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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#821

Post by tuckerman »

Varqu wrote: post #818
tuckerman wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When source code is made available under an open source license, there are strings attached; attaching those strings is the author’s right! Assuming you or any company has the right to do anything you want with that code without respecting the license is immoral. That “licensing hell” (i.e. strong copyleft protections) is the reason we enjoy such a vibrant and large open source community today. I don’t take it for gr…

The licensing hell is exactly the problem. If someone contributes to open source, which is a praiseworthy activity, then they do it with the intention that anyone can use this code but also re-adapt it, bundle in new products - it's all about bringing humanity forward. And all those "you can do this, but you can't do that" licenses are things that only invite lawyers to the tech world. IMHO, licensing open source is…

You are making a lot of assumptions about what someone wants/intends when they contribute to open source codebases. If an author chooses, for example, the AGPL, I think they clearly had a different intention. Like it or not, not everyone wants to dedicate their work to the public domain.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#822

Post by woleium »

leereeves wrote: post #747
kemiller wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point that I hadn't considered before. It's facebook all over again — selling your own content back to you. Repo owners should be at least compensated when their code gets used. That would be an incredible market.

I don't think that would be possible. One of the big limitations of neural networks is that they don't cite their sources.

Then they need to negotiate a non-attributed contract with you before using your code to train (not sure abiut testing though).

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#823

Post by woleium »

meshaneian wrote: post #668
davesque wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not without the text of the license. I, as a developer, cannot just poach open source code under MIT without including the copyright and terms from the original project. From the license: "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

They might argue that a snippet isn't a "substantial portion" of "the Software", and they're only charging for the service not the content - regardless, I don't like it, this is exactly what certain licenses attempt to prevent.

but they used all your code to train. that's pretty substantial..

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#824

Post by dragonwriter »

nickjj wrote: post #535

This might be overreacting but is there a way to opt-out of Copilot using your code in open source repos? It feels morally wrong to me that I can spend thousands of hours working on projects on my own free will but then a company can sell the code I wrote to others in the form of snippet completion as a service. In fact they end up selling your code back to yourself if you plan to use the service. If the answer is no…

> This might be overreacting but is there a way to opt-out of Copilot using your code in open source repos?

I don't think there is a way to opt out if it is a public repo regardless of license, and Microsoft's copyright theory suggests that they wouldn't feel obligate to enxclude any code they got their hands on except under a specific NDA preventing such use; the use of public GitHub repos isn't based on legal constraints but practical convenience.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#825

Post by Varqu »

tuckerman wrote: post #821
Varqu wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The licensing hell is exactly the problem. If someone contributes to open source, which is a praiseworthy activity, then they do it with the intention that anyone can use this code but also re-adapt it, bundle in new products - it's all about bringing humanity forward. And all those "you can do this, but you can't do that" licenses are things that only invite lawyers to the tech world. IMHO, licensing open source is…

You are making a lot of assumptions about what someone wants/intends when they contribute to open source codebases. If an author chooses, for example, the AGPL, I think they clearly had a different intention. Like it or not, not everyone wants to dedicate their work to the public domain.

Then why contribute to open source if you want to still be a gatekeeper? In that case better to fork it and work in a private repo.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#826

Post by birdyrooster »

signatoremo wrote: post #732
birdyrooster wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where your confidence came from but a Google of “sco Microsoft” reveals: By the mid-1980s Microsoft had gotten out of the Unix business, except for its ownership stake in SCO.[20] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft

No, SCO was found in 2002, from Candera Software who was a Linux distributor [0]. How could Microsoft in 1980s own a company that wasn’t founded until 2002? They later filed for bankruptcy in 2007. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group

Close, but you have the wrong incarnation of SCO

SCO was founded in 1979 by Larry Michels and his son Doug Michels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_Operation

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#827

Post by midasuni »

concordDance wrote: post #778
midasuni wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people won’t let you use their copyrighted work no matter how much you pay, that’s reasonable. By all means allow repos to opt in, although if it’s licensed under something like GPL there’s no way to convert it to non gpl without permission from every contributor. I for one am not interested in Microsoft or anyone else paying me to close my code. Allowing people to pay $xxx to copy my copyrighted work without my…

> Some people won’t let you use their copyrighted work no matter how much you pay, that’s reasonable. Is it really? From a consequentialist utilitarian perspective?

Yes, otherwise you’re saying rich people can break the law with no consequences.

The alternative would be to completely remove copyright, which would be ok.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#828

Post by tuckerman »

Varqu wrote: post #825
tuckerman wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making a lot of assumptions about what someone wants/intends when they contribute to open source codebases. If an author chooses, for example, the AGPL, I think they clearly had a different intention. Like it or not, not everyone wants to dedicate their work to the public domain.

Then why contribute to open source if you want to still be a gatekeeper? In that case better to fork it and work in a private repo.

Every large successful open source project I know is explicitly not in the public domain/licensed CC0. I understand that there are some people that are very against copyright/intellectual property but you surely must interact with a large number of projects/people that disagree.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#829

Post by birdyrooster »

bastardoperator wrote: post #660
birdyrooster wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where your confidence came from but a Google of “sco Microsoft” reveals: By the mid-1980s Microsoft had gotten out of the Unix business, except for its ownership stake in SCO.[20] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft

Not sure where yours is coming from, if we look at [20] it makes no such claim. https://web.archive.org/web/20061105100939/http://www.inform...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_Operation

They were a partner with Microsoft maintaining a version of Xenix

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#830

Post by bastardoperator »

birdyrooster wrote: post #829
bastardoperator wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where yours is coming from, if we look at [20] it makes no such claim. https://web.archive.org/web/20061105100939/http://www.inform...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_Operation They were a partner with Microsoft maintaining a version of Xenix

That doesn't imply ownership and the article [20] that you pointed out doesn't make a specific claim. All good, but MSFT never fully owned or operated SCO at any level is the point I'm trying to make.
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