I understand that concern, but AI code companions are not much different from an online search then copy/adapt the found code.
I guess in some years from now people will wonder how was even possible to manually write code by just reading the docs. 
"How did programmers survive prior to AI companions era?"
( https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/how-did-you-survive-prior-to-the-internet-making-information-easy-to-find/ )
Not technically, but does the AI code companion tell you the license of the code snippet it just generated for you, which it obviously derived from FOSS training data? It does not. If you find the source code by yourself, you will know what you copied and which license is attached to it.
Since an AI is not "creative", everything it spits out is "derived work". It's like you copying FOSS code and then obfuscating it to obscure its origin.
You can't rationalise the source of the inferred output because the network is non deterministic over time. You'd have to ship the entire corpus and input data for every single request to get an idempotent determinism of how you got to Z from A. So your 16Kb of source code might have 50TB of inference data to drag around. Obviously another stupid flaw in ML.
We had a similar thing a few years back in financial modelling. The model failed spectacularly occasionally including issuing 7 figure credit caps to bankrupt people and convicted criminals. It went back to basic gated rule and risk calculation almost immediately as no one could work out how it managed to come up with a weighted outcome that bad. The model ran along side the original credit profiling system fortunately and didn't get to the stage where it was allowed to make autonomous decisions.
does the AI code companion tell you the license of the code snippet it just generated for you, which it obviously derived from FOSS training data?
Depends of each AI companion. I don't know about the Microsoft one (called GitHub Copilot), but some are telling the license. For example the free "Codeon" extension (
https://github.com/sdpmas/Codeon) in VScodium shows each license.
Edit: mini rant. Oh and most of the actual valuable open source projects appear to be run by slightly more deranged versions of comic book guy from the Simpsons.
I know that 'forking fat git' only too well. Not ONE line of his code is an undocumentable clusterf*ck of memory leaks. Not ever. So no tickets as they'll be marked complete by the author. He uses the special Jedi feel the force licence.
Open source bods want people to quit Github because Github/Microsoft abuse open source licences to sell proprietary software without attribution or respecting copyleft licensing. There's a surprise!
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/30/software_freedom_conservancy_quits_github/
The referenced URL in the article ( https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/ ) is worth a read if you're not sure what this is about.
What a surprise.... what people expect from MS? OSS love and money....
Anyone not old enough to understand MS plain flat M.O. will be surprised..
They have entered the 2 step of their M.O. algo. E.E.E.
- EMBRACE - they had been trying hard to do so w/OSS
- EXTEND - putting that amount of money in github (OSS by default) never made sense...
- EXTINGUISH -- as soon as they manage to extend enough unmanageable and insecure unreliable...
they will just drop all that ... and promote their own
products..
They did that countless times with hundreds others small competitors..
This time OSS is different .. however the algo still is the same...
Soon the 3rd step will be visible.. we can already see disruption and results all over.
Paul
This is all corporate interest. Red hat are just as bad.
This is all corporate interest. Red hat are just as bad.
RedHat made it and was extinguished by 00s
I ve used it some deploys at late 90s... complete nice and safe thing
Since they managed to hold large contracts became nothing less than all other players..
Just for money - squat a shit on these joe consumers and terminal kidos...
RedHat is 100% gone as OSS.. nevertheless the GPL as clever as it is keeps them on the leach..
otherwise the new owner would just drop a huge brownie on our heads...
Paul
Um RH still employ a big chunk of Linux core engineering. systemd came from there.
I’ve got 850 RHEL boxes in production too
Um RH still employ a big chunk of Linux core engineering. systemd came from there.
I’ve got 850 RHEL boxes in production too
They have locked big contractors..
they are not in the game for OSS any more..
the POTTERIX twisted thingo and several dozen other things linked are just to promote their own agenda and keep contractors as expected.... with
something that can be drop more or less like the MS wonder land corporate kiosk..
They are just leveraging corporate kiosks as the core business..
Again.. GPL and BSD (others) keep them tied to the leash..
otherwise.. otherwise they would just tell evb to FKO!
Paul
Red Hat charge for support, not the code. When they make or contribute stuff it is open source. They also properly attribute code. Essentially, they are no different from some IT bloke you hire to install a web server and keep it up to date and properly managing the code (except they'll know a hell of a lot more about it).
Exactly that. To be fair they do a decent job.
there are 2 sides of this coin
First they are tied by the GPL LGPL and etc nature of their whole ecosystem
so they are required to do that either way
Second the size of their pockets..
We just can not put side by side comparison of RedHat...
let's just try SuSe ... and that is even hard...
Their pockets allowed them to manage twist and bias the whole thing...
to of course their own agenda..
Nothing wrong making money...
But classify RedHat today as the same it was on 2000 is not possible anymore..
In particular.. the total fork of *NIX into the POTTERIX realm..
kinda corporate kiosk agenda - required to enter that kind of use..
They are gone as OSS but they just can not just drop the leach.
Thanks GPL/LGPL
Paul