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Does GitHub not have the right to view and train from your content when you agree to their Terms of Service and upload your code? People are conflating their o

Does GitHub not have the right to view and train from your content when you agree to their Terms of Service and upload your code? People are conflating their open source license with the one they give GitHub when making a GitHub account, but they are two entirely separate and parallel licenses. The former is for other people to use your code, the latter is for GitHub to host your code. If you don't like it, you are free to host your code on your own servers. And anyway, as noted the other day about AI, it is often funny to see people not care about (or even enjoy) AI in other fields that they don't work in, but when it comes for their own field, they are suddenly very worried. See programmers on HN who argue for Stable Diffusion but against Copilot, and vice versa with artists on Twitter. As I commented then, it's an act of cowardice to think our own profession should be immune from AI while we enjoy the fruits of AI in other fields [0]: > Yes, many of us will turn into cowards when automation starts to touch our work, but that would not prove this sentiment incorrect - only that we're cowards. >> Dude. What the hell kind of anti-life philosophy are you subscribing to that calls "being unhappy about people trying to automate an entire field of human behavior" being a "coward". Geez. >>> Because automation is generally good, but making an exemption for specific cases of automation that personally inconvenience you is rooted is cowardice/selfishness. Similar to NIMBYism. We should want AI. That we then try to use outdated models like copyright to enforce holding back human progress is a true shame. In my view, so what if GitHub uses people's code for training data, we are all getting a better product because of that. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33226515#33228948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33226515#33228948

sneak 4y ago
Not all code on GitHub was uploaded by the copyright holder. The entire linux kernel is on GitHub and at least some of those copyright holders have never explicitly granted a license to GitHub beyond the GPL.
wongarsu 4y ago
There are quite a few projects that didn't originate on Github. Some are mirrors of projects hosted elsewhere, some accept patches through other means, some include code that predates github. If get your linux kernel patch accepted by emailing it to the responsible maintainer, it will end up on https://github.com/torvalds/linux https://github.com/torvalds/linux. But you never agreed to the Github ToS, all you did was agree to publish it under the GPLv2. Linus agreed to the Github ToS, but he can't give away rights he doesn't have, so he can't be giving Github any rights to your patches that go beyond the GPL.
SXX 4y ago
Code pushed to GitHub is quite often not pushed by actual copyright holders and there no way to distinguish between it even if there was clause like this in GitHub user agreement.
whateveracct 4y ago
ToS isn't some all-powerful thing, first of all. A lot of it is unenforceable nonsense. And I'm not sure how it really works with OSS. For instance, what if I self-host an OSS project but someone puts a mirror on GitHub? Or just uses GH as a remote for their fork? Does that random person accepting the ToS now mean GH has carte blanche to do whatever they want with that IP?
blatherard 4y ago
The current github terms of service don't seem to mention this use when they describe the license granted github. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#4-license-grant-to-us https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... 4. License Grant to Us We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video. This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content. It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service, except that as part of the right to archive Your Content, GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault and GitHub Archive Program.
- Arainach 4y ago
  That mentions everything: Parsing the content, showing it to/sharing it with other users, using it to improve and provide the service. GitHub and all of its features are "the service".
  - dspillett 4y ago
    True, but it doesn't mention doing so without the attribution that might be required by the code's licence. If full attribution of where the suggestion was derived from was included¹ there would be not issue IMO², it is this matter that creates the grey area which these discussions result from. -- [1] the practicality³ of this is a different, though related, discussion [2] because the user is fully informed and can take responsibility for the decision to use the suggestion or not [3] or impossibility – given the code could be added by someone who doesn't include that attribution/licence information for the system to be able to pass on even if it were designed to
akprasad 4y ago
> If you don't like it, you are free to host your code on your own servers. From the article: > “Dude, it’s cool. I took SFC’s advice and moved my code off GitHub.” So did I. Guess what? It doesn’t matter. By claiming that AI training is fair use, Microsoft is constructing a justification for training on public code anywhere on the internet, not just GitHub. And: > when it comes for their own field, they are suddenly very worried From the article: > First, the objection here is not to AI-assisted coding tools generally, but to Microsoft’s specific choices with Copilot. We can easily imagine a version of Copilot that’s friendlier to open-source developers—for instance, where participation is voluntary, or where coders are paid to contribute to the training corpus. Despite its professed love for open source, Microsoft chose none of these options. Second, if you find Copilot valuable, it’s largely because of the quality of the underlying open-source training data. As Copilot sucks the life from open-source projects, the proximate effect will be to make Copilot ever worse—a spiraling ouroboros of garbage code.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  > As Copilot sucks the life from open-source projects, the proximate effect will be to make Copilot ever worse—a spiraling ouroboros of garbage code. If I was writing this website, I would delete this sentence, because it is actually really idiotic. 1. This is an opinionated statement, except that there's nothing backing this opinion. This is fearmongering, that GitHub Copilot will get worse unless we sue Microsoft. 2. Lawsuits are not about concerns about a product's creator potentially damaging their own product. Lawyers suing Microsoft don't get a "we're protecting Microsoft from Microsoft's own bad decisions!" The argument, completely unfounded, is that GitHub Copilot will undermine... GitHub Copilot. So, if you like GitHub Copilot, you should also be on board with suing Microsoft, so that we don't damage GitHub Copilot. What??? Good luck proving that line of argument in a court - you'd get laughed out of the room. Courts don't react well to hazy predictions about mayhem, from the suing lawyers, that have no historical facts to base them on.
vlunkr 4y ago
How many millions of account were created before Co-pilot existed at all? It certainly wasn't in the ToS then except maybe in some extremely vague way.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
marginalia_nu 4y ago
> Does GitHub not have the right to view and train from your content when you agree to their Terms of Service and upload your code? [...] If you don't like it, you are free to host your code on your own servers. I do exactly this, and it does all of bupkis to prevent someone from downloading my code from my gitea, and uploading it to GitHub. In fact, several people have.

sneak 4y ago

Not all code on GitHub was uploaded by the copyright holder. The entire linux kernel is on GitHub and at least some of those copyright holders have never explicitly granted a license to GitHub beyond the GPL.

wongarsu 4y ago

There are quite a few projects that didn't originate on Github. Some are mirrors of projects hosted elsewhere, some accept patches through other means, some include code that predates github. If get your linux kernel patch accepted by emailing it to the responsible maintainer, it will end up on https://github.com/torvalds/linux https://github.com/torvalds/linux. But you never agreed to the Github ToS, all you did was agree to publish it under the GPLv2. Linus agreed to the Github ToS, but he can't give away rights he doesn't have, so he can't be giving Github any rights to your patches that go beyond the GPL.

SXX 4y ago

Code pushed to GitHub is quite often not pushed by actual copyright holders and there no way to distinguish between it even if there was clause like this in GitHub user agreement.

whateveracct 4y ago

ToS isn't some all-powerful thing, first of all. A lot of it is unenforceable nonsense. And I'm not sure how it really works with OSS. For instance, what if I self-host an OSS project but someone puts a mirror on GitHub? Or just uses GH as a remote for their fork? Does that random person accepting the ToS now mean GH has carte blanche to do whatever they want with that IP?

blatherard 4y ago

The current github terms of service don't seem to mention this use when they describe the license granted github. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#4-license-grant-to-us https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... 4. License Grant to Us We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video. This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content. It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service, except that as part of the right to archive Your Content, GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault and GitHub Archive Program.

Arainach 4y ago
That mentions everything: Parsing the content, showing it to/sharing it with other users, using it to improve and provide the service. GitHub and all of its features are "the service".
- dspillett 4y ago
  True, but it doesn't mention doing so without the attribution that might be required by the code's licence. If full attribution of where the suggestion was derived from was included¹ there would be not issue IMO², it is this matter that creates the grey area which these discussions result from. -- [1] the practicality³ of this is a different, though related, discussion [2] because the user is fully informed and can take responsibility for the decision to use the suggestion or not [3] or impossibility – given the code could be added by someone who doesn't include that attribution/licence information for the system to be able to pass on even if it were designed to

akprasad 4y ago

> If you don't like it, you are free to host your code on your own servers. From the article: > “Dude, it’s cool. I took SFC’s advice and moved my code off GitHub.” So did I. Guess what? It doesn’t matter. By claiming that AI training is fair use, Microsoft is constructing a justification for training on public code anywhere on the internet, not just GitHub. And: > when it comes for their own field, they are suddenly very worried From the article: > First, the objection here is not to AI-assisted coding tools generally, but to Microsoft’s specific choices with Copilot. We can easily imagine a version of Copilot that’s friendlier to open-source developers—for instance, where participation is voluntary, or where coders are paid to contribute to the training corpus. Despite its professed love for open source, Microsoft chose none of these options. Second, if you find Copilot valuable, it’s largely because of the quality of the underlying open-source training data. As Copilot sucks the life from open-source projects, the proximate effect will be to make Copilot ever worse—a spiraling ouroboros of garbage code.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
> As Copilot sucks the life from open-source projects, the proximate effect will be to make Copilot ever worse—a spiraling ouroboros of garbage code. If I was writing this website, I would delete this sentence, because it is actually really idiotic. 1. This is an opinionated statement, except that there's nothing backing this opinion. This is fearmongering, that GitHub Copilot will get worse unless we sue Microsoft. 2. Lawsuits are not about concerns about a product's creator potentially damaging their own product. Lawyers suing Microsoft don't get a "we're protecting Microsoft from Microsoft's own bad decisions!" The argument, completely unfounded, is that GitHub Copilot will undermine... GitHub Copilot. So, if you like GitHub Copilot, you should also be on board with suing Microsoft, so that we don't damage GitHub Copilot. What??? Good luck proving that line of argument in a court - you'd get laughed out of the room. Courts don't react well to hazy predictions about mayhem, from the suing lawyers, that have no historical facts to base them on.

vlunkr 4y ago

How many millions of account were created before Co-pilot existed at all? It certainly wasn't in the ToS then except maybe in some extremely vague way.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

marginalia_nu 4y ago

> Does GitHub not have the right to view and train from your content when you agree to their Terms of Service and upload your code? [...] If you don't like it, you are free to host your code on your own servers. I do exactly this, and it does all of bupkis to prevent someone from downloading my code from my gitea, and uploading it to GitHub. In fact, several people have.