5 ms·

Copilot is the largest disrespect to open source software I have ever seen. It is a derivative work of open source code and it is not released under the same li

by carom 4y ago

Copilot is the largest disrespect to open source software I have ever seen. It is a derivative work of open source code and it is not released under the same license. It is also capable of laundering open source code. Congratulations for working on the "extinguish" phase of embrace, extend, extinguish for open source.

sngz 4y ago
I really wonder what all those people who said Microsoft acquisition of Github was a good thing for opensource think now. I'm sure there will still be mental gymnastics involved.
- efdee 4y ago
  Claiming Github's Copilot is Microsoft's "Extinguish" step against open source _is_ the mental gymnastics.
  - carom 4y ago
    It really isn't mental gymnastic. Copilot, the model, is a program that is a derivative work of open source code. It should be open source.
    - efdee 4y ago
      That is another discussion. He is not claiming that it should be open source - he is claiming it is created to destroy open source.
      - carom 4y ago
        He is me. Allowing large companies to ignore licenses and giving them a tool to launder licensed code at scale is a significant threat to the integrity of open source licenses.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - sngz 4y ago
        I didn't claim such a thing, my claim is Microsoft's purchase of Github is not good for open source.
  - sngz 4y ago
    there it is
guitarbill 4y ago
The chilling effect of this decision is something everybody who uses open source software should be worried about.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  I'm worried that this will harm open source, but in a different way: lots of people switching to unfree "no commercial use at all" licenses, special exemptions in licenses, and so on. I'm also worried that it'll harm scientific progress by criminalizing a deeply harmless and commonplace activity such as "learning from open code" when it's AIs that do it. And of course retarding the progress of AI code assistance, a vital component of scaling up programmer productivity. From an AI safety perspective, I'm also worried it will accelerate the transition to self-learning code, ie. the model both generating and learning from source code, which is a crucial step on the way to general artificial intelligence that we are not ready for.
  - carom 4y ago
    Horrible framing. AI is not learning from code. The model is a function. The AI is a derivative work of its training material. They built a program based on open source code and failed to open source it. They also built a program that outputs open source code without tracking the license. This isn't a human who read something and distilled a general concept. This is a program that spits out a chain of tokens. This is more akin to a human who copied some copywritten material verbatim.
    - FeepingCreature 4y ago
      The brain is a function. You're positing a distinction without a difference.
gureddio 4y ago
The code that the tweet refers to is not open source. That's the scandal here.
- xfer 4y ago
  LGPL is open source, the scandal is violating the license agreement.
isworenot2 4y ago
Industry always saw open source as a cost cutting measure. I think the real lesson to learn is if you look at the sheer amount of energy (wattage) used to replace humans it's clear that brains are really calorie efficient at doing things like producing the kinds of code that Copilot creates...but it doesn't matter because eliminating labor cost will always be attractive no matter what the up front cost is to do it. They literally can't NOT do it based on the rules of our game. If it wasn't MS it would be someone else and is...you think IBM isn't doing this? Amazon? GTFOH. So is every other large company that has a pool of labor that is valued as a cost. Maybe a better question would be how and why major parts of human life are organized in ways that are bad for the bulk of humanity.
justshowpost 4y ago
> Copilot is the largest disrespect to open source No, its owner, Microsoft Coproration is. Remember, what they did with CodePlex archives? But they ain't some kind of special villains, its today's monopoly market kicked in. Selling startuprs to Yahoo comes with consequences. > capable of laundering open source code That's an exaggeration. Copilot is still a dumb machine which accidentally learned to mimic the practice of borrowing intellectual property from human coders.

by carom 4y ago

sngz 4y ago

I really wonder what all those people who said Microsoft acquisition of Github was a good thing for opensource think now. I'm sure there will still be mental gymnastics involved.

efdee 4y ago
Claiming Github's Copilot is Microsoft's "Extinguish" step against open source _is_ the mental gymnastics.
- carom 4y ago
  It really isn't mental gymnastic. Copilot, the model, is a program that is a derivative work of open source code. It should be open source.
  - efdee 4y ago
    That is another discussion. He is not claiming that it should be open source - he is claiming it is created to destroy open source.
    - carom 4y ago
      He is me. Allowing large companies to ignore licenses and giving them a tool to launder licensed code at scale is a significant threat to the integrity of open source licenses.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - sngz 4y ago
      I didn't claim such a thing, my claim is Microsoft's purchase of Github is not good for open source.
- sngz 4y ago
  there it is

guitarbill 4y ago

The chilling effect of this decision is something everybody who uses open source software should be worried about.

FeepingCreature 4y ago
I'm worried that this will harm open source, but in a different way: lots of people switching to unfree "no commercial use at all" licenses, special exemptions in licenses, and so on. I'm also worried that it'll harm scientific progress by criminalizing a deeply harmless and commonplace activity such as "learning from open code" when it's AIs that do it. And of course retarding the progress of AI code assistance, a vital component of scaling up programmer productivity. From an AI safety perspective, I'm also worried it will accelerate the transition to self-learning code, ie. the model both generating and learning from source code, which is a crucial step on the way to general artificial intelligence that we are not ready for.
- carom 4y ago
  Horrible framing. AI is not learning from code. The model is a function. The AI is a derivative work of its training material. They built a program based on open source code and failed to open source it. They also built a program that outputs open source code without tracking the license. This isn't a human who read something and distilled a general concept. This is a program that spits out a chain of tokens. This is more akin to a human who copied some copywritten material verbatim.
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    The brain is a function. You're positing a distinction without a difference.

gureddio 4y ago

The code that the tweet refers to is not open source. That's the scandal here.

xfer 4y ago
LGPL is open source, the scandal is violating the license agreement.

isworenot2 4y ago

Industry always saw open source as a cost cutting measure. I think the real lesson to learn is if you look at the sheer amount of energy (wattage) used to replace humans it's clear that brains are really calorie efficient at doing things like producing the kinds of code that Copilot creates...but it doesn't matter because eliminating labor cost will always be attractive no matter what the up front cost is to do it. They literally can't NOT do it based on the rules of our game. If it wasn't MS it would be someone else and is...you think IBM isn't doing this? Amazon? GTFOH. So is every other large company that has a pool of labor that is valued as a cost. Maybe a better question would be how and why major parts of human life are organized in ways that are bad for the bulk of humanity.

justshowpost 4y ago

> Copilot is the largest disrespect to open source No, its owner, Microsoft Coproration is. Remember, what they did with CodePlex archives? But they ain't some kind of special villains, its today's monopoly market kicked in. Selling startuprs to Yahoo comes with consequences. > capable of laundering open source code That's an exaggeration. Copilot is still a dumb machine which accidentally learned to mimic the practice of borrowing intellectual property from human coders.