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Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I'll give the best example, the one task that off the top of my head that I would like some AI help with. I would real

Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I'll give the best example, the one task that off the top of my head that I would like some AI help with. I would really like to replicate the functionality of Java's SSLEngine, but for C#. If I used Co-Pilot to help, at best, I would need to pay for a legal team to do some form of 'clean room' review of whatever was generated to make sure it did not infringe on the OpenJDK code that is out there. At worst, I would be having to defend myself from Oracle's legal team -anyway-. And yeah, I'm assuming in this case that Copilot would be 'smart' enough to be able to make the right inferences of that java code and put it into workable C# construct. Stepping back, though, one could still ask the question; what's the risk of a Java developer accidentally getting some OpenJDK code a little too closely? There's an order of magnitude difference between even a smaller AGPL developer and Oracle. If Microsoft/GH was willing to go to bat and agree to pay for the defense of users of Copilot, I would be far less concerned with the implications of all of this.

bostonsre 5y ago
> Stepping back, though, one could still ask the question; what's the risk of a Java developer accidentally getting some OpenJDK code a little too closely? There's an order of magnitude difference between even a smaller AGPL developer and Oracle. It would be extremely interesting to know how much accidental and non accidental code infringement happens and in what proportion of those cases go to the courts. I would guess that both cases happen utterly constantly and it is only a tiny minority of those cases where legal action is taken. If that's the case right now, then nothing has changed with this tool except the possibility of playing hot potato with liability when those few cases that do happen make it to courts. Even if the developer actually wrote the code that infringed, copilot could make a useful scapegoat and every case will have plausible deniability if copilot lacks really good explainability.
- ElFitz 5y ago
  > every case will have plausible deniability if copilot lacks really good explainability. Out of pure curiosity, and please do take it as a candid question; do you intend to mean that "I don’t know how what I used works" is a good defence?

bostonsre 5y ago

> Stepping back, though, one could still ask the question; what's the risk of a Java developer accidentally getting some OpenJDK code a little too closely? There's an order of magnitude difference between even a smaller AGPL developer and Oracle. It would be extremely interesting to know how much accidental and non accidental code infringement happens and in what proportion of those cases go to the courts. I would guess that both cases happen utterly constantly and it is only a tiny minority of those cases where legal action is taken. If that's the case right now, then nothing has changed with this tool except the possibility of playing hot potato with liability when those few cases that do happen make it to courts. Even if the developer actually wrote the code that infringed, copilot could make a useful scapegoat and every case will have plausible deniability if copilot lacks really good explainability.

ElFitz 5y ago
> every case will have plausible deniability if copilot lacks really good explainability. Out of pure curiosity, and please do take it as a candid question; do you intend to mean that "I don’t know how what I used works" is a good defence?