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Comment by sergnio | Hacker News Reader

"The GPL is a free software license, and therefore it permits people to use and even redistribute the software without being required to pay anyone a fee for doing so."

How is GHC breaking this license?

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GPL requires that derivative works - which, I argue, Copilot is - also be distributed under the GPL. Microsoft disagrees with my interpretation, and wins by default because I can't afford to sue them.

The GPL has requirements, and Copilot fails to adhere to those requirements. Here's an important one:

>You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice

Say I drew a lovely picture and hung it outside my house for passers by to look at. I say “sure you can take a copy, no problem”, they then sell a billion prints, and don’t credit me at all.

Legally, not stealing. Ethically? I’d call that stealing.

Legally that actually is stealing. They must have documented reproduction rights. Misunderstanding a verbal comment will not fly in a court.

Except that's not exactly what they are doing, is it? Following on your example, it'd be like selling the advice of someone who has seen a lot of these pictures passing by windows, with a very good memory and understanding of pictures.

Github Copilot is not spitting out code verbatim, it's learning what code is, what shape it usually has, and trying to retrofit your own code onto the shape it thinks code should have.

It's not like it's doing a query like `SELECT * FROM COPIED_CODE WHERE CODE STARTS_WITH "def my_func("`.

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