5 ms·

But why is it immoral? All that code is still out there, if I had the time and the resources I could build a language model. Unlike commons in the real world (e

But why is it immoral? All that code is still out there, if I had the time and the resources I could build a language model. Unlike commons in the real world (e.g. land, fresh water, etc) a code commons is purely additive. With the release of Copilot (which I don't intend to pay for or use) nothing has been destroyed, instead we'll get more code for less work where companies do pay for their developers to use it, some might even find its way back into the commons as new open-source code (whether more code of copilot generated quality in general is an unalloyed good is left as an exercise to the reader).

bayindirh 4y ago
Because copilot is violating the terms I put for my code. My code is GPL. It cannot be put into projects with incompatible licenses. That’s my code, and I share it with strings attached. You can’t just copy my code and sell to other parties no strings attached. If that’s fine and dandy, Microsoft should also train Copilot on their source code repositories, so we can use that knowledge, too.
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  I guess I've just never had to work with GPL code before, but the complaints essentially only seem to be coming from coders who like this style of open source where you still get to make it kind of a pain in the ass to actually use your software. I guess you have the right to do this, but it doesn't mesh at all with why I personally contribute (without any expectation of attribution), which is that (much like stack overflow), programmers mostly agreed awhile ago that it's just easier if we all share. So much of what's wrong with the modern economy comes down to seeking rent on an idea that should just be public knowledge. Sorry if my viewpoint towards your work is apathetic, but the whole field is already infested with academics who only understand citation as a useful metric. Further, the point remains that anyone with enough money could do this - not just Microsoft (Salesforce has released several models for python competitive with Copilot). Times are changing - maybe don't share code anymore? I imagine in ten-twenty years this whole conversation will seem pretty petty though when your entire program is trivially recreated from its GitHub description without ever needing to have seen it in the first place.
  - namose 4y ago
    But GPL owners aren’t seeking rent, so you’re just asking those who believe all code should be open source to unilaterally let large companies use all their code, while they reap no such benefits from the large companies
    - ShamelessC 4y ago
      Like I said, I understand the premise, just not the emotion behind why you want to release code to the public at all if it isn't simply a donation to all human knowledge. There are better ways to gain notoriety as a coder than by essentially legally requiring your name is attached to a thing for all time. I personally would be thrilled to know my work was valuable enough to be used by a company because I really just couldn't care less that about the "credit" part of it. I know what I've done and don't have anything to prove.
      - bayindirh 4y ago
        It's not an emotion. It's a stance. > Why you want to release code to the public at all if it isn't simply a donation to all human knowledge. On the contrary. I donate my code to all human knowledge. Just not to corporate's private code corpus. I intend my code to be open to all humans to run, study, modify and share, forever. I don't give you the freedom to take it to a closed domain, and not share the further knowledge you derived from my code. If your primary intention is to return this knowledge to human kind, GPL is an enabler, not an hinderer. > I personally would be thrilled to know my work was valuable enough to be used by a company because I really just couldn't care less that about the "credit" part of it. I know what I've done and don't have anything to prove. I personally don't care whether my code is good enough to be used by a company. If I want to contribute code which can be used by a company, I can contribute to MIT projects (which I also do). I don't have anything to prove. I release my code with the hope it'd be useful for somebody, and I don't want it to be included in any permissive or closed source base. Doesn't matter it saves your beef for today or not. That's not my problem. Go write a better one, then. I don't care.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
Banana699 4y ago
You can say the exact same about piracy, when I take a game or a pdf book from a pirate site, nothing is destroyed, nothing is subtracted. The server still owns the data and can copy and share it infinitely, all that changed is that I now have a copy too, and I use it to enrich my own intellectual life. The argument has 2 main flaws 1- It's not symmetric. The massive corporations with paid armies of lawyers aren't hugging trees and talking about how "Knowledge is - like - just free, man" with dreamy eyes, I would love if they were like that but no. They are constantly on the lookout for anyone remotely using their work. They don't deserve the language of free knowledge and open data, that would be like extending peace to an invading army, or defending a tyrant with the lingo of free speech. He Who Lives By The Sword Dies By The Sword. 2- If the person(s) behind the data or the code lives off their intellectual labor, you are ripping them off by using it without compensation. Sometimes the compensation is as little as simply citing them, just mention their names so that they get visibility and prestige they deserve for toiling in the intellectual field to produce the ideas and brain patterns you use and benefit from. The whole thing is a huge mine field, digital reproduction of information and abstract structures is an extremely novel phenomenon that breaks tons of human intutions about how ideas and thinking work and spreads. But the involvement of a corporation allows you to shortcut the entire thing by invoking (1), also known as the fundamental theorem of ethics : Do Unto Others As You Wish They Do Unto You. Do corporations allow you to freely take and mix their intellectual produce and sell it back into them ? No ? then they DON'T get to do that either, except maybe among themselves. What I find strange is how nobody talks about how inherently repulsive and ugly the "Copilot" philosophy is, how it is fundamentally a dead end and how much it betrays a lack of understanding of how programming works on part of those who fund and market it. Code is different from natural language, the fact that we call the symbols we write algorithms in "Programming Languages" is purely a historical incident. Code doesn't have the redundant resilience and error-correcting properties of natural language, removing or modifiying or adding even a tiny bit to correct code can give you atrociously-slow correct code, or full-of-security-holes correct code, or non-correct code, or any of the 3 mixed together with other disasters. If you're going to steal people's open source code, at least do somthing interesting and intelligent with it, don't be a lazy fuck and apply an NLP technique to a highly formal and rigid domain then smile smugly and charge people for it as if this going to end anywhere useful.

bayindirh 4y ago

Because copilot is violating the terms I put for my code. My code is GPL. It cannot be put into projects with incompatible licenses. That’s my code, and I share it with strings attached. You can’t just copy my code and sell to other parties no strings attached. If that’s fine and dandy, Microsoft should also train Copilot on their source code repositories, so we can use that knowledge, too.

ShamelessC 4y ago
I guess I've just never had to work with GPL code before, but the complaints essentially only seem to be coming from coders who like this style of open source where you still get to make it kind of a pain in the ass to actually use your software. I guess you have the right to do this, but it doesn't mesh at all with why I personally contribute (without any expectation of attribution), which is that (much like stack overflow), programmers mostly agreed awhile ago that it's just easier if we all share. So much of what's wrong with the modern economy comes down to seeking rent on an idea that should just be public knowledge. Sorry if my viewpoint towards your work is apathetic, but the whole field is already infested with academics who only understand citation as a useful metric. Further, the point remains that anyone with enough money could do this - not just Microsoft (Salesforce has released several models for python competitive with Copilot). Times are changing - maybe don't share code anymore? I imagine in ten-twenty years this whole conversation will seem pretty petty though when your entire program is trivially recreated from its GitHub description without ever needing to have seen it in the first place.
- namose 4y ago
  But GPL owners aren’t seeking rent, so you’re just asking those who believe all code should be open source to unilaterally let large companies use all their code, while they reap no such benefits from the large companies
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    Like I said, I understand the premise, just not the emotion behind why you want to release code to the public at all if it isn't simply a donation to all human knowledge. There are better ways to gain notoriety as a coder than by essentially legally requiring your name is attached to a thing for all time. I personally would be thrilled to know my work was valuable enough to be used by a company because I really just couldn't care less that about the "credit" part of it. I know what I've done and don't have anything to prove.
    - bayindirh 4y ago
      It's not an emotion. It's a stance. > Why you want to release code to the public at all if it isn't simply a donation to all human knowledge. On the contrary. I donate my code to all human knowledge. Just not to corporate's private code corpus. I intend my code to be open to all humans to run, study, modify and share, forever. I don't give you the freedom to take it to a closed domain, and not share the further knowledge you derived from my code. If your primary intention is to return this knowledge to human kind, GPL is an enabler, not an hinderer. > I personally would be thrilled to know my work was valuable enough to be used by a company because I really just couldn't care less that about the "credit" part of it. I know what I've done and don't have anything to prove. I personally don't care whether my code is good enough to be used by a company. If I want to contribute code which can be used by a company, I can contribute to MIT projects (which I also do). I don't have anything to prove. I release my code with the hope it'd be useful for somebody, and I don't want it to be included in any permissive or closed source base. Doesn't matter it saves your beef for today or not. That's not my problem. Go write a better one, then. I don't care.
- bayindirh 4y ago

Banana699 4y ago

You can say the exact same about piracy, when I take a game or a pdf book from a pirate site, nothing is destroyed, nothing is subtracted. The server still owns the data and can copy and share it infinitely, all that changed is that I now have a copy too, and I use it to enrich my own intellectual life. The argument has 2 main flaws 1- It's not symmetric. The massive corporations with paid armies of lawyers aren't hugging trees and talking about how "Knowledge is - like - just free, man" with dreamy eyes, I would love if they were like that but no. They are constantly on the lookout for anyone remotely using their work. They don't deserve the language of free knowledge and open data, that would be like extending peace to an invading army, or defending a tyrant with the lingo of free speech. He Who Lives By The Sword Dies By The Sword. 2- If the person(s) behind the data or the code lives off their intellectual labor, you are ripping them off by using it without compensation. Sometimes the compensation is as little as simply citing them, just mention their names so that they get visibility and prestige they deserve for toiling in the intellectual field to produce the ideas and brain patterns you use and benefit from. The whole thing is a huge mine field, digital reproduction of information and abstract structures is an extremely novel phenomenon that breaks tons of human intutions about how ideas and thinking work and spreads. But the involvement of a corporation allows you to shortcut the entire thing by invoking (1), also known as the fundamental theorem of ethics : Do Unto Others As You Wish They Do Unto You. Do corporations allow you to freely take and mix their intellectual produce and sell it back into them ? No ? then they DON'T get to do that either, except maybe among themselves. What I find strange is how nobody talks about how inherently repulsive and ugly the "Copilot" philosophy is, how it is fundamentally a dead end and how much it betrays a lack of understanding of how programming works on part of those who fund and market it. Code is different from natural language, the fact that we call the symbols we write algorithms in "Programming Languages" is purely a historical incident. Code doesn't have the redundant resilience and error-correcting properties of natural language, removing or modifiying or adding even a tiny bit to correct code can give you atrociously-slow correct code, or full-of-security-holes correct code, or non-correct code, or any of the 3 mixed together with other disasters. If you're going to steal people's open source code, at least do somthing interesting and intelligent with it, don't be a lazy fuck and apply an NLP technique to a highly formal and rigid domain then smile smugly and charge people for it as if this going to end anywhere useful.