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> As a leader of a FOSS project that is on github...Do I have that reasoning correct? The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitl

> As a leader of a FOSS project that is on github...Do I have that reasoning correct? The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code (several articles I have read call this overall idea "laundering through Copilot", which sounds incendiary but accurate to me) without needing to respect your license. The other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. If you don't care about software freedoms in the libre/copyleft sense and regard a "do whatever you want" license as the best, then it's probably fine to keep using GitHub.

natefinch 4y ago
Anyone can already generate proprietary code that is identical to your GitHub project's code just using copy and paste. For people that care to respect copyright, there's a copilot setting to block exact copies of code in the training set (which only happens a tiny percentage of the time, unless you're actually trying to make it happen). For people that don't care to respect copyright, git clone is a way more efficient way to violate your license.
dark-star 4y ago
> GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code How is that different/new? Anyone has always been able to just take your code and put it into their proprietary projects...
- notpushkin 4y ago
  Difference is, GitHub encourages this behaviour, and profits off of it.
seadan83 4y ago
> The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. In this case, they have violated our license. The license states how it cannot be changed, and implicit changes by the hosting company is not one of them. Isn't there a legal case here? If no, then the license is not violated. This makes me wonder why not take Github to court vs a tamper tantrum (we're taking our marbles and going home!) > the other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. It goes to show that Github is providing really, an excellent service to FOSS. We could migrate to GitLab, though, why? I know that sounds like 'fan-boy', but the list is large, useful, and all highly available and free to FOSS. By those measure, it's a good service. > Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. The items are more than convenience, they are core to our application and project. Uprooting them is not a small task. The automatic integration with issues is excellent for example, before we did that - we had no idea how many users were seeing errors. We run a thick client that is downloaded and added an integration to upload error reports to github issues. That has been pretty invaluable. So, we have to move all that, to another host: who is to say that other host will always be a better FOSS steward? who is to say that other host has anyone near the level of features? An integrated CI/CD and hosting of release artifacts is huge. So, on the premise that our license has been violated, instead of sue'ing, we should take our FOSS somewhere else? Again, the list is large, we need to migrate all of that. It took a long time to get out of sourceforge, it's not even more work to get out of github because we automated so much (to allow our team to scale better). It's not just a matter of 'convenience' to go somewhere that is feature-sub-par and spend the better part of a year to do that and nothing else. [edits] Clarity, conciseness
- quadrifoliate 4y ago
  > This makes me wonder why not take Github to court vs a tamper tantrum (we're taking our marbles and going home!) Mainly because it might be more in line with traditional FOSS ideals to take our marbles and go home? It's hardly a temper tantrum. After the Linux kernel got into one too many arguments with Bitkeeper, there was an inflection point where Torvalds got fed up and just wrote git instead. I think this is an inflection point like that. And "taking Github to court" is much easier said than done for a FOSS project, although I assume that someone will be doing that at some point. > So, we have to move all that, to another host: who is to say that other host will always be a better FOSS steward? who is to say that other host has anyone near the level of features? An integrated CI/CD and hosting of release artifacts is huge. In addition to GitLab, I think Sourcehut offers similar features and is also FOSS (AGPLv3). > So, on the premise that our license has been violated, instead of sue'ing, we should take our FOSS somewhere else? Again, the list is large, we need to migrate all of that. I don't think anyone is telling you what to do, just offering suggestions. My suggestion is that switching to a forge that respects FOSS is a reasonable alternative to legal action against GitHub or just ignoring the potential license violations via Copilot. You can of course choose any of the alternatives, or the status quo; which is what you seem to have largely convinced yourself is fine. Good luck, and thanks for working on FOSS anyway!
seadan83 4y ago
Piling on: Is copilot really a violation of GPLv3 (our license)? How is co-pilot different from someone lifting sections of code? Lifting a few sections of the code is a world different compared to re-distributing the entirety of the source code, or forking the project and replacing 2 or 3 letters from our brand name & then redistributing that. I think the article needed to go into more detail about how that really is a violation of a license. This seems like a similar argument that was made in court whether the Java APIs themselves could be copyrighted. Can an algorithm be copyrighted or licensed? If someone uses the same algorithm as found on FOSS, have they violated the license of that FOSS? Then the reaction, instead of pursing litigation, and/or communicating and working with github, the reaction is we should 'cancel' github and move to.. gitlab? Is that even an answer? If we think algorithms are copyright-able, wouldn't have any kind of code search be a violation? Would allowing for any kind of transcription of code be a violation? If so, then seemingly having the source be open would invite this. I think this gets to the heart of FOSS in some ways. It's closed for privatization, open to the community, and what matters is the software provided. If someone cribs the project to configure a Feign client, or set up a unit tests with DbRider - it's okay! It's the same thing as viewing HTML source code, learning a cool javascript trick by looking at how some website did that trick - is part of the openness. I wonder then, is the point of FOSS openness only to allow others strictly to view and edit the code for the purpose of contributing back to that exact software product? Or is the openness more than that, and that others are going to use the software in creative and novel ways, and use it for learning and who-knows how else (all pursuant to GPLv3).
- ordiel 4y ago
  If source its not subjet to corpyright then independently of it being illegaly leaked, i could unbrand XP's source code (that as I recall was leaked no long back) use it and redistribute it even for profit... I would like to see M$ answer to that. I think the issue with Java's API was actually terribly explained even by Oracle's lawyers, Google stole that API, first because it already had a large amount of developers familiar with it so they could benefit of cheap code monkeys developing for their platform, added modifications (memory management) which under Java's open source licence (Oracle owns java yet it is still open source) they should have made public for everyone's benefit (in a true Open Source spirit), modified the packaging mechanism (slightly, you know .apk), so instead of you know having a package (jar) that can run on a desktop or rather on any JVM it could only run on the devices with their* OS (or rather dalvik implementation) and guess what, now that there are some options to run those on other environments the "casually" decided to change it again instead of letting people benefit from the rich APK ecosystem somewhere else than Android
MauranKilom 4y ago
> generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code (several articles I have read call this overall idea "laundering through Copilot", which sounds incendiary but accurate to me) Can you point me to those articles? I have seen the Quake thing, but "your project's code" is not like that one function in Quake (namely, it's not duplicated hundreds to thousands of times through countless license violations already).

natefinch 4y ago

Anyone can already generate proprietary code that is identical to your GitHub project's code just using copy and paste. For people that care to respect copyright, there's a copilot setting to block exact copies of code in the training set (which only happens a tiny percentage of the time, unless you're actually trying to make it happen). For people that don't care to respect copyright, git clone is a way more efficient way to violate your license.

dark-star 4y ago

> GitHub customers can use Copilot to generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code How is that different/new? Anyone has always been able to just take your code and put it into their proprietary projects...

notpushkin 4y ago
Difference is, GitHub encourages this behaviour, and profits off of it.

seadan83 4y ago

> The way I read the article was that by being on GitHub, you are implicitly agreeing to no longer be a FOSS project as regards licensing. In this case, they have violated our license. The license states how it cannot be changed, and implicit changes by the hosting company is not one of them. Isn't there a legal case here? If no, then the license is not violated. This makes me wonder why not take Github to court vs a tamper tantrum (we're taking our marbles and going home!) > the other stuff you said is...kind of irrelevant. It goes to show that Github is providing really, an excellent service to FOSS. We could migrate to GitLab, though, why? I know that sounds like 'fan-boy', but the list is large, useful, and all highly available and free to FOSS. By those measure, it's a good service. > Sure, you get a lot of convenience from GitHub. The items are more than convenience, they are core to our application and project. Uprooting them is not a small task. The automatic integration with issues is excellent for example, before we did that - we had no idea how many users were seeing errors. We run a thick client that is downloaded and added an integration to upload error reports to github issues. That has been pretty invaluable. So, we have to move all that, to another host: who is to say that other host will always be a better FOSS steward? who is to say that other host has anyone near the level of features? An integrated CI/CD and hosting of release artifacts is huge. So, on the premise that our license has been violated, instead of sue'ing, we should take our FOSS somewhere else? Again, the list is large, we need to migrate all of that. It took a long time to get out of sourceforge, it's not even more work to get out of github because we automated so much (to allow our team to scale better). It's not just a matter of 'convenience' to go somewhere that is feature-sub-par and spend the better part of a year to do that and nothing else. [edits] Clarity, conciseness

quadrifoliate 4y ago
> This makes me wonder why not take Github to court vs a tamper tantrum (we're taking our marbles and going home!) Mainly because it might be more in line with traditional FOSS ideals to take our marbles and go home? It's hardly a temper tantrum. After the Linux kernel got into one too many arguments with Bitkeeper, there was an inflection point where Torvalds got fed up and just wrote git instead. I think this is an inflection point like that. And "taking Github to court" is much easier said than done for a FOSS project, although I assume that someone will be doing that at some point. > So, we have to move all that, to another host: who is to say that other host will always be a better FOSS steward? who is to say that other host has anyone near the level of features? An integrated CI/CD and hosting of release artifacts is huge. In addition to GitLab, I think Sourcehut offers similar features and is also FOSS (AGPLv3). > So, on the premise that our license has been violated, instead of sue'ing, we should take our FOSS somewhere else? Again, the list is large, we need to migrate all of that. I don't think anyone is telling you what to do, just offering suggestions. My suggestion is that switching to a forge that respects FOSS is a reasonable alternative to legal action against GitHub or just ignoring the potential license violations via Copilot. You can of course choose any of the alternatives, or the status quo; which is what you seem to have largely convinced yourself is fine. Good luck, and thanks for working on FOSS anyway!

seadan83 4y ago

Piling on: Is copilot really a violation of GPLv3 (our license)? How is co-pilot different from someone lifting sections of code? Lifting a few sections of the code is a world different compared to re-distributing the entirety of the source code, or forking the project and replacing 2 or 3 letters from our brand name & then redistributing that. I think the article needed to go into more detail about how that really is a violation of a license. This seems like a similar argument that was made in court whether the Java APIs themselves could be copyrighted. Can an algorithm be copyrighted or licensed? If someone uses the same algorithm as found on FOSS, have they violated the license of that FOSS? Then the reaction, instead of pursing litigation, and/or communicating and working with github, the reaction is we should 'cancel' github and move to.. gitlab? Is that even an answer? If we think algorithms are copyright-able, wouldn't have any kind of code search be a violation? Would allowing for any kind of transcription of code be a violation? If so, then seemingly having the source be open would invite this. I think this gets to the heart of FOSS in some ways. It's closed for privatization, open to the community, and what matters is the software provided. If someone cribs the project to configure a Feign client, or set up a unit tests with DbRider - it's okay! It's the same thing as viewing HTML source code, learning a cool javascript trick by looking at how some website did that trick - is part of the openness. I wonder then, is the point of FOSS openness only to allow others strictly to view and edit the code for the purpose of contributing back to that exact software product? Or is the openness more than that, and that others are going to use the software in creative and novel ways, and use it for learning and who-knows how else (all pursuant to GPLv3).

ordiel 4y ago
If source its not subjet to corpyright then independently of it being illegaly leaked, i could unbrand XP's source code (that as I recall was leaked no long back) use it and redistribute it even for profit... I would like to see M$ answer to that. I think the issue with Java's API was actually terribly explained even by Oracle's lawyers, Google stole that API, first because it already had a large amount of developers familiar with it so they could benefit of cheap code monkeys developing for their platform, added modifications (memory management) which under Java's open source licence (Oracle owns java yet it is still open source) they should have made public for everyone's benefit (in a true Open Source spirit), modified the packaging mechanism (slightly, you know .apk), so instead of you know having a package (jar) that can run on a desktop or rather on any JVM it could only run on the devices with their* OS (or rather dalvik implementation) and guess what, now that there are some options to run those on other environments the "casually" decided to change it again instead of letting people benefit from the rich APK ecosystem somewhere else than Android

MauranKilom 4y ago

> generate proprietary code that's identical to your project's code (several articles I have read call this overall idea "laundering through Copilot", which sounds incendiary but accurate to me) Can you point me to those articles? I have seen the Quake thing, but "your project's code" is not like that one function in Quake (namely, it's not duplicated hundreds to thousands of times through countless license violations already).