4 ms·
> A programmer can read available but not oss licensed code and learn from it Actually, we were forbidden to look at open source code at Microsoft (circa 2009)
by sedatk 4y ago
> A programmer can read available but not oss licensed code and learn from it
Actually, we were forbidden to look at open source code at Microsoft (circa 2009) because it might influence our coding and violate licenses.
- elil17 4y agoThat demonstrates that copyright laws are already stifling innovation.
- saghm 4y agoSure, but given the timetable for changing the law, it still seems pretty reasonable to apply the same standard to Microsoft (and by extension Github) in the meantime
- HWR_14 4y agoThat's the goal. To stifle using someone else's work. Like, copyright laws are also stifling my innovative business creating BluRays of Disney films and selling them on Amazon.
- schleck8 4y agoCopyright laws aren't preventing you from learning cinematography by watching said Disney movies though, and using all their techniques for your own project. OpenAI did a dirty job though judging by the cases of the model just reproducing code to the comment, so I can understand why one would criticize this specific project.
- elil17 4y agoThat sucks for little snippets of software though, doesn’t it? It’s like copyrighting individual dance moves (not allowed under the current system) and forcing dancers to never watch each other to make sure they’re never stealing.
- HWR_14 4y agoI mean, it's not like the copyrights are keeping you from doing things. It's stopping you from looking at someone else's source. And it's not like source is easy to accidentally see like dance moves are.
- m00x 4y agoYeah, that's a good argument to fully disprove this as a loss to society, and instead as a gain.
- josho 4y agoI don’t quite agree. Msft took a conservative approach to copyright to protect their own business. Meanwhile open source software has had an immeasurable benefit to society. My computer, tv, phone, light bulb, etc all benefit from OSS—running various licenses, and only a subset using a copyleft like license.
- elil17 4y agoThe fact that the laws are inconsistent and expensive to defend against leads companies like Microsoft to take this conservative approach that slows down progress.
- Someone 4y agoIt demonstrates that it stifles copying. That may make it easier for the copier to innovate, but doesn’t dispute the main argument for having copyright protection: that, without the protection of copyright, the code wouldn’t have been written.
- elil17 4y agoI think in the case of open source code, most of it still would have been written if no copyright protections existed.
- Someone 4y agoMost of it? I would think >50% of open source code writers find it necessary to restrict the rights to copy and use their code. In a world without copyright protections, would the GPL be legal? (and I guess courts might, in the future, say the GPL expires when copyrights on the code expire)
- EMIRELADERO 4y agoThat was out of abundance of caution, not based on any legal precedent. In fact, the little precedent that exists over learning from copyrightable code is in favor of it. More important, the rule urged by Sony would require that a software engineer, faced with two engineering solutions that each require intermediate copying of protected and unprotected material, often follow the least efficient solution (In cases in which the solution that required the fewest number of intermediate copies was also the most efficient, an engineer would pursue it, presumably, without our urging.) This is precisely the kind of “wasted effort that the proscription against the copyright of ideas and facts . . . [is] designed to prevent.” (Sony v. Connectix)
- __alexs 4y agoDo the TypeScript team code with their eyes closed?
- kens 4y agoWay, way back in 1992, Unix Systems Laboratories sued BSDI for copyright infringement. Among other things, they claimed that since the BSD folks had seen the Unix source code, they were "mentally contaminated" and their code would be a copyright violation. This led to the BSD folks wearing "mentally contaminated" buttons for a while.