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>> 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 a
by 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 agoThat'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 agoThe Quake case is a pretty non-central example, because that particular function has been copied verbatim into many code bases.
- speedgoose 5y agoThis 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 agoWe'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 agoThis is minor, but it's at least a bit older than that. Via Wikipedia I found a link to the code on a Chinese forum in 2000: https://web.archive.org/web/20150702180504/http://bbs.csdn.net/topics/41888 https://web.archive.org/web/20150702180504/http://bbs.csdn.n...