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Copilot sells code other people wrote

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Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#831

Post by birdyrooster »

bastardoperator wrote: post #830
birdyrooster wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You aren't really saying anything at all. SCO would never have existed without Microsoft and Microsoft had a very significant stake in their business and gave it direction.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#832

Post by stemlord »

parhamn wrote: post #50

Pretty soon the world is going to come to realize art/creation is just blending, incrementing and repurposing prior art. No book, painting, codebase, sonnet, design is theft-less. The art is the space reduction, otherwise we’d just bruteforce away.

>Pretty soon the world is going to come to realize art/creation is just blending, incrementing and repurposing prior art.

That applies to everything, its even a basic law of physics, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Any layperson already knows what a remix is anyway so not sure what you think will change

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#833

Post by MaxBarraclough »

jcelerier wrote: post #425
jimnotgym wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes read people's open source code on github and use the ideas from that to develop my own ideas. In fact sometimes I copy and paste short passages and then rework them. I also employ a team of people who may do the same. Is that fair use, yes of course it is. Is co-pilot automating that fair use, I would say so.

What you are doing is very certainly illegal

You're unconvinced it would qualify as fair use?

It reminds me of the Google vs Oracle case. Apparently a court found that copying even a small amount of code in breach of its licence is not permitted. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... (ctrl-f for de minimis)

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#834

Post by invig »

bayindirh wrote: post #813
invig wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not selling you code. They’re selling you an engine that helps you find the right free code at the right time. If you read free code yourself it’s fine, but if a machine does it for you it’s not? We overvalue humans.

> If you read free code yourself it’s fine, but if a machine does it for you it’s not? We overvalue humans. No, it's not fine. Apparently, you missed SCO & Oracle vs. Google cases. Both of these cases argued that somebody looked to the code, and copied it. In SCO case it was not true, but the argument stretched the timeline rather successfully. In Oracle vs. Google, copying function signatures opened a big can of wor…

I suppose you learned to code without reading any code?

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#835

Post by bayindirh »

invig wrote: post #834
bayindirh wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you read free code yourself it’s fine, but if a machine does it for you it’s not? We overvalue humans. No, it's not fine. Apparently, you missed SCO & Oracle vs. Google cases. Both of these cases argued that somebody looked to the code, and copied it. In SCO case it was not true, but the argument stretched the timeline rather successfully. In Oracle vs. Google, copying function signatures opened a big can of wor…

I suppose you learned to code without reading any code?

No, I didn't and don't read other people's code to understand how something works. I use books and official language/library documentation for that.

On the other hand, this is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

GitHub copilot is not a tool for education. It's tool for auto-completing code, which can be put to production, where licenses and other stuff come into play.

The issue is not code sharing per se. It's more of a legal problem, and an important one at that. In the software copyright sense, even reading code you can't import to a project (let it be leaked, not compatibly licensed or for any reason), puts you at risk of legal troubles. This is why we have methodologies like "clean room development".

In Copilot's case, you're possibly deriving a code from a source which contains many licenses, and some of them are not compatible with that you're doing. As a result, you're in direct breach of the license which is not compatible with your code.

On a more higher level, you're also breaching the ethics code and morality by using a code or its derivation with an incompatible license to your code, and disregarding other peoples desires codified as a case-tested and valid license.

As a result, if you think that using a derivative of a GPL licensed code in your closed source application is OK on every front, then the vice versa is true. I can disassemble and reverse every part of your code and re-implement it as GPL bug for bug and open it.

Because if you can breach my license, and expect no consequences, I can breach your license without consequences, as well. It's a two way street.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#836

Post by rpd9803 »

gopiandcode wrote: post #772
ellyagg wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I hope your viewpoint doesn't win the day, because making code as freely shareable and remixable as possible is a huge boon for humanity.

I feel like you're missing the forest for the trees here - making code freely shareable and remixable is exactly the purpose of GPL and other free-software licenses, but you can bet that the proprietary codebases Copilot will be used in will go out of their way to prevent any such uses of _their_ particular code snippets. IMO, the only way to use Copilot's output in an ethically sound way is to only use the output it…

Based on this comment, you may not understand what the GPL's purpose actually is, because it is NOT simply for the promoting sharing and remixing. The GPL is for ensuring that code, and its derivatives, are all able to be shared and remixed in perpetuity. the biggest (imo) difference between GPL and MIT/BSD licenses is that you CAN NOT use GPL'd code in a non-GPL* codebase. (*or GPL-compatible license)

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#837

Post by rpd9803 »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #626
jazzyjackson wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" applie…

Some trivia: CC0 is a public domain declaration.. at least in the US. There is no process by which an author can make their works public domain, CC0 is just a (weak) promise that the copyright holder will treat the work as if it were public domain.

Re: Copilot sells code other people wrote

#838

Post by rpd9803 »

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.

GPL code is open source but what you do with it also needs to be open source as a condition of its use. Will CoPilot inform developers if suddenly the code suggested requires them to re-license their software?
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