The judge also noted that the cited study itself mentions that GitHub Copilot “rarely emits memorised code in benign situations.”
“Rarely” is not zero. This looks like it’s opening a loophole to copying open source code with strong copyleft licenses like the GPL:
- Find OSS code you want to copy
- Set up conditions for Copilot to reproduce code
- Copy code into your commercial product
- When sued, just claim Copilot generated the code
Depending on how good your lawyers are, 2 is optional. And bingo! All the OSS code you want without those pesky restrictive licenses.
In fact, I wonder if there’s a way to automate step 2. Some way to analyze an OSS GitHub repo to generate inputs for Copilot that will then regurgitate that same repo.
Been the only one in my family for years using Linux, but over the last few months struggles with Windows have basically resulted in all but one computer in the house being migrated to Linux.
Put it on my 10-year-old son’s desktop because Windows parental controls have been made overly complicated and require Internet connectivity and multiple Microsoft accounts to manage. Switched to Linux Mint, installed the apt sources for the parental control programs, made myself an account with permissions and one for him without permissions to change the parental controls, and done. With Steam he can play all of the games in his library.
Only my wife is still using Windows, but with ads embedded in the OS ramping up, and features she liked getting replaced with worse ones, she’s getting increasingly frustrated with Microsoft.