zero_comp
> [Microsoft] doesn't attach a GPL license if it draws of GPL code.
It's been a routine practice by developers in industry, for at least a decade, to go read an implementation of a GPL thing, then "rewrite" it in "C#" or "Swift" or "Go", and diligently not tell anyone, and that's it, the GPL code was whitewashed.
GPL has been effective at preventing a specific kind of commercial productization of a specific codebase. Given how influential GPL protected code really is, it failed to prevent Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft from copying GPL code unattributed in all the ways that actually matter.
Copilot is distilling big corporate programming culture. Copying ("rewriting") code found online, let alone in complete implementations, isn't something I do anymore, maybe for years, in my daily software engineering practice. But copying is essential to big corporate programming as trackpants, oily hair and working 1 day a week.