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This might be a dumb question, but I can't seem to find the answer. What is the license of code generated by Copilot? Is it owned by GitHub, or the user? For example: Bison is GPL, but the parsers it generates aren't (and it specifically says so). Would be nice if Copilot was specific about ownership, but I can't find any info

Aaron Patterson ✅

The reason I'm curious about this is because I'd like to know whether or not it's OK to accept OSS contributions from people that used Copilot. Does the author actually have permission to give me the code they sent? (Also I wish I didn't have to think about this)

@tenderlove I have also wondered a lot about this topic. The fact that they removed copyright and author info (while embarrassingly containing some earlier on) makes me really wonder if this is a legal minefield.

@enebo seems like there must be some kind of fair use involved depending on the code, but idk. I'm not a lawyer and honestly I don't even want to think about this problem

@tenderlove If you are generating rspec tests from a prompt I doubt it would lead to being accused of infringement. "Give me a dtoa implementation in Java". I would be very worried.

@enebo @tenderlove as someone who translated a lot of code and was still super careful about noting provenance and getting author consent for license changes even for a translation of the original code, Copilot is mind boggling to me.

Basically “code laundering” in a way that abstracts away the original copyright

@tenderlove I think it's all undefined until it's tested in court.

@jordan just accept patches until I end up in court 🤣

@tenderlove It'd be ironic if a GitHub employee used their Hyatt Legal Plan lawyer to sue a 3rd party for incorporating their code that Copilot regurgitated

@tenderlove it’s whatever you license it as, according to the faqs (github.com/features/copilot):

“GitHub does not own the suggestions GitHub Copilot provides to you. You are responsible for the code you write with GitHub Copilot’s help.”

obviously that leaves out all the potential legal trouble/concerns if the code used for training the model included GPL, etc. - but i guess courts will have to decide those issues.

GitHub Copilot works alongside you directly in your editor, suggesting whole lines or entire functions for you.
GitHubGitHub Copilot · Your AI pair programmerGitHub Copilot works alongside you directly in your editor, suggesting whole lines or entire functions for you.

@srecnig seems like as a maintainer it's probably safe to merge someone's code if they use Copilot? At least, it seems like I wouldn't be held responsible (I think??)

@tenderlove i’m not even close to being a lawyer, so i will just not say anything 🙊

@tenderlove haha, maybe i should’ve only quoted the faqs in my first reply, and not add any interpretation 😬

@tenderlove I can definitely see how there would be concern, especially given that Copilot has sometimes reproduced lines of code verbatim from it's training material..

But how safe is it really to accept *any* contributions? Humans are definitely capable of copying code verbatim, taking a snippet and adapting it, or writing code that's structurally similar to things we've seen.