Re: The beast is live - Github Copilot

[Marc Sunet]

> Is copilot something only github can offer?  If the vast majority of
> training data is from public repo that anyone can access, perhaps the
> only thing stopping people from making something similar is the
> computing power to convert the data to weights?

Well, I guess that and your will to comply with law, right?

People's code on Github is copyrighted/copylefted, you can't just use 
the code however you please. And I am not too familiar with the Github 
TOS, but I doubt they can override a license. The TOS could also make 
scraping illegal, making it illegal for you to obtain the data en mass, 
but not for Microsoft. Facebook and Instagram do this.

There is also the argument of whether GPL code output by a network 
should be considered a derivative work. After all, the network is 
basically just a different representation of its training inputs. I 
believe the FSF started working on this issue the moment Github Copilot 
was announced; I thought Copilot finally going live was of interest to 
the audience here.

Legal issues aside, I'd argue it's also kind of shitty to take other 
people's work and re-sell it under a $10/$100 subscription, with the 
abuse of confidence and trust that that comes with. Microsoft bought the 
platform when it was already popular, then subverted it for its own 
profit-making. Similar to Google/Youtube.

Marc