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It sounds like Github needs to index the license of where it obtained code, and check the license of a project using co-pilot so that it only suggests GPLv3 cod

It sounds like Github needs to index the license of where it obtained code, and check the license of a project using co-pilot so that it only suggests GPLv3 code for compatible projects. I'm not sure that it is really enough, enforcement is tough, it could be like one of those "are you 18" checkboxes. I get the impression that this article and it's reaction is largely a lot of people wanting to cry big brother and mostly just shit on Github & Git. IMO it would be more appropriate to look for solutions and post a public letter to github and/or just pursue actual litigation before advocating FOSS projects spend inordinate amount of effort across the board to vacate Github.

zvr 4y ago
I think the article starts from the position "everyone should respect the software license" and obviously promoting the SFC views. You are correct that the problem is hard, because adding licensing info to training data and subsequently use it is something not yet accomplished by anyone (who at least has spoken publicly about it). It might be the only way out would be to have different training sets according to license, but then you lose the advantage of scale. On the other hand, I believe it's a little much to ask SFC to do the cutting-edge research and propose solutions to Microsoft. Let's not forget that, when faced with the problem, their chosen path was "completely disregard licenses (for now), ask legal later". Many legal opinions are that there would not be any issue if copies of the input code were not reproduced verbatim; unfortunately this is not the case. Looking forward to more exciting developments!
- skjoldr 4y ago
  Microsoft could afford to train several models for every significant class of licenses. So if you don't want the model which included e.g. GPL code in its training set, you would opt for the model that was trained on the dataset which didn't include any. It's a bit of a hassle for MS, but that would partially resolve this issue.
- pabs3 4y ago
  Amazon claim their Copilot equivalent knows about license info.

zvr 4y ago

I think the article starts from the position "everyone should respect the software license" and obviously promoting the SFC views. You are correct that the problem is hard, because adding licensing info to training data and subsequently use it is something not yet accomplished by anyone (who at least has spoken publicly about it). It might be the only way out would be to have different training sets according to license, but then you lose the advantage of scale. On the other hand, I believe it's a little much to ask SFC to do the cutting-edge research and propose solutions to Microsoft. Let's not forget that, when faced with the problem, their chosen path was "completely disregard licenses (for now), ask legal later". Many legal opinions are that there would not be any issue if copies of the input code were not reproduced verbatim; unfortunately this is not the case. Looking forward to more exciting developments!

skjoldr 4y ago
Microsoft could afford to train several models for every significant class of licenses. So if you don't want the model which included e.g. GPL code in its training set, you would opt for the model that was trained on the dataset which didn't include any. It's a bit of a hassle for MS, but that would partially resolve this issue.
pabs3 4y ago
Amazon claim their Copilot equivalent knows about license info.