6 ms·

I personally don't understand the anger. I don't care if a human or an AI use my code. I open sourced it to be used by anyone, big corps included.

• marcodiego 5y ago
  What you say only makes sense if your code is licensed under something similar to public domain. Some licenses, like the GPL, require derivative works to use the same license.
  • speedgoose 5y ago
    Is it derivative work though? I don't think reading GPL code requires me to only write code under the GPL license.
    • pittmajp 5y ago
      Could the derived work be created without the source?
    • roblabla 5y ago
      No, simply reading GPL code doesn't poison you (though it does put you in an awkward position), but copy pasting gpl code straight into your codebase is a copyright violation unless you can prove fair use. And copy pasting GPL code is what Microsoft Copilot has been repeatedly shown to do.
      • ghaff 5y ago
        First of all, none of this matters if the resulting code isn't distributed in some manner. For an internal app, for example, none of this matters. Secondly, it's pretty much obvious that fairly trivial (and, frankly, probably not so trivial) code snippets are reused/reworked from various sources all the time. This makes it hard for me to see Copilot as this new and existentially harmful thing.
        • guitarbill 5y ago
          People use different licences, because they want different things, e.g. attribution, or that improvements be contributed back, or nothing. It is harmful to open-source, because if these wishes are not respected, people will stop contributing and stop open-sourcing things.
        • marcodiego 5y ago
          For the GPL it matters even if it is distributed in binary form. For AGPL it matters if you make a service available.
          • visarga 5y ago
            AGPL projects will benefit from these huge coding models like everyone. This puts all code in an open position.
      • skeeter2020 5y ago
        >> but copy pasting gpl code straight into your codebase is a copyright violation unless you can prove This is not true. The copied code needs to be distinct and uncommon; a tiny snippet is very unlikely to meet this requirement.
        • roblabla 5y ago
          That's true, but some of the copy pasting that Copilot indulges in would absolutely fulfill that requirement. See: copilot copy pasting quake's inverse square root function: https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 Copy pasting a one-line snippet may be OK, but copy pasting a full function is already much more of a grey area.
          • jefftk 5y ago
            The Quake case is a pretty non-central example, because that particular function has been copied verbatim into many code bases.
            • speedgoose 5y ago
              This fast inverse square root function is also getting old. If it was a software patent, which are not recognized in many places, it would have expired a few years ago.
              • roblabla 5y ago
                We're discussing copyright though, not patents, which for better or worse, have terms of almost a century. In the US, the copyright lapses 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation, or 70 years from author death, whichever is shortest. So the inverse square root function will stay copyrighted until 2100 (the source was published in 2005 I believe).
                • jefftk 5y ago
      • Kiro 5y ago
        From what I can see it has only been "repeatedly shown to do" it when you explicitly try to force it to do it (e.g. adding those Quake specific comments to bring out the fast inverse square root code). I want to see a serious analysis of Microsoft's claim that it only happens 0.1% of the times. Has it actually been debunked?
• happymellon 5y ago
  Because when you OpenSource and use the BSD license, then they are in violation since they will not provide you credit. No one should use this, because you could easily be a derivative of something else and you are not in control of your own license.
  • visarga 5y ago
    Making a small quote adapted to your use case and variable names is more like human learning than abusing GPL projects wholesale.
    • happymellon 5y ago
      Who said GPL? If you copy something from a BSD licensed software you should credit them.