5 ms·

GitHub's Copilot looks like a "code laundering" machine to me.

• lucasyvas 5y ago
  There's a phrase I never wanted to hear. But that sounds exactly like what it is.
• qayxc 5y ago
  Why and how? I'm honestly interested in an answer here. What exactly is the difference between a machine learning patterns and techniques from looking at code and people doing it? Is every programer who ever gazed at GPL'ed code guilty of plagiarism and licensing violations because everything they write has to be considered derivative work now?
  • mehdix 5y ago
    I can think of certain things here. As human beings we have limitations. We get tired of gazing at code, GPLE'ed or not. GitHub's clusters don't. It puts fair use of copyrighted content under question. The next concern I have, is what happens when Copilot produces certain code verbatim? I saw the other day on HN that it produced some Quake code verbatim. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27710287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27710287
    • qayxc 5y ago
      > As human beings we have limitations. That's a fair point. ML models don't seem memorise all the code they've seen either, it seems. Plus while the argument of human limitations applies to the vast majority of people, what about those with eidetic memory? > what happens when Copilot produces certain code verbatim? There are several options: suppress the result, annotate with a proper reference or mark the snipped as GPL'ed. There are technical solutions to this question, but it's also important to ask to which degree this is necessary. Is a search engine that returns code snippets regardless of license also a tool that needs to be discussed the same way? After all, code samples from StackOverflow or RosettaCode are copied on a regular basis and not every example provides a proper reference as to where it's been taken from. So maybe a hint like "may contain results based on GPL'ed code" suffices? I don't know, but that's a question best deferred to software copyright law experts.
• slownews45 5y ago
  Developers have lost the plot here. The number of people browsing stack exchange and copying code is huge. The number of people who have read GPL'ed code to learn from (from the kernel to others) is huge. The number of people who learned from code they had to maintain -> huge. This idea that a snippet of a code is a work seems crazy to me. I thought we went through this with SCO already.
  • loeg 5y ago
    Stack exchange code is explicitly permissively licensed.
    • e12e 5y ago
      Unfortunately wrongly licensed for its precieved use-case - it'd be better if so used mit or bsd :/ https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing I'm guessing most uses of stack overflow snippets are violating the license (no attribution, no share alike of the "remix" - which would probably be the entire program).
    • slownews45 5y ago
      It is, but it has a GPL style permission. ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. The idea that programmers taking snippets from stackexchange or co-pilot etc meaning they have a derivative work seems like total insanity.