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The outrage-bait approach in this thread detracts from it. Yes, they trained it on everything. No, it's not clear if that's legal or not (probably is) or if tha

by Tenoke 5y ago

The outrage-bait approach in this thread detracts from it. Yes, they trained it on everything. No, it's not clear if that's legal or not (probably is) or if that is much of a problem.

arp242 5y ago
Indeed; the question is if copyright should apply at all. Harping on about licenses, GPL, and whatnot is a detraction from the actual issue at hand. Also, given that the author of this tweet called me a "bootlicker" last year in response to a somewhat lengthy nuanced post about GitHub, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they're not all that interested in a meaningful conversation on this in the first place but are rather on a quest to "prove" GitHub is evil.
- lifthrasiir 5y ago
  The possibility of GPL violation does show (one of) enormous ramifications of the question though. I think it's not a detraction as long as the question itself is also mentioned.
  - arp242 5y ago
    There isn't any of this here though: it just operates on the assumption that the GPL applies.
deviledeggs 5y ago
It's not outrage bait. The thing reproduces GPL licensed code verbatim.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  I'm talking about how it's presented. It starts with >oh my gods. they literally have no shame about this. Then continues with >it's official, obeying copyright is only for the plebs and proles, rich people and big companies can do whatever they want and > GitHub, and by extension @Microsoft , knows that copyright is essentially worthless for individuals and small community projects. THAT is why they're all buddy-buddy with free software types; they never intended to respect our rights in the first place At any rate, it's not even clear to me if me publishing code written with copilot (or even with a random tool that will wget from github) puts the blame on the toolmaker or on me. This post, however, doesn't attempt to look at that but uses language that paints GH/MS as doing something illegal (and evil) that others wouldn't even get away with but not caring about it.
  - deviledeggs 5y ago
    Is that not true? Google and Oracle had a 10 year multi billion dollar legal fight over ~20 lines of code identical between Android and JVM. A non rich individual has basically zero chance of challenging GitHub on these blatant violations, and they know it. > At any rate, it's not even clear to me if me publishing code written with copilot (or even with a random tool that will wget from github) puts the blame on the toolmaker or on me. It really depends on the license, which GitHub apparently doesn't care about at all.
    - cortexio 5y ago
      maybe you are correct, but i would agree that it's formulated in a childish/evil spirited way. It smells of outrage hype and cancel culture.
  - belorn 5y ago
    It seems that github did make a legal consideration when choosing to include public projects but exclude private ones, with many big companies having private projects for proprietary code bases. Users of public repositories are less likely to be able to fight github on the issue.
- hu3 5y ago
  Just a reminder: reproducing GPL licensed code verbatim is not illegal per see. The legality lies on what the user does with the code.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  But is that reproduced code "substantial"? I'm sure there's a "for i in range(0, n):" somewhere in a GPL repo, and yet having that in my code doesn't make it GPL.

by Tenoke 5y ago

The outrage-bait approach in this thread detracts from it. Yes, they trained it on everything. No, it's not clear if that's legal or not (probably is) or if that is much of a problem.

arp242 5y ago

Indeed; the question is if copyright should apply at all. Harping on about licenses, GPL, and whatnot is a detraction from the actual issue at hand. Also, given that the author of this tweet called me a "bootlicker" last year in response to a somewhat lengthy nuanced post about GitHub, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they're not all that interested in a meaningful conversation on this in the first place but are rather on a quest to "prove" GitHub is evil.

lifthrasiir 5y ago
The possibility of GPL violation does show (one of) enormous ramifications of the question though. I think it's not a detraction as long as the question itself is also mentioned.
- arp242 5y ago
  There isn't any of this here though: it just operates on the assumption that the GPL applies.

deviledeggs 5y ago

It's not outrage bait. The thing reproduces GPL licensed code verbatim.

Tenoke 5y ago
I'm talking about how it's presented. It starts with >oh my gods. they literally have no shame about this. Then continues with >it's official, obeying copyright is only for the plebs and proles, rich people and big companies can do whatever they want and > GitHub, and by extension @Microsoft , knows that copyright is essentially worthless for individuals and small community projects. THAT is why they're all buddy-buddy with free software types; they never intended to respect our rights in the first place At any rate, it's not even clear to me if me publishing code written with copilot (or even with a random tool that will wget from github) puts the blame on the toolmaker or on me. This post, however, doesn't attempt to look at that but uses language that paints GH/MS as doing something illegal (and evil) that others wouldn't even get away with but not caring about it.
- deviledeggs 5y ago
  Is that not true? Google and Oracle had a 10 year multi billion dollar legal fight over ~20 lines of code identical between Android and JVM. A non rich individual has basically zero chance of challenging GitHub on these blatant violations, and they know it. > At any rate, it's not even clear to me if me publishing code written with copilot (or even with a random tool that will wget from github) puts the blame on the toolmaker or on me. It really depends on the license, which GitHub apparently doesn't care about at all.
  - cortexio 5y ago
    maybe you are correct, but i would agree that it's formulated in a childish/evil spirited way. It smells of outrage hype and cancel culture.
- belorn 5y ago
  It seems that github did make a legal consideration when choosing to include public projects but exclude private ones, with many big companies having private projects for proprietary code bases. Users of public repositories are less likely to be able to fight github on the issue.
hu3 5y ago
Just a reminder: reproducing GPL licensed code verbatim is not illegal per see. The legality lies on what the user does with the code.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
But is that reproduced code "substantial"? I'm sure there's a "for i in range(0, n):" somewhere in a GPL repo, and yet having that in my code doesn't make it GPL.