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I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free

I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. Stop getting worked up about the idea of using courts to punish theft. Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characters of fast square root is theft but 79 isn't. Where on earth is the ambition and vision!? Knowledge is public domain. A commons of knowledge is a public good. The cost of code copying is zero. Sure in our day job we have to pretend to care about this stuff. But when did the ideological scope of what can be achieved become rules lawyering over license text. Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps, in fact I want a truly public domain license but copyright law is so hostage to corporate interests no such thing exists in many countries. Free the code.

progman32 4y ago
I see the free software movement as a variant on your ideals but rooted in practicality given the current environment.
- Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
  I think we share a lot of the same goals but they presuppose openness based on violence, if you don't do what their license says exactly then they're going to use lawyers and courts and the state's monopoly on violence to make you comply. I think at a fundamental level this abandons any vision of a true commons since as copilot discussions reveal the well is now polluted (to mix metaphors) and though in some frames the code is more free you certainly won't be if you fail to pay the penalty levied in a civil case for misusing it.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    That is true of any license.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.
- andybak 4y ago
  And I really don't mind. I want every line of code I've ever written to be used as much as possible. I find "intellectual property" to be dubious to the core. I'm not confident enough in my feelings to be a zealot, but if I had to pick sides then I know which side I would pick.
  - JoshTriplett 4y ago
    You're welcome to use a "do whatever you want" license on your code, and people should respect that. (Though even those licenses tend to require attribution, and copilot doesn't do even that.) Other people use licenses that try to create a commons where if you want to use it you need to share your own code, as a counterpoint to the non-commons in which you can't use code at all. And if people use those licenses, they should be respected as well. By all means, eliminate copyright, and let all code be copied freely. And until that happens, as long as proprietary code exists and doesn't let anyone copy it, respect copyleft licenses as well.
    - andybak 4y ago
      A fair point. "What to do in a world where copyright already exists" is a tougher question to answer and one in which I tend to go back and forth.
  - sirsinsalot 4y ago
    If an AI "listened" to music and created new samples for musicians to use for a fee, do you not think the original musicians should be compensated? The value transfer is basically theft. It isn't about the usefulness of the service, or even that something similar is a good thing ... it is about the execution and what it says about fairness for those that worked to create the data it depends on to produce value.
georgeecollins 4y ago
You may not care about licensing or copyright, and I imagine many others who create code under an attribution license don't. That's still not the same as saying "copyright and licensing are bad." Too many businesses depend on them to exist for me to have that opinion. If an AI takes a copyright work and makes its own version-- say combining two novels by popular authors in a way that is unique but keeps large parts of the text intact, can I sell that? I think if I were the authors I would be unhappy. Also, how hard would it be for copilot to include a comment saying "// I got this line from x repo" when you are copying from a new repo? I am guessing not hard at all. Then at least the user would be aware of where their code was coming from and could be expected to make a judgement. If the line is "let a = b" then probably no worries. But if it is hundreds of lines of a simulation, all from the same repo with no changes, then I think some attribution is good for both parties.
- Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I know this (copyright abolition) is pie-in-the-sky stuff. I'm using an anon account to post because even advocating for it could be troublesome for employment. But I don't accept we have to be meek or have small goals in talking about this ideological stuff. And I think this has made me realise why I find the Free Software vision so disappointing and weak. And hence why I find all these (ideologically) Free Software aligned takes of sending Billy to jail for a thousand years so irritating.
mplanchard 4y ago
If that's what you want, you should license your code not under MIT, but under a license that allows replication/distribution without attribution. Meanwhile, others who do care about such things can license their code under licenses that require attribution/copyleft/etc.
- Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
  But I can't really because the legal systems for it don't exist. I can't relinquish anything https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/147111/what-is-wrong-with-the-unlicense https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1471... (CC0 looks closer but still doesn't do what I'm after). And I can't because there are a bunch of, for want of a better word, dweebs who care about this stuff. I don't give a single solitary frick about the finer points of MIT vs GPL vs BSD 3 clause vs CC-BY-NC or whatever-the-hell. But y'all are forcing me to care by making the legal frameworks for software ever more strict and confusing. I take a maximalist view, don't want the code copied, sliced up, re-used in any form whatsoever with no credit? Don't post it on a code sharing site. Like I say in the OP, in my job I obviously have to follow the rules, but on an ideological level I'll ignore them where I can get away with it outside of work. If you don't want the code to be used, don't post it online,
  - tuckerman 4y ago
    I'm curious if this view is software specific or relates to any work released online? For example, do you feel similarly about a novelist or graphic artist? I reckon at least a few software engineers look at what they produce not entirely differently from how an artist or writer looks at theirs.
    - Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
      It's a good, and thought-provoking, question. First to be flippant the idea of a software developer with that view sounds so unbearably insufferable and full of themselves I hope never to meet one. All code is terrible, be less attached. Stream of consciousness: Should artists or writers be paid for what they produce? Yes. So why not software developers? I'm paid for what I produce. But then I don't release the stuff I'm paid for for free on the internet. But I'm against DRM, I also think Winnie the Pooh shouldn't have IP protection (now expired). What makes art or literature a different commons from software? I also think all scientific journals should be available for free. Do artists and writers have an alternative route to make money from what they publish, what is the artistic or writer equivalent of open source? I think this is the crux of it, if we're going to do open source let's actually do it and stop being precious about it but this only applies to freely-entered open source. So does that mean I support some form of copyright after all? Then again some old out-of-print books will sell for Amazon for like $4000 so we should be able to copy those for free. Ultimately it's a question of what a vision for society without copyright would look like. I think software is uniquely placed to start exploring that idea. How would we make a living of software if anyone could reverse engineer (even our proprietary) code freely and safely?
marpstar 4y ago
> Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps This is my feeling as well. I don't build stuff in the open so that I can get bent out of shape at someone not properly licensing it. It's in a public repository, FFS... I assume that if anyone even notices my repo, that they may copy/paste a few lines out of my solution if it helps them.
- cududa 4y ago
  Exactly! Do they really think every single line of their code is so precious it requires attribution? If I publish code, I assume it might get pushed, pulled, refactored in a million ways and no one will ever know my name’s attached to it. And guess what? I DONT’T CARE. It’s code. Not a self-constructed monument to my own intelligence that needs a little placard with my name on it to follow around some clever async function I wrote
  - georgeecollins 4y ago
    If its a couple lines of generic code, of course. That's also an indefensible copyright, btw. But if its hundreds of very specific likes of code written to do one thing under a license you don't follow, that's something else. This isn't just an issue of code. You can write a program that combines songs, or combines novels creating a different work that has sections that are essentially the original protected work. I don't think the authors of those novels are going to be OK with you selling or giving away a version of their work just because an AI edited it or combined it somehow.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  But this isn't everyone's feeling. And they have a right to choose how their work is used. Thats the basis of commerce being possible here. The mechanised license ignorance and the way original authors are not compensated is the issue. If you had a repo you'd worked really hard on, and offered a commercial license or GPL depending on the use (so you can be funded to work on it) ... do you think it is fair that copilot ingests that code and allows others to benefit from your work and knowledge without the commercial license as you intended? Note how Microsoft always throws out the capitalism "rules of engagement" when it benefits them and undermines everything else. The fact we are even trusting the situation Microsoft are creating is dire, and speaks to the short memory of our industry.
wcoenen 4y ago
> I want a truly public domain license I think this sentence contradicts itself. A "license" implies that there is a copyright holder who allows usage of the work under the terms of said license. While "Public domain" implies that there is no copyright holder (e.g. because the copyright expired, was explicitly waived, or is for some other reason not applicable). If you want to put your work in the public domain, you can do so; simply include a note saying that you dedicate it to the public domain.
- Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
  You're right that it does contradict itself, but the unfortunate situation is that public domain declarations don't work and would make it harder for people to use your code safely in the current licensing model. The closest options are Unlicense and CC0 afaict and both don't work in many European jurisdictions. I just want people to be able to take my code and do whatever the hell they want with it (including commercially) and optionally contribute to it. Having a license currently makes that easier but every time the Free Software lot going zooming off into the weeds of GPL v3 versus GPL v2 versus LGPL my eyes roll back into my head and I internally start screaming "get a life!".
  - imtringued 4y ago
    You use GPL for desktop apps, AGPL for webapps and services and LGPL for libraries. Who cares about the specific version, just pick one of them.
ssalka 4y ago
Information wants to be free
monocasa 4y ago
The issue is that whether the free software people want it or not, the copyright system over code exists, and historically has been used as a cudgel against smaller players. If we got rid of copyright over code entirely I'd totally be down for this. And IIRC RMS has said the same thing; that he'd be in favor of the removal of copyright over code as a concept even if it meant neutering the protections of the GPL. Until that happens, and copyright protections are still used by larger entities, using the same system to protect yourself and (more importantly) your users isn't turning your back on your ideals, but instead simply adjusting your strategy to the current material conditions. Remember that Google v. Oracle (while ultimately a win versus what could have been) was a step back, with de minimis claims left on the table as not a valid defense. The play field is heavily slanted towards the big players and software freedom requires every tool it can put it's hands on at the moment.
- Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
  Interesting that he's said that, I wasn't aware. I think at its root the problem is copyleft is a mirror image of copyright. It relies on and replicates all the cultural and legal requirements and constraints of the copyright model and curtails an imagining of other possibilities. Every sentence or thought spent on copyleft is misdirected in my view. Which is why I find Microsoft doing this (potential) en-masse license violation and then a bunch of GPL folks getting mad pretty funny overall. I just find the high and mighty tone annoying, like sure, they've (allegedly) screwed you, but they're going to (theoretically) get away with it because they're rich and powerful, sorry that didn't turn out how you wanted.
  - Kbelicius 4y ago
    >I think at its root the problem is copyleft is a mirror image of copyright. That is the (only)point of copyleft. If it weren't for copyright it wouldn't exist. Fight fire with fire, that sort of thing.
    - rcxdude 4y ago
      I don't think that's true: copyleft is right to repair for software. Even if the software is not copyrightable without the source code users are still relatively powerless. (Incidentally this is related to why patents were created: not to constrain or encourage innovation, but to get people to publish inventions instead of keeping them secret). If copyright were abolished and so too copyleft destroyed, linux users freedoms would probably materially go down, not up (though in general user freedom would marginally increase because most software is not copyleft).
vajow46267 4y ago
So glad this sentiment is becoming more common in the OSS community! I MIT license everything, if someone wants to make money using stuff I wrote that's awesome, and I wish them the best. I don't think users owe me anything at all. If people want to PR back that's cool but if not that's cool too.
kube-system 4y ago
> Free Software > public domain These are incompatible concepts. RMS's vision of 'free-as-in-freedom' software doesn't let people do whatever they want. It forces those who distribute binaries to also distribute source. This is not possible with a public domain work.
futureshock 4y ago
In this thread: many engineers nervously sweating. The moats are drying up and the wizards are about to be thrown out of the castle. This tech is the first product in a long line of products that will massively lower the barrier to entry. It has been a good run, but it was never going to last forever. We are not part of the capitalist class and were never going to be.
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  Copilot replaces code monkeys, not engineers. Ultimately it's just faster stack overflow, proper software engineers and system architects are going to be just as in demand as they are right now for the foreseeable future. At the point at which that stops being the case, we'll have much bigger societal and existential problems (because it implies the singularity is nigh) (You're correct on not being part of the capitalist class, though)
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    There are a lot of code monkeys out there and I might be one of them. That island of job security seems like it will be shrinking.
    - account42 4y ago
      I don't agree that we are that close to that (or that Copilot is a significant contribution to bringing it closer) but ultimately eliminating mindless jobs is a good thing. The problem only comes from the expectation built into our current society that people need a job in order to be allowed to survive. Or to put it another way, the profit from automating away jobs en masse should be shared with the whole of society, not privatized.
- ThalesX 4y ago
  The world might change, but software engineers have been working with and within change their entire careers presumably. I think we'll be OK, as people, no matter what happens. I was sweating nervously before I started using Copilot awhile ago but I've stopped since because A - it really doesn't replace me, tried really hard; B - I don't sweat nervously for IntelliSense either. There's also C, where being of an entrepreneurial mindset, I'd love the opportunity to hand over the software to an AI dev and just direct the implementation to my desire until I have a working product. I bet I could secure a higher room in the castle if instead of coding for 8 hours per day I could work on n products with capable AI Software Engineers. We're not there yet though.
eikenberry 4y ago
There is a license for that, the MIT-0 or the MIT No Attribution License. https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0 https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0
bayindirh 4y ago
> I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. Me too. I also find three iterations of the same subject not enough discourse. We need to take this matter more seriously. > But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. On the other hand, this whole discourse reminds me why I absolutely love Free Software as a movement. > Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. This is why we have "Copyleft". > Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characters of fast square root is theft but 79 isn't. And, stop getting into frenzy of arousal about being able to use any and every code piece you see elsewhere in any project regardless of its license. > Where on earth is the ambition and vision!? Knowledge is public domain. A commons of knowledge is a public good. The cost of code copying is zero. This is why GPL is important. It forces knowledge to evolve in the open, stay in the public domain and help it actually makes public good. It also doesn't hinder ambition and vision by not taking it to private domain, and keeping it open to everyone. > Sure in our day job we have to pretend to care about this stuff. But when did the ideological scope of what can be achieved become rules lawyering over license text. You might be pretending to care about this in your daily job, but we really care. Some of the projects I take part can't ever include GPL code (because the projects are MIT licensed). These texts are court-tested licenses, so they're as proper and serious agreements as the EULAs of "particular" software companies. > Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps, in fact I want a truly public domain license but copyright law is so hostage to corporate interests no such thing exists in many countries. If I want my code to be copied and possibly closed, I'll license it with MIT or BSD-0 and forget about it, but if I'm licensing my code with GPL3, it means I want that code to stay open. As a license, I expect anyone using that code to respect that license. > Free the code. Yes, and respect the license the author selected for his/her code.
- gopiandcode 4y ago
  > > Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. > This is why we have "Copyleft". This. Exactly. It's suprising how many developers have strong anti-copyleft/anti-GPL opinions while being completely uninformed on what they're talking about (but hey, I guess "uninformed but strongly opinionated" is HN in a nutshell). The purpose of GPL and other copyleft licenses is exactly to combat the insanity of intellectual slavery.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
The problem with this is 'freeing the code' in this instance leads to microsoft building a wall around it and asserting complete control in a few years. Copyleft exists for a reason and without the ongoing fight for the commons we lose it all.
notacoward 4y ago
I suggest you read up on the history of free software and open source. It exists as a reaction to intellectual enclosure, to prevent that ill and create greater freedom of ideas. Yes, it uses the tools of copyright to fight greater ills of copyright, because those are the tools available, and actions like these are necessary to keep the enclosure from happening all over again. Anyone who has actually studied the matter for even five minutes can see how silly the "free software is anti-freedom" FUD is.
nonbirithm 4y ago
I think because this kind of ML is so new, we have no choice but to frame arguments for/against in terms of the structures that have been in place for decades past (copyright, open source licenses). We don't yet have the legal language to express dissent against ML in clear yes or no terms. I think if there were an option to add a machine learning clause and ask individual creators if they wanted it applied in that context, we would see a considerable amount of uptake. It's just that we couldn't forsee this progress happening so soon, and the issue is still not visible enough. I think it's only a matter of time before the culture catches up and new creative works in the coming years are excluded from training sets by their authors with clear and direct language. By that point there would be no way to argue "but they shouldn't care, they licensed it like this, so I'm assuming it's fine for ML use." If copyright is not enough to stop another entity from using a person's data for training, then some other protection should be invented that does.
- popcube 4y ago
  because big companies want this, we absolutely will accept that company can get copyright from AI
nmfisher 4y ago
I totally agree, this reaction seems very hypocritical. If some rinky dink startup did exactly the same thing - as they are entitled to do under the licences of huge swathes of code on GitHub - hardly anyone would bat an eyelid. But just because it’s a Microsoft-owned company, it’s somehow verboten? That seems totally inconsistent with decades of people clamouring for more openness/liberty when it comes to IP rights.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  Regardless of the size of the offender, if you're not respecting the terms of a license, you'll get pushback. It's natural. If you're a company which executes Embrace Extend Extinguish on any technology you like yet don't own, you'll get quadruple amounts of pushback. That's normal too. Microsoft isn't saint, and copilot is breaking a lot of legal, ethical and moral rules. It's doubly-natural to give reaction to this.

progman32 4y ago

I see the free software movement as a variant on your ideals but rooted in practicality given the current environment.

Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
I think we share a lot of the same goals but they presuppose openness based on violence, if you don't do what their license says exactly then they're going to use lawyers and courts and the state's monopoly on violence to make you comply. I think at a fundamental level this abandons any vision of a true commons since as copilot discussions reveal the well is now polluted (to mix metaphors) and though in some frames the code is more free you certainly won't be if you fail to pay the penalty levied in a civil case for misusing it.
- imtringued 4y ago
  That is true of any license.

sirsinsalot 4y ago

"A commons of knowledge is a public good." Yes but this copilot model takes that, adds value and doesn't itself join the public common good. Instead it takes it, and makes you pay to have it back in another form. If copilot were open source and the model released for the public good, being built of public data (in your scenario) we would have a very different conversation.

andybak 4y ago
And I really don't mind. I want every line of code I've ever written to be used as much as possible. I find "intellectual property" to be dubious to the core. I'm not confident enough in my feelings to be a zealot, but if I had to pick sides then I know which side I would pick.
- JoshTriplett 4y ago
  You're welcome to use a "do whatever you want" license on your code, and people should respect that. (Though even those licenses tend to require attribution, and copilot doesn't do even that.) Other people use licenses that try to create a commons where if you want to use it you need to share your own code, as a counterpoint to the non-commons in which you can't use code at all. And if people use those licenses, they should be respected as well. By all means, eliminate copyright, and let all code be copied freely. And until that happens, as long as proprietary code exists and doesn't let anyone copy it, respect copyleft licenses as well.
  - andybak 4y ago
    A fair point. "What to do in a world where copyright already exists" is a tougher question to answer and one in which I tend to go back and forth.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  If an AI "listened" to music and created new samples for musicians to use for a fee, do you not think the original musicians should be compensated? The value transfer is basically theft. It isn't about the usefulness of the service, or even that something similar is a good thing ... it is about the execution and what it says about fairness for those that worked to create the data it depends on to produce value.

georgeecollins 4y ago

You may not care about licensing or copyright, and I imagine many others who create code under an attribution license don't. That's still not the same as saying "copyright and licensing are bad." Too many businesses depend on them to exist for me to have that opinion. If an AI takes a copyright work and makes its own version-- say combining two novels by popular authors in a way that is unique but keeps large parts of the text intact, can I sell that? I think if I were the authors I would be unhappy. Also, how hard would it be for copilot to include a comment saying "// I got this line from x repo" when you are copying from a new repo? I am guessing not hard at all. Then at least the user would be aware of where their code was coming from and could be expected to make a judgement. If the line is "let a = b" then probably no worries. But if it is hundreds of lines of a simulation, all from the same repo with no changes, then I think some attribution is good for both parties.

Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
Don't get me wrong, I know this (copyright abolition) is pie-in-the-sky stuff. I'm using an anon account to post because even advocating for it could be troublesome for employment. But I don't accept we have to be meek or have small goals in talking about this ideological stuff. And I think this has made me realise why I find the Free Software vision so disappointing and weak. And hence why I find all these (ideologically) Free Software aligned takes of sending Billy to jail for a thousand years so irritating.

mplanchard 4y ago

If that's what you want, you should license your code not under MIT, but under a license that allows replication/distribution without attribution. Meanwhile, others who do care about such things can license their code under licenses that require attribution/copyleft/etc.

Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
But I can't really because the legal systems for it don't exist. I can't relinquish anything https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/147111/what-is-wrong-with-the-unlicense https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1471... (CC0 looks closer but still doesn't do what I'm after). And I can't because there are a bunch of, for want of a better word, dweebs who care about this stuff. I don't give a single solitary frick about the finer points of MIT vs GPL vs BSD 3 clause vs CC-BY-NC or whatever-the-hell. But y'all are forcing me to care by making the legal frameworks for software ever more strict and confusing. I take a maximalist view, don't want the code copied, sliced up, re-used in any form whatsoever with no credit? Don't post it on a code sharing site. Like I say in the OP, in my job I obviously have to follow the rules, but on an ideological level I'll ignore them where I can get away with it outside of work. If you don't want the code to be used, don't post it online,
- tuckerman 4y ago
  I'm curious if this view is software specific or relates to any work released online? For example, do you feel similarly about a novelist or graphic artist? I reckon at least a few software engineers look at what they produce not entirely differently from how an artist or writer looks at theirs.
  - Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
    It's a good, and thought-provoking, question. First to be flippant the idea of a software developer with that view sounds so unbearably insufferable and full of themselves I hope never to meet one. All code is terrible, be less attached. Stream of consciousness: Should artists or writers be paid for what they produce? Yes. So why not software developers? I'm paid for what I produce. But then I don't release the stuff I'm paid for for free on the internet. But I'm against DRM, I also think Winnie the Pooh shouldn't have IP protection (now expired). What makes art or literature a different commons from software? I also think all scientific journals should be available for free. Do artists and writers have an alternative route to make money from what they publish, what is the artistic or writer equivalent of open source? I think this is the crux of it, if we're going to do open source let's actually do it and stop being precious about it but this only applies to freely-entered open source. So does that mean I support some form of copyright after all? Then again some old out-of-print books will sell for Amazon for like $4000 so we should be able to copy those for free. Ultimately it's a question of what a vision for society without copyright would look like. I think software is uniquely placed to start exploring that idea. How would we make a living of software if anyone could reverse engineer (even our proprietary) code freely and safely?

marpstar 4y ago

> Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps This is my feeling as well. I don't build stuff in the open so that I can get bent out of shape at someone not properly licensing it. It's in a public repository, FFS... I assume that if anyone even notices my repo, that they may copy/paste a few lines out of my solution if it helps them.

cududa 4y ago
Exactly! Do they really think every single line of their code is so precious it requires attribution? If I publish code, I assume it might get pushed, pulled, refactored in a million ways and no one will ever know my name’s attached to it. And guess what? I DONT’T CARE. It’s code. Not a self-constructed monument to my own intelligence that needs a little placard with my name on it to follow around some clever async function I wrote
- georgeecollins 4y ago
  If its a couple lines of generic code, of course. That's also an indefensible copyright, btw. But if its hundreds of very specific likes of code written to do one thing under a license you don't follow, that's something else. This isn't just an issue of code. You can write a program that combines songs, or combines novels creating a different work that has sections that are essentially the original protected work. I don't think the authors of those novels are going to be OK with you selling or giving away a version of their work just because an AI edited it or combined it somehow.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
But this isn't everyone's feeling. And they have a right to choose how their work is used. Thats the basis of commerce being possible here. The mechanised license ignorance and the way original authors are not compensated is the issue. If you had a repo you'd worked really hard on, and offered a commercial license or GPL depending on the use (so you can be funded to work on it) ... do you think it is fair that copilot ingests that code and allows others to benefit from your work and knowledge without the commercial license as you intended? Note how Microsoft always throws out the capitalism "rules of engagement" when it benefits them and undermines everything else. The fact we are even trusting the situation Microsoft are creating is dire, and speaks to the short memory of our industry.

wcoenen 4y ago

> I want a truly public domain license I think this sentence contradicts itself. A "license" implies that there is a copyright holder who allows usage of the work under the terms of said license. While "Public domain" implies that there is no copyright holder (e.g. because the copyright expired, was explicitly waived, or is for some other reason not applicable). If you want to put your work in the public domain, you can do so; simply include a note saying that you dedicate it to the public domain.

Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
You're right that it does contradict itself, but the unfortunate situation is that public domain declarations don't work and would make it harder for people to use your code safely in the current licensing model. The closest options are Unlicense and CC0 afaict and both don't work in many European jurisdictions. I just want people to be able to take my code and do whatever the hell they want with it (including commercially) and optionally contribute to it. Having a license currently makes that easier but every time the Free Software lot going zooming off into the weeds of GPL v3 versus GPL v2 versus LGPL my eyes roll back into my head and I internally start screaming "get a life!".
- imtringued 4y ago
  You use GPL for desktop apps, AGPL for webapps and services and LGPL for libraries. Who cares about the specific version, just pick one of them.

ssalka 4y ago

Information wants to be free

monocasa 4y ago

The issue is that whether the free software people want it or not, the copyright system over code exists, and historically has been used as a cudgel against smaller players. If we got rid of copyright over code entirely I'd totally be down for this. And IIRC RMS has said the same thing; that he'd be in favor of the removal of copyright over code as a concept even if it meant neutering the protections of the GPL. Until that happens, and copyright protections are still used by larger entities, using the same system to protect yourself and (more importantly) your users isn't turning your back on your ideals, but instead simply adjusting your strategy to the current material conditions. Remember that Google v. Oracle (while ultimately a win versus what could have been) was a step back, with de minimis claims left on the table as not a valid defense. The play field is heavily slanted towards the big players and software freedom requires every tool it can put it's hands on at the moment.

Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
Interesting that he's said that, I wasn't aware. I think at its root the problem is copyleft is a mirror image of copyright. It relies on and replicates all the cultural and legal requirements and constraints of the copyright model and curtails an imagining of other possibilities. Every sentence or thought spent on copyleft is misdirected in my view. Which is why I find Microsoft doing this (potential) en-masse license violation and then a bunch of GPL folks getting mad pretty funny overall. I just find the high and mighty tone annoying, like sure, they've (allegedly) screwed you, but they're going to (theoretically) get away with it because they're rich and powerful, sorry that didn't turn out how you wanted.
- Kbelicius 4y ago
  >I think at its root the problem is copyleft is a mirror image of copyright. That is the (only)point of copyleft. If it weren't for copyright it wouldn't exist. Fight fire with fire, that sort of thing.
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    I don't think that's true: copyleft is right to repair for software. Even if the software is not copyrightable without the source code users are still relatively powerless. (Incidentally this is related to why patents were created: not to constrain or encourage innovation, but to get people to publish inventions instead of keeping them secret). If copyright were abolished and so too copyleft destroyed, linux users freedoms would probably materially go down, not up (though in general user freedom would marginally increase because most software is not copyleft).

vajow46267 4y ago

So glad this sentiment is becoming more common in the OSS community! I MIT license everything, if someone wants to make money using stuff I wrote that's awesome, and I wish them the best. I don't think users owe me anything at all. If people want to PR back that's cool but if not that's cool too.

kube-system 4y ago

> Free Software > public domain These are incompatible concepts. RMS's vision of 'free-as-in-freedom' software doesn't let people do whatever they want. It forces those who distribute binaries to also distribute source. This is not possible with a public domain work.

futureshock 4y ago

In this thread: many engineers nervously sweating. The moats are drying up and the wizards are about to be thrown out of the castle. This tech is the first product in a long line of products that will massively lower the barrier to entry. It has been a good run, but it was never going to last forever. We are not part of the capitalist class and were never going to be.

LordDragonfang 4y ago
Copilot replaces code monkeys, not engineers. Ultimately it's just faster stack overflow, proper software engineers and system architects are going to be just as in demand as they are right now for the foreseeable future. At the point at which that stops being the case, we'll have much bigger societal and existential problems (because it implies the singularity is nigh) (You're correct on not being part of the capitalist class, though)
- dougmwne 4y ago
  There are a lot of code monkeys out there and I might be one of them. That island of job security seems like it will be shrinking.
  - account42 4y ago
    I don't agree that we are that close to that (or that Copilot is a significant contribution to bringing it closer) but ultimately eliminating mindless jobs is a good thing. The problem only comes from the expectation built into our current society that people need a job in order to be allowed to survive. Or to put it another way, the profit from automating away jobs en masse should be shared with the whole of society, not privatized.
ThalesX 4y ago
The world might change, but software engineers have been working with and within change their entire careers presumably. I think we'll be OK, as people, no matter what happens. I was sweating nervously before I started using Copilot awhile ago but I've stopped since because A - it really doesn't replace me, tried really hard; B - I don't sweat nervously for IntelliSense either. There's also C, where being of an entrepreneurial mindset, I'd love the opportunity to hand over the software to an AI dev and just direct the implementation to my desire until I have a working product. I bet I could secure a higher room in the castle if instead of coding for 8 hours per day I could work on n products with capable AI Software Engineers. We're not there yet though.

eikenberry 4y ago

There is a license for that, the MIT-0 or the MIT No Attribution License. https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0 https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0

bayindirh 4y ago

> I find this whole topic very annoying, this is like the 3rd variation to reach the front page today. Me too. I also find three iterations of the same subject not enough discourse. We need to take this matter more seriously. > But it has made me realize why I instinctively dislike Free Software as a movement. On the other hand, this whole discourse reminds me why I absolutely love Free Software as a movement. > Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. This is why we have "Copyleft". > Stop getting into a frenzy of arousal about the police kicking down doors to drag Billy Gates to jail because 80 characters of fast square root is theft but 79 isn't. And, stop getting into frenzy of arousal about being able to use any and every code piece you see elsewhere in any project regardless of its license. > Where on earth is the ambition and vision!? Knowledge is public domain. A commons of knowledge is a public good. The cost of code copying is zero. This is why GPL is important. It forces knowledge to evolve in the open, stay in the public domain and help it actually makes public good. It also doesn't hinder ambition and vision by not taking it to private domain, and keeping it open to everyone. > Sure in our day job we have to pretend to care about this stuff. But when did the ideological scope of what can be achieved become rules lawyering over license text. You might be pretending to care about this in your daily job, but we really care. Some of the projects I take part can't ever include GPL code (because the projects are MIT licensed). These texts are court-tested licenses, so they're as proper and serious agreements as the EULAs of "particular" software companies. > Copy my MIT licensed code without attribution? I don't give a shit, go ahead, I hope it helps, in fact I want a truly public domain license but copyright law is so hostage to corporate interests no such thing exists in many countries. If I want my code to be copied and possibly closed, I'll license it with MIT or BSD-0 and forget about it, but if I'm licensing my code with GPL3, it means I want that code to stay open. As a license, I expect anyone using that code to respect that license. > Free the code. Yes, and respect the license the author selected for his/her code.

gopiandcode 4y ago
> > Copyright and licensing are bad, actually. > This is why we have "Copyleft". This. Exactly. It's suprising how many developers have strong anti-copyleft/anti-GPL opinions while being completely uninformed on what they're talking about (but hey, I guess "uninformed but strongly opinionated" is HN in a nutshell). The purpose of GPL and other copyleft licenses is exactly to combat the insanity of intellectual slavery.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

The problem with this is 'freeing the code' in this instance leads to microsoft building a wall around it and asserting complete control in a few years. Copyleft exists for a reason and without the ongoing fight for the commons we lose it all.

notacoward 4y ago

I suggest you read up on the history of free software and open source. It exists as a reaction to intellectual enclosure, to prevent that ill and create greater freedom of ideas. Yes, it uses the tools of copyright to fight greater ills of copyright, because those are the tools available, and actions like these are necessary to keep the enclosure from happening all over again. Anyone who has actually studied the matter for even five minutes can see how silly the "free software is anti-freedom" FUD is.

nonbirithm 4y ago

I think because this kind of ML is so new, we have no choice but to frame arguments for/against in terms of the structures that have been in place for decades past (copyright, open source licenses). We don't yet have the legal language to express dissent against ML in clear yes or no terms. I think if there were an option to add a machine learning clause and ask individual creators if they wanted it applied in that context, we would see a considerable amount of uptake. It's just that we couldn't forsee this progress happening so soon, and the issue is still not visible enough. I think it's only a matter of time before the culture catches up and new creative works in the coming years are excluded from training sets by their authors with clear and direct language. By that point there would be no way to argue "but they shouldn't care, they licensed it like this, so I'm assuming it's fine for ML use." If copyright is not enough to stop another entity from using a person's data for training, then some other protection should be invented that does.

popcube 4y ago
because big companies want this, we absolutely will accept that company can get copyright from AI

nmfisher 4y ago

I totally agree, this reaction seems very hypocritical. If some rinky dink startup did exactly the same thing - as they are entitled to do under the licences of huge swathes of code on GitHub - hardly anyone would bat an eyelid. But just because it’s a Microsoft-owned company, it’s somehow verboten? That seems totally inconsistent with decades of people clamouring for more openness/liberty when it comes to IP rights.

bayindirh 4y ago
Regardless of the size of the offender, if you're not respecting the terms of a license, you'll get pushback. It's natural. If you're a company which executes Embrace Extend Extinguish on any technology you like yet don't own, you'll get quadruple amounts of pushback. That's normal too. Microsoft isn't saint, and copilot is breaking a lot of legal, ethical and moral rules. It's doubly-natural to give reaction to this.