4 ms·

Doesn't really explain how co-pilot is stealing your community. I've used co-pilot and it works great until you are past boilerplate than it falls apart.

by ipaddr 4y ago

ja3k 4y ago
> Over time, this process will starve these communities. User attention and engagement will be shifted into the walled garden of Copilot and away from the open-source projects themselves The author seems to be implying that since Copilot can reproduce the code of open source repository X in certain scenarios there'd be no reason for programmers to learn/use/engage with repository X. But this is silly. Maybe some open source repositories could be tab completed with a little prompting but people will presumably choose to add a dependency instead of tab completing the code of express or something.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  It also doesn't make any sense. Copilot suggesting to me the signature of a function from some library is not actually the same as executing that library. That library still needs to be downloaded onto my computer to be executed. And who will write new features to a library if not for the people who are interested in that?
  - remram 4y ago
    Open-source licenses have terms that apply to the source code, not "execution", so I really don't understand your point?
- cowtools 4y ago
  It strips GPL, or any license.
  - bigiain 4y ago
    It strips the (mandatory, in a lot of cases) licence text. But the licence still applies. (Or I guess more technically, the original authors copyright still applies, and the rights granted to use the work under the license as an exception to the strict limitation under copyright - do not apply...)
otterley 4y ago
Agree, the argument seems pretty threadbare. Millions of programmers use open-source software every day and incorporate it into their own projects without ever engaging the authors of the code upon which they rely. Perhaps the author means that there’s a possibility that the programmer to whom the code was suggested won’t necessarily know its provenance and how to engage the community from whence it came. If so, that’s a stronger argument, but I don’t know that it’s the best one they can make.
- ok123456 4y ago
  It's just basically a search engine, but the context is the rest of your code. Writing software just auto-completing from CoPilot would be like trying to write a whole novel with the auto-predictive text on your phone. You could do it, but the results would be non-nonsensical and full of semantic errors. I don't think there's any real 'provenance' at play in either case. This guy is a literal who, who is really over estimating the value of his open source contributions over a general development tool that can reduce the cognitive load of working in some hairy code bases. I don't think it's CoPilot that's 'erasing' his, Racket, community.
bakugo 4y ago
"It's not a problem that it steals code because it doesn't work that well right now" is not a valid argument, don't pretend that AI doesn't advance on a daily basis. Reminds me of people who defend AI art with "you can tell it apart from real art" yeah no, at the rate we're moving you won't be able to tell at all in a year or two.
- blacksmith_tb 4y ago
  I agree with your starting point, but art actually makes the questions clearer I think - having AI art "you can't tell apart" is possibly a bad thing for human producers of art (or not, obviously lots of artists don't make their art just to get paid, but if you do...), but seems like a great thing for the human consumers of art? Copiliot/tabnine etc. could certainly give you terrible suggestions, but my experience is they often help with boring scaffolding-stuff which isn't likely to be full of bad ideas, just time savings. Could they mess you up? Oh for sure. But mostly they just seem like an autocorrect that doesn't guess wrong every other time.
crispyambulance 4y ago
They don't really explain in a satisfactory way how Copilot is "stealing communities" even though they themselves complain that Microsoft hasn't provided "solid legal references". Copilot is an AI stunt, an exploration, trying something new and exciting with very mixed and not-so-useful results. This lawsuit, however, is just lawyers doing what they do for fun. I guess the retained Microsoft lawyers love it too. Glad to see lawyers having so much fun and profit. But we would all be better off with out so much lawyering, can't they do something more worthwhile?
- batmanturkey 4y ago
  You are willfully ignoring thst the article absolutely DID address this point! The license and attribution are stripped from regurgitated copied code snippets from code projects. If the people don’t known which project the code was taken from, how can they one day contribute to that codebase? If the code projects on GitHub are not getting the people who use their code at least aware of the project, that project disappears. Copilot is an interloper who doesn’t even tell you which project the code snippet was ripped off from!!
- skydhash 4y ago
  I’d guess it is basically: you’re making a mural people can look at for free, but a business selling canvas reproduction of it without attribution. If I solve a problem and I say: Sure, use my code if you want, but be sure to contribute any improvement back to the community - I wouldn’t be happy seeing a tool spewing it out everywhere. And it’s not even free. In this case, microsoft is literally making money on the back of millions of programmers. And without approval.
dahdum 4y ago
The community argument is weak but it’s just content marketing, not a thesis. The goal of the article is to generate leads for potential members of a class action lawsuit.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tiborsaas 4y ago
It doesn't, it's just a very easy to relate to argument. Generating snippets of code has nothing to do with a fully functional software package/product/service and an organic community around it. One might argue that a community could be more easily formed thanks to co-pilot because it increases developer productivity and lower the effort to contribute so OS projects actually benefit from co-pilot. If this sounds far fetched, then probably the first case is also similar.
- batmanturkey 4y ago
  IF they attributed the code snippet to the project they ripped it off from!! But they deliberately don’t tell you thst… it’s just a code snippet floating in space like they invented it
batmanturkey 4y ago
The license and attribution are stripped from regurgitated copied code snippets from code projects. If the people don’t known which project the code was taken from, how can they one day contribute to that codebase? If the code projects on GitHub are not getting the people who use their code at least aware of the project, that project disappears. Copilot is an interloper who doesn’t even tell you which project the code snippet was ripped off from!!

Doesn't really explain how co-pilot is stealing your community. I've used co-pilot and it works great until you are past boilerplate than it falls apart.

by ipaddr 4y ago

Doesn't really explain how co-pilot is stealing your community. I've used co-pilot and it works great until you are past boilerplate than it falls apart.

ja3k 4y ago

> Over time, this process will starve these communities. User attention and engagement will be shifted into the walled garden of Copilot and away from the open-source projects themselves The author seems to be implying that since Copilot can reproduce the code of open source repository X in certain scenarios there'd be no reason for programmers to learn/use/engage with repository X. But this is silly. Maybe some open source repositories could be tab completed with a little prompting but people will presumably choose to add a dependency instead of tab completing the code of express or something.

cercatrova 4y ago
It also doesn't make any sense. Copilot suggesting to me the signature of a function from some library is not actually the same as executing that library. That library still needs to be downloaded onto my computer to be executed. And who will write new features to a library if not for the people who are interested in that?
- remram 4y ago
  Open-source licenses have terms that apply to the source code, not "execution", so I really don't understand your point?
cowtools 4y ago
It strips GPL, or any license.
- bigiain 4y ago
  It strips the (mandatory, in a lot of cases) licence text. But the licence still applies. (Or I guess more technically, the original authors copyright still applies, and the rights granted to use the work under the license as an exception to the strict limitation under copyright - do not apply...)

otterley 4y ago

Agree, the argument seems pretty threadbare. Millions of programmers use open-source software every day and incorporate it into their own projects without ever engaging the authors of the code upon which they rely. Perhaps the author means that there’s a possibility that the programmer to whom the code was suggested won’t necessarily know its provenance and how to engage the community from whence it came. If so, that’s a stronger argument, but I don’t know that it’s the best one they can make.

ok123456 4y ago
It's just basically a search engine, but the context is the rest of your code. Writing software just auto-completing from CoPilot would be like trying to write a whole novel with the auto-predictive text on your phone. You could do it, but the results would be non-nonsensical and full of semantic errors. I don't think there's any real 'provenance' at play in either case. This guy is a literal who, who is really over estimating the value of his open source contributions over a general development tool that can reduce the cognitive load of working in some hairy code bases. I don't think it's CoPilot that's 'erasing' his, Racket, community.

bakugo 4y ago

"It's not a problem that it steals code because it doesn't work that well right now" is not a valid argument, don't pretend that AI doesn't advance on a daily basis. Reminds me of people who defend AI art with "you can tell it apart from real art" yeah no, at the rate we're moving you won't be able to tell at all in a year or two.

blacksmith_tb 4y ago
I agree with your starting point, but art actually makes the questions clearer I think - having AI art "you can't tell apart" is possibly a bad thing for human producers of art (or not, obviously lots of artists don't make their art just to get paid, but if you do...), but seems like a great thing for the human consumers of art? Copiliot/tabnine etc. could certainly give you terrible suggestions, but my experience is they often help with boring scaffolding-stuff which isn't likely to be full of bad ideas, just time savings. Could they mess you up? Oh for sure. But mostly they just seem like an autocorrect that doesn't guess wrong every other time.

crispyambulance 4y ago

They don't really explain in a satisfactory way how Copilot is "stealing communities" even though they themselves complain that Microsoft hasn't provided "solid legal references". Copilot is an AI stunt, an exploration, trying something new and exciting with very mixed and not-so-useful results. This lawsuit, however, is just lawyers doing what they do for fun. I guess the retained Microsoft lawyers love it too. Glad to see lawyers having so much fun and profit. But we would all be better off with out so much lawyering, can't they do something more worthwhile?

batmanturkey 4y ago
You are willfully ignoring thst the article absolutely DID address this point! The license and attribution are stripped from regurgitated copied code snippets from code projects. If the people don’t known which project the code was taken from, how can they one day contribute to that codebase? If the code projects on GitHub are not getting the people who use their code at least aware of the project, that project disappears. Copilot is an interloper who doesn’t even tell you which project the code snippet was ripped off from!!
skydhash 4y ago
I’d guess it is basically: you’re making a mural people can look at for free, but a business selling canvas reproduction of it without attribution. If I solve a problem and I say: Sure, use my code if you want, but be sure to contribute any improvement back to the community - I wouldn’t be happy seeing a tool spewing it out everywhere. And it’s not even free. In this case, microsoft is literally making money on the back of millions of programmers. And without approval.

dahdum 4y ago

The community argument is weak but it’s just content marketing, not a thesis. The goal of the article is to generate leads for potential members of a class action lawsuit.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tiborsaas 4y ago

It doesn't, it's just a very easy to relate to argument. Generating snippets of code has nothing to do with a fully functional software package/product/service and an organic community around it. One might argue that a community could be more easily formed thanks to co-pilot because it increases developer productivity and lower the effort to contribute so OS projects actually benefit from co-pilot. If this sounds far fetched, then probably the first case is also similar.

batmanturkey 4y ago
IF they attributed the code snippet to the project they ripped it off from!! But they deliberately don’t tell you thst… it’s just a code snippet floating in space like they invented it

batmanturkey 4y ago

The license and attribution are stripped from regurgitated copied code snippets from code projects. If the people don’t known which project the code was taken from, how can they one day contribute to that codebase? If the code projects on GitHub are not getting the people who use their code at least aware of the project, that project disappears. Copilot is an interloper who doesn’t even tell you which project the code snippet was ripped off from!!