save time for the price of 1 latte per month and you complain? Software Developers seem to be the most whining profession in the world and I despise this attitude (while being a developer myself)

People aren't whining because the price is too high, they are upset because some (myself included) believe Microsoft is exploiting developers by copying their work against their wishes and then turning around and selling other developers a product which may or may not be generating code which violates copyright/patent licenses. A developer who inadvertently uses a copilot suggestion which gets them into hot water is going to be spending a lot more than a the cost of a latte to defend themselves in court.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#623

Post by spullara » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

sirsinsalot wrote: post #578

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.

It absolutely adds to the common good in the form of people using it to write more open source code.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#624

Post by wcoenen » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

> I want a truly public domain license

I think this sentence contradicts itself.

A "license" implies that there is a copyright holder who allows usage of the work under the terms of said license.

While "Public domain" implies that there is no copyright holder (e.g. because the copyright expired, was explicitly waived, or is for some other reason not applicable).

If you want to put your work in the public domain, you can do so; simply include a note saying that you dedicate it to the public domain.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#625

Post by Philadelphia » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

Varqu wrote: post #607

sirsinsalot wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.

People (github in this case) do something to make your life easier so that you can save time for the price of 1 latte per month and you complain? Software Developers seem to be the most whining profession in the world and I despise this attitude (while being a developer myself)

Yep, anything useful has to be legal and welcomed. Microsoft should start breaking into people’s houses and sorting their underwear drawers for them while they’re out. Million dollar idea!

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#626

Post by TAForObvReasons » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #614

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important and overlooked point. Even common permissive licenses (ISC / MIT / Apache-2.0) require attribution

Just as a mind experiment: couldn't CoPilot just publish a list of every github user and attribute the work to all of them?

CoPilot is a black box at the moment. Microsoft claims they used the public corpus on GitHub. There are plenty of GPL, AGPL, and "source available" projects in the public corpus. So what exactly is the licensing?

The argument may make sense if they limited themselves to public-domain (CC0) works, but that is not what happened here. If CoPilot attributed something to an AGPL project, does it mean the "virality" applies to all projects that use code from CoPilot?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#627

Post by ssalka » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

Information wants to be free

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#628

Post by Guid_NewGuid » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

handoflixue wrote: post #620

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they haven't paid it forward, or back, but why fight on the occupier's territory. By calling for legal frameworks to enforce this we accept the language and terms of the dominant party. By using courts and the law and creating new law for copyright we actually move further from the goal of abolishing copyright and IP entirely. Every time we use courts to enforce IP we're strengthening the Walt Disneys and Nintend…

> Every time we use courts to enforce IP we're strengthening the Walt Disneys and Nintendos of the world. Can you actually point to substantial examples where Disney or Nintendo benefited significantly from a precedent set by an open source court case? Open source has been around for decades, so it should be trivial to find numerous clear-cut examples at this point... if your theory is actually correct.

No, I honestly have no idea. I know nothing about the law and understand even less. I may be wrong about all of this, but if we take the (laughable) idea of justice being blind it stands to reason any precedent that protects a single open source developer also protects Amazon's code.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#629

Post by tuckerman » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #603

mplanchard wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's what you want, you should license your code not under MIT, but under a license that allows replication/distribution without attribution. Meanwhile, others who do care about such things can license their code under licenses that require attribution/copyleft/etc.

But I can't really because the legal systems for it don't exist. I can't relinquish anything https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1471... (CC0 looks closer but still doesn't do what I'm after). And I can't because there are a bunch of, for want of a better word, dweebs who care about this stuff. I don't give a single solitary frick about the finer points of MIT vs GPL vs BSD 3 clause vs CC-BY-NC or…

I'm curious if this view is software specific or relates to any work released online? For example, do you feel similarly about a novelist or graphic artist? I reckon at least a few software engineers look at what they produce not entirely differently from how an artist or writer looks at theirs.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#630

Post by monocasa » Thu, Jun 23, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #569

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characte…

The issue is that whether the free software people want it or not, the copyright system over code exists, and historically has been used as a cudgel against smaller players. If we got rid of copyright over code entirely I'd totally be down for this. And IIRC RMS has said the same thing; that he'd be in favor of the removal of copyright over code as a concept even if it meant neutering the protections of the GPL.

Until that happens, and copyright protections are still used by larger entities, using the same system to protect yourself and (more importantly) your users isn't turning your back on your ideals, but instead simply adjusting your strategy to the current material conditions. Remember that Google v. Oracle (while ultimately a win versus what could have been) was a step back, with de minimis claims left on the table as not a valid defense. The play field is heavily slanted towards the big players and software freedom requires every tool it can put it's hands on at the moment.