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I wrote a whitepaper refuting GitHub's arguments that Copilot is fair use: https://gavinhoward.com/2021/10/my-whitepaper-about-github-copilot/ https://gavinhowa

I wrote a whitepaper refuting GitHub's arguments that Copilot is fair use: https://gavinhoward.com/2021/10/my-whitepaper-about-github-copilot/ https://gavinhoward.com/2021/10/my-whitepaper-about-github-c... .

UncleMeat 4y ago
I feel like the term "whitepaper" has lost all meaning. Does it just mean "thing typeset with latex" now?
- ghoward 4y ago
  It's just the term that the FSF used when I wrote it for them. For me, it means "academic paper."
  - WhompingWindows 4y ago
    I thought the distinction was: "white papers" are not necessarily peer-reviewed by an academic journal's editors; white papers tend to be internally-made documents within an organization, edited by that organization's members, for the purpose of knowledge/information. Academic papers as a whole can include both "white papers" and "peer-reviewed journal articles" aka the "papers" that many think of. I would surely put a "white paper" onto my resume if I thought it was a great piece of work.
    - ghoward 4y ago
      TIL, thank you. I think my paper is a whitepaper in that sense because it's not peer-reviewed, but it was meant as an academic-like paper.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    "Whitepaper", for a long time, meant sort of the opposite of "academic paper." They weren't published in refereed conferences and journals and were usually published by corporations or governments but they resembled academic work in their contributions. Something like the original BTC paper is a good example. It wasn't published in a conference or journal, but the level of rigor and the scale of the contribution is similar to what would be published in a conference or journal. I think the crypto community was the end of it. Now "we are launching $CoolCoin" gets called "whitepaper."
    - ghoward 4y ago
      That makes sense. Thank you for teaching me that. I would still call my paper a whitepaper, though. While it's not rigorous, it's more about law where rigor doesn't apply in the same way. And it is not peer-reviewed, although it was reviewed and rejected by the FSF.

UncleMeat 4y ago

I feel like the term "whitepaper" has lost all meaning. Does it just mean "thing typeset with latex" now?

ghoward 4y ago
It's just the term that the FSF used when I wrote it for them. For me, it means "academic paper."
- WhompingWindows 4y ago
  I thought the distinction was: "white papers" are not necessarily peer-reviewed by an academic journal's editors; white papers tend to be internally-made documents within an organization, edited by that organization's members, for the purpose of knowledge/information. Academic papers as a whole can include both "white papers" and "peer-reviewed journal articles" aka the "papers" that many think of. I would surely put a "white paper" onto my resume if I thought it was a great piece of work.
  - ghoward 4y ago
    TIL, thank you. I think my paper is a whitepaper in that sense because it's not peer-reviewed, but it was meant as an academic-like paper.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  "Whitepaper", for a long time, meant sort of the opposite of "academic paper." They weren't published in refereed conferences and journals and were usually published by corporations or governments but they resembled academic work in their contributions. Something like the original BTC paper is a good example. It wasn't published in a conference or journal, but the level of rigor and the scale of the contribution is similar to what would be published in a conference or journal. I think the crypto community was the end of it. Now "we are launching $CoolCoin" gets called "whitepaper."
  - ghoward 4y ago
    That makes sense. Thank you for teaching me that. I would still call my paper a whitepaper, though. While it's not rigorous, it's more about law where rigor doesn't apply in the same way. And it is not peer-reviewed, although it was reviewed and rejected by the FSF.