Microsoft-Led GPL Violations and the FSF
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GitHub is my copilot [Ed: Microsoft is attacking the GPL using the guise or excuse of "HEY HI" (plagiarism, copy-paste)]
Your editor has worked in the computing field for rather longer than he cares to admit; for all of that time it has been said that a day will come when all that tedious programming work will no longer be necessary. Instead, we'll just say what we want and the computer will figure it out. Arguably, the announcement of GitHub Copilot takes us another step in that direction. On the way, though, it raises some interesting questions about copyright and free-software licensing.
Copilot is a machine-learning system that generates code. Given the beginning of a function or data-structure definition, it attempts to fill in the rest; it can also work from a comment describing the desired functionality. If one believes the testimonials on the Copilot site, it can do a miraculous job of figuring out the developer's intent and providing the needed code. It promises to take some of the grunge work out of development and increase developer productivity. Of course, it can happily generate security vulnerabilities; it also uploads the code you're working on and remembers if you took its suggestions, but that's the world we've built for ourselves.
Machine-learning systems, of course, must be trained on large amounts of data. Happily for GitHub, it just happens to be sitting on a massive pile of code, most of which is under free-software licenses. So the company duly used the code in the publicly available repositories it hosts to train this model; evidently private repositories were not used for this purpose. For now, the result is available as a restricted beta offering; the company plans to turn it into a commercial product going forward.
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FSF-funded call for white papers on philosophical and legal questions around Copilot
We already know that Copilot as it stands is unacceptable and unjust, from our perspective. It requires running software that is not free/libre (Visual Studio, or parts of Visual Studio Code), and Copilot is Service as a Software Substitute. These are settled questions as far as we are concerned.
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FSF job opportunity: Operations assistant — Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF), a Massachusetts 501(c)(3) charity with a worldwide mission to protect and promote computer-user freedom, seeks a motivated and organized Boston-based individual to be our full-time operations assistant.
Reporting to the executive director, this position works on the operations team to ensure all administrative, office, and retail functions of the FSF run smoothly and efficiently, preserving our 4-star Charity Navigator rating and boosting all areas of our work.
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FSF-funded call for white papers on philosophical and legal questions around Copilot
From Microsoft propaganda site Visual Studio Magazine
FSF Calls for Papers on 'Unacceptable and Unjust' GitHub Copilot
GitHub Copilot is ‘unacceptable and unjust', according to FSF
GitHub Copilot is ‘unacceptable and unjust', according to Free Software Foundation
Machine learning: Free Software Foundation targets GitHub...
Machine learning: Free Software Foundation targets GitHub Copilot
Microsoft site: FSF is "open-source software advocate"
The Free Software Foundation thinks GitHub Copilot should be illegal
Related and belated mention
Hackaday Links: August 8, 2021 | Hackaday