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So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from t

So this product that would not be possible without public, open-source code will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data. It is extracting value from the commons and funneling it to a private company. This is just business as usual for tech companies though. How many Silicon Valley businesses built their products on top of open source projects without contributing much back? Heck.. how many YC companies do that? When you see vital open source projects like OpenSSL struggling to raise more than a few tens of thousands in donations (it only continues through OSF contracting work), and libraries like Svelte barely clearing $30k, when you know they're used by Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc you can't be that surprised when companies do the same thing on a larger scale. The entire tech industry and all the multi-trillion and multi-billion dollar unicorn businesses that have billionaire founders and millionaire developers working at them fall under the description of "would not be possible without public, open-source code" and "will itself be non-public, closed-source, closed-data." We can't reasonably claim there's anything wrong with a company building a product on the back of open source work when literally all of us do that as well. The only difference with Copilot is scale.

yreg 5y ago
Shaming companies for using OpenSSL for free without any strings attached seems to go against the idea of free software.
- onion2k 5y ago
  No part of any open source license says I have to like companies that extract billions in value from open source projects without contributing back to the project. My opinion is simply that once you get to a few million in revenue putting a few thousand back in to the code that got you there is a decent thing to do, and if you don't then you're not very nice. The fact that the license allows you to do this is great; the fact that people actually do is not.
  - drran 5y ago
    GPL asks to release back changes to code made by a company, for which the company paid already, i.e. it's almost zero price for the company, and just look how much companies are afraid to donate zero ($0) worth of code back to the opensource project and prefer to pirate it instead, including such mega-rich companies as M$.
    - messe 5y ago
      > GPL asks to release back changes to code made by a company Only if the code is distributed. SaaS can be (and is) used to get around this.
      - grey_earthling 5y ago
        Hence the AGPL.
tvirosi 5y ago
There's a difference between building a product using open source and not contributing back, and copying licensed code into your own codebase. One is rude and the other is straight up illegal.
- onion2k 5y ago
  The code doesn't exist in Copilot. The instructions for how to recreate the code does. On a very pedantic level those are not the same, but it probably is enough to argue that the product is 100% legal. It is still quite rude to do that though.
  - dTal 5y ago
    So a .zip file of copyrighted code loses its license?
  - dmurray 5y ago
    I don't think there's any water in that argument at a fundamental level. By that logic you could encode copyrighted information in any reversible format and it would be OK. If I copy the code line by line with my eyes and keyboard, then the code briefly doesn't exist, but the instructions to recreate it do. Copying it is then a two-phase process: first I read the code, then I type it in. It is clear that I'm allowed to look at the code, so it's the action of typing it in that violates copyright. In the same way, distributing Copilot doesn't necessarily break copyright, but using it may.
  - hvis 5y ago
    Did "instructions" recreate this? https://twitter.com/stefankarpinski/status/1410971061181681674 https://twitter.com/stefankarpinski/status/14109710611816816...
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      Yes. Models are much much smaller than compressed training sets, making it very clear that they are doing more than just compressing the entire training set.
dgb23 5y ago
> We can't reasonably claim there's anything wrong with a company building a product on the back of open source work when literally all of us do that as well. We cannot (are not allowed to, by law, contracts etc.) open source everything we write. I think the most important contribution is not funding but to contribute in some way or another for most. Having said that, it is disheartening that important projects lack even basic funding. Is this getting better? There are also success stories that pop up with funding and donations becoming easier. For companies open source funding can be a major thing to improve their relationship with the wider software community. It is a signal that they are interested in sustainability of software and collaboration. And it is a form of recognition for the authors. Edit: I just realized we are talking about GitHub here. They are a major contributor to open and free software as they provide free hosting and tooling. I'm not saying this absolves them of everything they do with Copilot, but I'm very, very happy to have such an amazing service freely available and many others are too.
- benatkin 5y ago
  GitHub isn't good for Open Source in my opinion. Debian is right to use their own GitLab instance. Lots of things seem good in the short term and are bad in the long term. Edit: I don't really know what things would be like without GitHub. Same with YouTube and Facebook. I don't assume any of these have a net positive impact, though.

yreg 5y ago

Shaming companies for using OpenSSL for free without any strings attached seems to go against the idea of free software.

onion2k 5y ago
No part of any open source license says I have to like companies that extract billions in value from open source projects without contributing back to the project. My opinion is simply that once you get to a few million in revenue putting a few thousand back in to the code that got you there is a decent thing to do, and if you don't then you're not very nice. The fact that the license allows you to do this is great; the fact that people actually do is not.
- drran 5y ago
  GPL asks to release back changes to code made by a company, for which the company paid already, i.e. it's almost zero price for the company, and just look how much companies are afraid to donate zero ($0) worth of code back to the opensource project and prefer to pirate it instead, including such mega-rich companies as M$.
  - messe 5y ago
    > GPL asks to release back changes to code made by a company Only if the code is distributed. SaaS can be (and is) used to get around this.
    - grey_earthling 5y ago
      Hence the AGPL.

tvirosi 5y ago

There's a difference between building a product using open source and not contributing back, and copying licensed code into your own codebase. One is rude and the other is straight up illegal.

onion2k 5y ago
The code doesn't exist in Copilot. The instructions for how to recreate the code does. On a very pedantic level those are not the same, but it probably is enough to argue that the product is 100% legal. It is still quite rude to do that though.
- dTal 5y ago
  So a .zip file of copyrighted code loses its license?
- dmurray 5y ago
  I don't think there's any water in that argument at a fundamental level. By that logic you could encode copyrighted information in any reversible format and it would be OK. If I copy the code line by line with my eyes and keyboard, then the code briefly doesn't exist, but the instructions to recreate it do. Copying it is then a two-phase process: first I read the code, then I type it in. It is clear that I'm allowed to look at the code, so it's the action of typing it in that violates copyright. In the same way, distributing Copilot doesn't necessarily break copyright, but using it may.
- hvis 5y ago
  Did "instructions" recreate this? https://twitter.com/stefankarpinski/status/1410971061181681674 https://twitter.com/stefankarpinski/status/14109710611816816...
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Yes. Models are much much smaller than compressed training sets, making it very clear that they are doing more than just compressing the entire training set.

dgb23 5y ago

> We can't reasonably claim there's anything wrong with a company building a product on the back of open source work when literally all of us do that as well. We cannot (are not allowed to, by law, contracts etc.) open source everything we write. I think the most important contribution is not funding but to contribute in some way or another for most. Having said that, it is disheartening that important projects lack even basic funding. Is this getting better? There are also success stories that pop up with funding and donations becoming easier. For companies open source funding can be a major thing to improve their relationship with the wider software community. It is a signal that they are interested in sustainability of software and collaboration. And it is a form of recognition for the authors. Edit: I just realized we are talking about GitHub here. They are a major contributor to open and free software as they provide free hosting and tooling. I'm not saying this absolves them of everything they do with Copilot, but I'm very, very happy to have such an amazing service freely available and many others are too.

benatkin 5y ago
GitHub isn't good for Open Source in my opinion. Debian is right to use their own GitLab instance. Lots of things seem good in the short term and are bad in the long term. Edit: I don't really know what things would be like without GitHub. Same with YouTube and Facebook. I don't assume any of these have a net positive impact, though.