4 ms·

Which kind of suggests Microsoft made a really bad move antagonizing the open-source community with Gtihub Copilot. They got a few years of lead time in the "A

Which kind of suggests Microsoft made a really bad move antagonizing the open-source community with Gtihub Copilot. They got a few years of lead time in the "AI codes for you" market, but in exchange permanently soured a significant fraction of their potential userbase who will turn to open-source alternatives soon anyway. I wonder if they'd have been better served focusing on selling Azure usage and released Copilot as an open-source product.

freeqaz 4y ago
How did Microsoft sour developers with Copilot? I know dozens of people that pay for it (including myself) and I feel like it is widely regarded as a "no brainer" for the price that it's offered at. Please help me understand!
- sandkoan 4y ago
  Presumably, because they trained Copilot on billions of lines of, often licensed, code (without permission), that Copilot has a tendency to regurgitate verbatim, without said license.
  - PoignardAzur 4y ago
    > that Copilot has a tendency to regurgitate verbatim, without said license. A "tendency" is overstating it. I'm not aware of any example that would have been likely to occur if the author wasn't specifically trying to get the regurgitated code.
  - ldhough 4y ago
    For a specific example some variation of "fast inverse square root" will usually get you the exact GPL licensed code from Quake III, comments included.
    - alar44 4y ago
      [dead]
    - theRealMe 4y ago
      Do you mean the same code that has its own Wikipedia page where the exact code is written, comments included, and has probably been copy pasted into 100’s of other projects? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
      - ldhough 4y ago
        Yes that code, I was replying to a comment claiming that > Copilot has a tendency to regurgitate [code] verbatim, without said license. and I think that is a pretty good example.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        The point is that it's charging having been trained on open source code. What you're saying agrees with that, but your triumphant tone seems to be implying the opposite. Which did you mean?
      - Mizza 4y ago
        You mean this code? https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/content/sha1_git:bb0faf6919fc60636b2696f32ec9b3c2adb247fe/?origin_url=https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-III-Arena&path=code/game/q_math.c&revision=dbe4ddb10315479fc00086f08e25d968b4b43c49&snapshot=4ab9bcef131aaf449a7c01370aff8c91dcecbf5f#L549-L572 https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/content/sha1_git... Do you see that notice at the top of the file? It says: == This file is part of Quake III Arena source code. Quake III Arena source code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. === but because it's been laundered by Microsoft, you think it's okay to steal free software and make it proprietary?
        WithinReason 4y ago
        "The algorithm was often misattributed to John Carmack, but in fact the code is based on an unpublished paper by William Kahan and K.C. Ng circulated in May 1986"
- layer8 4y ago
  Controversy about unlicensed use of source code as training data and lack of attributions in the generated output.
- Mizza 4y ago
  The company that tried to kill Linux in the 90s, owned by the world's most famously rich man, is now stealing my code and selling it back to me? Yeah, fuck that.
  - visarga 4y ago
    It's not selling you back your code. It's different code, adapted to a different task; your own code is forever free for you, you don't need anyone to give it to you. Given the cost of running these models, and the utmost dedication needed to train them, I think it is worth it. GPUs cost money, electricity costs money. They can't serve the world for free and offer good latency.
  - mbb70 4y ago
    I mean, that's like saying an author steals the open source alphabet and charges you for reading their ordering of letters, as if the ordering of letters isn't where all the value is.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      These models are trained on sequences of words, not told the letters and left to get on with it.
      - KarlKemp 4y ago
        It continues to amaze how people are incapable of following even the most trivial cases of abstract reasoning.
  - nl 4y ago
    This isn't stealing at all. I want my open source code to be used like this.
    - nhinck2 4y ago
      If only there was some kind of contract like thing you could release your code under so that there was no ambiguity.
- theRealMe 4y ago
  They didn’t. There is a small group of people that are always looking for the latest reason to be outraged and to point at any of the big tech companies and go “aha! They are evil!” Copilot’s ai was trained on GitHub projects and so these people are taking their turns clutching their pearls inside of their little bubble. I’d bet that more than 95% of devs haven’t even heard of this “controversy” and even if they did, wouldn’t care.
  - PoignardAzur 4y ago
    I'm not so sure. I do think the controversy is stupid, but inside my own company, we significantly delayed migrating some projects to Github because people were concerned that the way Microsoft handled Copilot meant that Github wasn't a safe long-term host for an open-source project (and yes, I'm aware of all the reason that's irrational). Even if the people angry about Copilot are a minority, it might still have a bad move. Trust accumulates slowly over years, but mistrusts builds up over only a few events. People are still remembering Microsoft's anticompetitive practices from 20 years ago. The mistakes it makes now might stick for a long time.
Vvector 4y ago
Microsoft makes dozens of "really bad moves" every year. This is nothing.

freeqaz 4y ago

How did Microsoft sour developers with Copilot? I know dozens of people that pay for it (including myself) and I feel like it is widely regarded as a "no brainer" for the price that it's offered at. Please help me understand!

sandkoan 4y ago
Presumably, because they trained Copilot on billions of lines of, often licensed, code (without permission), that Copilot has a tendency to regurgitate verbatim, without said license.
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  > that Copilot has a tendency to regurgitate verbatim, without said license. A "tendency" is overstating it. I'm not aware of any example that would have been likely to occur if the author wasn't specifically trying to get the regurgitated code.
- ldhough 4y ago
  For a specific example some variation of "fast inverse square root" will usually get you the exact GPL licensed code from Quake III, comments included.
  - alar44 4y ago
    [dead]
  - theRealMe 4y ago
    Do you mean the same code that has its own Wikipedia page where the exact code is written, comments included, and has probably been copy pasted into 100’s of other projects? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
    - ldhough 4y ago
      Yes that code, I was replying to a comment claiming that > Copilot has a tendency to regurgitate [code] verbatim, without said license. and I think that is a pretty good example.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      The point is that it's charging having been trained on open source code. What you're saying agrees with that, but your triumphant tone seems to be implying the opposite. Which did you mean?
    - Mizza 4y ago
      You mean this code? https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/content/sha1_git:bb0faf6919fc60636b2696f32ec9b3c2adb247fe/?origin_url=https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-III-Arena&path=code/game/q_math.c&revision=dbe4ddb10315479fc00086f08e25d968b4b43c49&snapshot=4ab9bcef131aaf449a7c01370aff8c91dcecbf5f#L549-L572 https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/content/sha1_git... Do you see that notice at the top of the file? It says: == This file is part of Quake III Arena source code. Quake III Arena source code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. === but because it's been laundered by Microsoft, you think it's okay to steal free software and make it proprietary?
      - WithinReason 4y ago
        "The algorithm was often misattributed to John Carmack, but in fact the code is based on an unpublished paper by William Kahan and K.C. Ng circulated in May 1986"
layer8 4y ago
Controversy about unlicensed use of source code as training data and lack of attributions in the generated output.
Mizza 4y ago
The company that tried to kill Linux in the 90s, owned by the world's most famously rich man, is now stealing my code and selling it back to me? Yeah, fuck that.
- visarga 4y ago
  It's not selling you back your code. It's different code, adapted to a different task; your own code is forever free for you, you don't need anyone to give it to you. Given the cost of running these models, and the utmost dedication needed to train them, I think it is worth it. GPUs cost money, electricity costs money. They can't serve the world for free and offer good latency.
- mbb70 4y ago
  I mean, that's like saying an author steals the open source alphabet and charges you for reading their ordering of letters, as if the ordering of letters isn't where all the value is.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    These models are trained on sequences of words, not told the letters and left to get on with it.
    - KarlKemp 4y ago
      It continues to amaze how people are incapable of following even the most trivial cases of abstract reasoning.
- nl 4y ago
  This isn't stealing at all. I want my open source code to be used like this.
  - nhinck2 4y ago
    If only there was some kind of contract like thing you could release your code under so that there was no ambiguity.
theRealMe 4y ago
They didn’t. There is a small group of people that are always looking for the latest reason to be outraged and to point at any of the big tech companies and go “aha! They are evil!” Copilot’s ai was trained on GitHub projects and so these people are taking their turns clutching their pearls inside of their little bubble. I’d bet that more than 95% of devs haven’t even heard of this “controversy” and even if they did, wouldn’t care.
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  I'm not so sure. I do think the controversy is stupid, but inside my own company, we significantly delayed migrating some projects to Github because people were concerned that the way Microsoft handled Copilot meant that Github wasn't a safe long-term host for an open-source project (and yes, I'm aware of all the reason that's irrational). Even if the people angry about Copilot are a minority, it might still have a bad move. Trust accumulates slowly over years, but mistrusts builds up over only a few events. People are still remembering Microsoft's anticompetitive practices from 20 years ago. The mistakes it makes now might stick for a long time.

Vvector 4y ago

Microsoft makes dozens of "really bad moves" every year. This is nothing.