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The argument for libgen is that whatever damage there is to the authors missing out on revenues is outweighed by people being able to get books that they other

The argument for libgen is that whatever damage there is to the authors missing out on revenues is outweighed by people being able to get books that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford (especially in developing countries). In the case of copilot, the damage suffered by the authors is close to zero. And those who benefit the most are the authors themselves. A double digit percent productivity enhancement is worth more to me than a few million $ to a trillion dollar company, especially because MS has to pay for compute.

commoner 4y ago
You're assuming that Microsoft needs to shut down Copilot to comply with the licenses of the software they misused. That is not the case. To make Copilot legitimate, all Microsoft has to do is restrict Copilot's inputs to non-proprietary code, release the Copilot dataset under a compatible license, and clarify that the code generated by Copilot is also covered under that license. Attribution can be done by inserting a comment with link to a paginated list of all of the contributors whose code was used in Copilot. Microsoft can even continue to sell Copilot as a service while keeping it license-compliant, since most developers are not going to self-host the entire dataset. Microsoft can also choose to exclude copyleft-licensed code from Copilot or create multiple flavors of Copilot, each licensed differently. You can get your "productivity enhancement" without needing Microsoft to violate software licenses. The damage is not in the monetary payment denied to free and open source software contributors, payment these contributors never demanded. The damage is in Microsoft violating other people's software licenses to create a proprietary product derived from copyleft-licensed and attribution-required code, and in Microsoft encouraging other developers to violate these licenses. Microsoft needs to rectify these violations with specific performance.

commoner 4y ago

You're assuming that Microsoft needs to shut down Copilot to comply with the licenses of the software they misused. That is not the case. To make Copilot legitimate, all Microsoft has to do is restrict Copilot's inputs to non-proprietary code, release the Copilot dataset under a compatible license, and clarify that the code generated by Copilot is also covered under that license. Attribution can be done by inserting a comment with link to a paginated list of all of the contributors whose code was used in Copilot. Microsoft can even continue to sell Copilot as a service while keeping it license-compliant, since most developers are not going to self-host the entire dataset. Microsoft can also choose to exclude copyleft-licensed code from Copilot or create multiple flavors of Copilot, each licensed differently. You can get your "productivity enhancement" without needing Microsoft to violate software licenses. The damage is not in the monetary payment denied to free and open source software contributors, payment these contributors never demanded. The damage is in Microsoft violating other people's software licenses to create a proprietary product derived from copyleft-licensed and attribution-required code, and in Microsoft encouraging other developers to violate these licenses. Microsoft needs to rectify these violations with specific performance.