Re:Microsoft sued for open-source piracy through GitHub Copilot
by wizzwizz4 on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:22PM
(#33497348)
> That the copyright and license information are maybe available there is not something Google search actually knows to be the case.
Google sends you to where it found the code, on a best-effort basis. Google can't actually, in the general case, do any better than this. Google is a search engine; it's widely understood that, as a search engine, it looks for things and then tells you where it found them (not where they originated from; that's not what the verb "search" normally means, in English).
> Is copilot under an obligation to point out that that might not be the case?
GitHub Copilot is not branded as a search engine. It doesn't give people the option to identify, or verify, the terms under which the output it produces may be used. It doesn't provide any way of discovering the attribution, even in principle.
Normally, when something is given to you without any copyright markings, without any attribution of any kind, or licensing information, or a source:
• the computer probably came up with it on its own, just from the input you gave it; and
• you're free to use it.
This is not the case. GitHub Copilot goes against the expectations of the user; its UX design is actively misleading. This misconception only exists because Microsoft created it.
Google sends you to where it found the code, on a best-effort basis. Google can't actually, in the general case, do any better than this. Google is a search engine; it's widely understood that, as a search engine, it looks for things and then tells you where it found them (not where they originated from; that's not what the verb "search" normally means, in English).
> Is copilot under an obligation to point out that that might not be the case?
GitHub Copilot is not branded as a search engine. It doesn't give people the option to identify, or verify, the terms under which the output it produces may be used. It doesn't provide any way of discovering the attribution, even in principle.
Normally, when something is given to you without any copyright markings, without any attribution of any kind, or licensing information, or a source:
• the computer probably came up with it on its own, just from the input you gave it; and
• you're free to use it.
This is not the case. GitHub Copilot goes against the expectations of the user; its UX design is actively misleading. This misconception only exists because Microsoft created it.