8 ms·

I’m really dumbfounded by the Copilot team decision to not exclude GPL licensed code. Why was this direction chosen? Is the inclusion of GPL really worth the r

by klohto 5y ago

I’m really dumbfounded by the Copilot team decision to not exclude GPL licensed code. Why was this direction chosen? Is the inclusion of GPL really worth the risk and potential Google v. Oracle lawsuit? I’d like to know the reasoning.

throwaway287391 5y ago
Isn't it entirely possible that they did exclude GPL licensed code, but somebody somewhere has violated copyright and copy-pasted that snippet into non-GPL-licensed code that they trained on? They could try to trace every single code snippet they train on to its "true source" and use the license for that, but that's not very well-defined, and is a lot harder, and it's never going to be 100%.
- ttt0 5y ago
  Nope. They did include GPL code. > Once, GitHub Copilot suggested starting an empty file with something it had even seen more than a whopping 700,000 different times during training -- that was the GNU General Public License. https://docs.github.com/en/github/copilot/research-recitation#github-copilot-quotes-when-it-lacks-specific-context https://docs.github.com/en/github/copilot/research-recitatio...
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Looks like Copilot is smart enough to understand its own licensing situation. It should continue to suggest this for any empty file.
- another-dave 5y ago
  Which raises another question: ideally Copilot wouldn't be trained on "somebody somwhere", but is that happening? To use the old trope — if the majority of programmers can't implement Fizzbuzz, but they do have a Github profile, are they being included too? Hopefully there's some quality bar for the training set, i.e. some subset of "good" code (e.g. release candidate tags from fairly established OSS tools/frameworks in different languages) rather than any old code on the internet.
Anon1096 5y ago
Why would excluding GPL'd code be enough to not violate licenses? I don't understand why people think MIT or other licenses are free for alls to take code as they wish. The MIT license includes an attribution clause. And, as the linked video shows, Copilot is more than happy to take its code and put your pet license and copyright notice on instead. Isn't that equally as infringing as stealing GPL code? The idea of mining GitHub for training data was doomed from the start copyright-wise, as there's so much code that's misattributed, wrongly-licensed, or unlicensed.
- aj3 5y ago
  Copilot is a tool. If you take copilot's suggestions uncritically and push them to Github, - that's on you.
  - croes 5y ago
    Yeah, because I always check the code of my programming partner for license violations. That's more Trainee than Copilot.
    - aj3 5y ago
      If you use it as a programming partner it will simply autofill whatever you're writing line-by-line. You're not forced to use code completion at a whole-function level and it's not even the suggested use-case.
  - GhostVII 5y ago
    Sure but if you have to audit every suggestion to see if it violates copyright laws that's not a particularly useful tool.
    - aj3 5y ago
      Depends. If you find useful code on Github, Stack Overflow or anywhere else in the internet, you still need to check whether it is suitable with your licensing or not.
goodpoint 5y ago
Apache / MIT / BSD all have restrictions e.g. attribution clause. Excluding GPL does not solve the problem.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by klohto 5y ago

throwaway287391 5y ago

Isn't it entirely possible that they did exclude GPL licensed code, but somebody somewhere has violated copyright and copy-pasted that snippet into non-GPL-licensed code that they trained on? They could try to trace every single code snippet they train on to its "true source" and use the license for that, but that's not very well-defined, and is a lot harder, and it's never going to be 100%.

ttt0 5y ago
Nope. They did include GPL code. > Once, GitHub Copilot suggested starting an empty file with something it had even seen more than a whopping 700,000 different times during training -- that was the GNU General Public License. https://docs.github.com/en/github/copilot/research-recitation#github-copilot-quotes-when-it-lacks-specific-context https://docs.github.com/en/github/copilot/research-recitatio...
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Looks like Copilot is smart enough to understand its own licensing situation. It should continue to suggest this for any empty file.
another-dave 5y ago
Which raises another question: ideally Copilot wouldn't be trained on "somebody somwhere", but is that happening? To use the old trope — if the majority of programmers can't implement Fizzbuzz, but they do have a Github profile, are they being included too? Hopefully there's some quality bar for the training set, i.e. some subset of "good" code (e.g. release candidate tags from fairly established OSS tools/frameworks in different languages) rather than any old code on the internet.

Anon1096 5y ago

Why would excluding GPL'd code be enough to not violate licenses? I don't understand why people think MIT or other licenses are free for alls to take code as they wish. The MIT license includes an attribution clause. And, as the linked video shows, Copilot is more than happy to take its code and put your pet license and copyright notice on instead. Isn't that equally as infringing as stealing GPL code? The idea of mining GitHub for training data was doomed from the start copyright-wise, as there's so much code that's misattributed, wrongly-licensed, or unlicensed.

aj3 5y ago
Copilot is a tool. If you take copilot's suggestions uncritically and push them to Github, - that's on you.
- croes 5y ago
  Yeah, because I always check the code of my programming partner for license violations. That's more Trainee than Copilot.
  - aj3 5y ago
    If you use it as a programming partner it will simply autofill whatever you're writing line-by-line. You're not forced to use code completion at a whole-function level and it's not even the suggested use-case.
- GhostVII 5y ago
  Sure but if you have to audit every suggestion to see if it violates copyright laws that's not a particularly useful tool.
  - aj3 5y ago
    Depends. If you find useful code on Github, Stack Overflow or anywhere else in the internet, you still need to check whether it is suitable with your licensing or not.

goodpoint 5y ago

Apache / MIT / BSD all have restrictions e.g. attribution clause. Excluding GPL does not solve the problem.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]