3 ms·

> Said content belonging to someone else. Is CoPilot just trained on OSS, or on private repos too?

by nomilk 4y ago

bayindirh 4y ago
Just on public repositories, as far as I know, however regardless of license. There are GPL repositories which force you to open your code, which is one aspect, and there are "source available" repositories, which allows you to see the code, but forbids everything else. There are a lot of blurry areas about this, and in my opinion, an AI learns like a human is not a solid basis for fair use. On the other hand, if private repositories are crawled too, this would be very, very bad.
- ufo 4y ago
  There is also plenty on code on the training set that violates OSS licenses (e.g. copying code without attribution)
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    Yes, however humans making mistakes knowingly or unknowingly doesn't make what Copilot does right. We just talked this with a couple of friends. I always cite what I got from where (it's just two occasions, but it's not zero), and always respect their licenses. I'm worried about both ways of the permeation: GPL to closed and closed to open. Open source is a widely misunderstood concept and people (and companies) are using that misunderstanding to validate their blanket options. That's wrong on so many (legal to ethical, and everything in between) levels. Emulator writers are afraid to read leaked console code, because any resemblance of their code to it means destruction of years (or decades) of reverse engineering and clean room development done in that domain. If code licensing is that important and crucial, why a court tested license (e.g. GPL) is so worthless? Is this fair, again in the same cross-section (legal to ethical)? There's a lot to be discussed, and a lot of ideas to be re-learnt here. Open Source (or precisely Free / Copylefted software) doesn't mean free for all. We need to understand that.
    - BeefWellington 4y ago
      The emulators thing can also run afoul of patents, for example, so they're not purely copyright concerns there. It's not an easy/exact comparison to something that's LGPL licensed for example.
belorn 4y ago
Microsoft decided to only use public available repos. Their don't use their own private code or that of other companies private code, for quite obvious reasons.

> Said content belonging to someone else. Is CoPilot just trained on OSS, or on private repos too?

by nomilk 4y ago

> Said content belonging to someone else. Is CoPilot just trained on OSS, or on private repos too?

Just on public repositories, as far as I know, however regardless of license. There are GPL repositories which force you to open your code, which is one aspect, and there are "source available" repositories, which allows you to see the code, but forbids everything else. There are a lot of blurry areas about this, and in my opinion, an AI learns like a human is not a solid basis for fair use. On the other hand, if private repositories are crawled too, this would be very, very bad.

ufo 4y ago
There is also plenty on code on the training set that violates OSS licenses (e.g. copying code without attribution)
- bayindirh 4y ago
  Yes, however humans making mistakes knowingly or unknowingly doesn't make what Copilot does right. We just talked this with a couple of friends. I always cite what I got from where (it's just two occasions, but it's not zero), and always respect their licenses. I'm worried about both ways of the permeation: GPL to closed and closed to open. Open source is a widely misunderstood concept and people (and companies) are using that misunderstanding to validate their blanket options. That's wrong on so many (legal to ethical, and everything in between) levels. Emulator writers are afraid to read leaked console code, because any resemblance of their code to it means destruction of years (or decades) of reverse engineering and clean room development done in that domain. If code licensing is that important and crucial, why a court tested license (e.g. GPL) is so worthless? Is this fair, again in the same cross-section (legal to ethical)? There's a lot to be discussed, and a lot of ideas to be re-learnt here. Open Source (or precisely Free / Copylefted software) doesn't mean free for all. We need to understand that.
  - BeefWellington 4y ago
    The emulators thing can also run afoul of patents, for example, so they're not purely copyright concerns there. It's not an easy/exact comparison to something that's LGPL licensed for example.

belorn 4y ago

Microsoft decided to only use public available repos. Their don't use their own private code or that of other companies private code, for quite obvious reasons.