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> It's so weird to see free software proponents argue for what is in effect a big extension of what should be protected under copyright. I don't believe that's

by louthy 5y ago

> It's so weird to see free software proponents argue for what is in effect a big extension of what should be protected under copyright. I don't believe that's what they're arguing. They're arguing that they're putting themselves (or their employer's) products at risk by having unattributed copyright protected code in their products. It doesn't matter how much any of us would hope that copyright didn't exist, the fact is, it does. There are other issues with Copilot, but by far the biggest is the licensing risks for those using it in a professional software engineering environment. I'm a FOSS advocate and all my FOSS projects are MIT licensed. Anyone can use my code to do anything they like, but my day-to-day professional software engineering life needs to know where the code comes from and what its license is.

onli 5y ago
Did you see https://twitter.com/NoraDotCodes/status/1412741339771461635 https://twitter.com/NoraDotCodes/status/1412741339771461635, discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27769440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27769440 ? > it's official, obeying copyright is only for the plebs and proles, rich people and big companies can do whatever they want > Wow. It's amazing that nobody has brought up the point that the result of ML is a derivative work from the input dataset. If the dataset has a restrictive license, like the GPL, it is a clear cut case of violating the terms of the GPL because it is not being released in the open There are other reactions of course, I'm handpicking here, as those are the reactions I was referencing above. > my day-to-day professional software engineering life needs to know where the code comes from and what its license is. I understand, I agree with it. But that doesn't mean that code produced by an AI that did learn from GPL code has to be licensed under GPL. Verbatim copies of sufficient high originality, so that copyright applies: Sure. And that's where there is some risk of Copilot going wrong. But that's not the primary output of Copilot nor its goal.
- louthy 5y ago
  > And that's where there is some risk of Copilot going wrong. But that's not the primary output of Copilot nor its goal. It took no more than 24 hours for the verbatim code to appear in the wild. It's irrelevant if it's the primary goal or not, if it can happen once then it can happen again; therefore (I believe) it's an existential risk to any organisation that uses it for their own products.

by louthy 5y ago

onli 5y ago

Did you see https://twitter.com/NoraDotCodes/status/1412741339771461635 https://twitter.com/NoraDotCodes/status/1412741339771461635, discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27769440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27769440 ? > it's official, obeying copyright is only for the plebs and proles, rich people and big companies can do whatever they want > Wow. It's amazing that nobody has brought up the point that the result of ML is a derivative work from the input dataset. If the dataset has a restrictive license, like the GPL, it is a clear cut case of violating the terms of the GPL because it is not being released in the open There are other reactions of course, I'm handpicking here, as those are the reactions I was referencing above. > my day-to-day professional software engineering life needs to know where the code comes from and what its license is. I understand, I agree with it. But that doesn't mean that code produced by an AI that did learn from GPL code has to be licensed under GPL. Verbatim copies of sufficient high originality, so that copyright applies: Sure. And that's where there is some risk of Copilot going wrong. But that's not the primary output of Copilot nor its goal.

louthy 5y ago
> And that's where there is some risk of Copilot going wrong. But that's not the primary output of Copilot nor its goal. It took no more than 24 hours for the verbatim code to appear in the wild. It's irrelevant if it's the primary goal or not, if it can happen once then it can happen again; therefore (I believe) it's an existential risk to any organisation that uses it for their own products.