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The GPL license prohibits building a competitive solution from the licensed software, and 'derivative works' also require the GPL license. So I think it is rel

The GPL license prohibits building a competitive solution from the licensed software, and 'derivative works' also require the GPL license. So I think it is relevant here because there's a gray area around whether or not training a model is like linking to a GPL licensed software(not derivative with caveats) or deriving from one. By the way, Free and Open-source software licenses are not public domain (or 'public-domain-equivalent'), The copyright holder of the software licenses it to whomever, but the holder still retains their copyright.

jakear 4y ago
> ‘derivative works’ require the GPL license This keeps coming up, but if you look at the text of the GPL the word ‘derivative’ literally never appears. GPL in fact explicitly exempts code that is accessed over a web service from needing to be shared, as is the case with copilot.
- blihp 4y ago
  Derivative works don't need to be referenced in the GPL as it's a concept from copyright law. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
  - jakear 4y ago
    That just further supports the claim that copilot is in the clear - it is clearly a separate work with many underlying works. Of course the code copilot generates may violate GPL, but that’s up to the tool’s wielder to determine. Just as it is when searching for code on the internet, consulting books, recalling past knowledge, etc. I don’t even use copilot (I had early access and discovered programming languages are better for unambiguous encoding logic than English, go figure). I’m just sick of all these supposed craftsmen blaming their tools rather than holding themselves accountable for what they commit.
    - blihp 4y ago
      Copyright law doesn't work that way. I'd bet this is going to be litigated to a final decision before anyone can say with certainty if/when a NN is violating copyright (i.e. via the training data) or not.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  It has the same concept: To "modify" a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a "modified version" of the earlier work or a work "based on" the earlier work. A "covered work" means either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program.
  - jakear 4y ago
    Copyright law hold that’s derivative works don’t require copyright permission. So again, copilot is in the clear. Copilot users may not be, but that’s up to them to determine at time of commit.
chrismorgan 4y ago
You’re missing the point: Copilot depends on being exempt from copyright restrictions, so that the license, any license, is irrelevant. Simplified, copyright law says “the creator/rights-holder owns the thing and you can’t do anything with it unless they let you (grant you license), or one of these general conditions holds”, and Copilot is not using your code under rights-holder permission, but under the general condition of “fair use”. If the fair use doctrine fails and the license is relevant, there’s still nothing special about GPL, because almost all licenses would be being violated in some way (most commonly starting with attribution requirements). In this situation, Copilot will certainly be discontinued immediately.
- janetacarr 4y ago
  I see what you mean. It'll probably come down to how the AI is trained then because Copilot reproducing entire code blocks verbatim from the source material would not meet the criteria for Fair Use.
GoblinSlayer 4y ago
Copilot is not a competing solution, it's a knowledge base about text, like encyclopedia. As for snippets it produces, those might be copyrightable if they pass the copyrightability threshold. If it provides you kilobytes of text at once, that would be bad. A middle ground would be Copilot tracking how much code under incompatible licenses it pasted and stop at, say, 200 LOC.

jakear 4y ago

> ‘derivative works’ require the GPL license This keeps coming up, but if you look at the text of the GPL the word ‘derivative’ literally never appears. GPL in fact explicitly exempts code that is accessed over a web service from needing to be shared, as is the case with copilot.

blihp 4y ago
Derivative works don't need to be referenced in the GPL as it's a concept from copyright law. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
- jakear 4y ago
  That just further supports the claim that copilot is in the clear - it is clearly a separate work with many underlying works. Of course the code copilot generates may violate GPL, but that’s up to the tool’s wielder to determine. Just as it is when searching for code on the internet, consulting books, recalling past knowledge, etc. I don’t even use copilot (I had early access and discovered programming languages are better for unambiguous encoding logic than English, go figure). I’m just sick of all these supposed craftsmen blaming their tools rather than holding themselves accountable for what they commit.
  - blihp 4y ago
    Copyright law doesn't work that way. I'd bet this is going to be litigated to a final decision before anyone can say with certainty if/when a NN is violating copyright (i.e. via the training data) or not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
GoblinSlayer 4y ago
It has the same concept: To "modify" a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a "modified version" of the earlier work or a work "based on" the earlier work. A "covered work" means either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program.
- jakear 4y ago
  Copyright law hold that’s derivative works don’t require copyright permission. So again, copilot is in the clear. Copilot users may not be, but that’s up to them to determine at time of commit.

chrismorgan 4y ago

You’re missing the point: Copilot depends on being exempt from copyright restrictions, so that the license, any license, is irrelevant. Simplified, copyright law says “the creator/rights-holder owns the thing and you can’t do anything with it unless they let you (grant you license), or one of these general conditions holds”, and Copilot is not using your code under rights-holder permission, but under the general condition of “fair use”. If the fair use doctrine fails and the license is relevant, there’s still nothing special about GPL, because almost all licenses would be being violated in some way (most commonly starting with attribution requirements). In this situation, Copilot will certainly be discontinued immediately.

janetacarr 4y ago
I see what you mean. It'll probably come down to how the AI is trained then because Copilot reproducing entire code blocks verbatim from the source material would not meet the criteria for Fair Use.

GoblinSlayer 4y ago

Copilot is not a competing solution, it's a knowledge base about text, like encyclopedia. As for snippets it produces, those might be copyrightable if they pass the copyrightability threshold. If it provides you kilobytes of text at once, that would be bad. A middle ground would be Copilot tracking how much code under incompatible licenses it pasted and stop at, say, 200 LOC.