4 ms·

I think this renaissance of nlp for coding will be the death sentence for open source software. Nobody will be able to convince their manager to make their pro

I think this renaissance of nlp for coding will be the death sentence for open source software. Nobody will be able to convince their manager to make their project open source when it can be so easily crawled and used in seconds by competitors without any attribution.

senko 4y ago
If that's all it takes to kill open source, then I welcome its demise. Rather, it may spell doom for "let's throw this over the fence and have unpaid suckers work for us on it" software, which would be a net benefit for aociety.
chii 4y ago
> it can be so easily crawled and used in seconds by competitors without any attribution. this can already happen today. ML models and such don't really change this aspect of open source.
- whatever1 4y ago
  But you are still liable if you steal code. With this NLP approach, it is not obvious where the code came from. Could be a mixture of codes that produced the outcome, all stolen, but you will have difficult time proving it.
  - chii 4y ago
    > With this NLP approach, it is not obvious where the code came from so if this exact same action was done by a human today, instead of using an ML approach, how does the copyright holder of today catch them? Why can't the same method be used for an ML produced code base?
  - seadan83 4y ago
    What is your take on "steal code?" Are you thinking substantial portions, like a control system or the code behind a semantic image processor, or are you thinking the implementation behind 'reverse a linked list?'
    - whatever1 4y ago
      In my opinion stealing is when you benefit from an implementation that you were not supposed to copy-paste. I do not think that using an existing idea to work on your own implementation is stealing. But copilot does not reimplement ideas, it blatantly copy-pastes implementations (with comments, bugs and everything)
      - seadan83 4y ago
        That was not quite an answer to the question I asked. I'm curious what scale of implementation you have in mind. Are we talking many lines, a block, one line? Asked another way, could that implementation be one line? Say, an implementation to logging a java exception within a catch block? Or, is the implementation something you would find for a leetcode question? Or are we talking something larger like the implementation of evaluating a mathematical formula in spreadsheet software?
iLoveOncall 4y ago
> and used in seconds by competitors without any attribution. Ah yes, because before Copilot it was impossible for competitors to use the code of an open source project. This is nonsense.
- xigoi 4y ago
  If the code was GPL-licensed, it was indeed impossible (legally) to use in proprietary software.

senko 4y ago

If that's all it takes to kill open source, then I welcome its demise. Rather, it may spell doom for "let's throw this over the fence and have unpaid suckers work for us on it" software, which would be a net benefit for aociety.

chii 4y ago

> it can be so easily crawled and used in seconds by competitors without any attribution. this can already happen today. ML models and such don't really change this aspect of open source.

whatever1 4y ago
But you are still liable if you steal code. With this NLP approach, it is not obvious where the code came from. Could be a mixture of codes that produced the outcome, all stolen, but you will have difficult time proving it.
- chii 4y ago
  > With this NLP approach, it is not obvious where the code came from so if this exact same action was done by a human today, instead of using an ML approach, how does the copyright holder of today catch them? Why can't the same method be used for an ML produced code base?
- seadan83 4y ago
  What is your take on "steal code?" Are you thinking substantial portions, like a control system or the code behind a semantic image processor, or are you thinking the implementation behind 'reverse a linked list?'
  - whatever1 4y ago
    In my opinion stealing is when you benefit from an implementation that you were not supposed to copy-paste. I do not think that using an existing idea to work on your own implementation is stealing. But copilot does not reimplement ideas, it blatantly copy-pastes implementations (with comments, bugs and everything)
    - seadan83 4y ago
      That was not quite an answer to the question I asked. I'm curious what scale of implementation you have in mind. Are we talking many lines, a block, one line? Asked another way, could that implementation be one line? Say, an implementation to logging a java exception within a catch block? Or, is the implementation something you would find for a leetcode question? Or are we talking something larger like the implementation of evaluating a mathematical formula in spreadsheet software?

iLoveOncall 4y ago

> and used in seconds by competitors without any attribution. Ah yes, because before Copilot it was impossible for competitors to use the code of an open source project. This is nonsense.

xigoi 4y ago
If the code was GPL-licensed, it was indeed impossible (legally) to use in proprietary software.