[kune]

Guys please read the Terms of Use of Github section D.4.

We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, archive, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies, as necessary to provide the Service, including improving the Service over time. This license includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video.

This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell Your Content. It also does not grant GitHub the right to otherwise distribute or use Your Content outside of our provision of the Service, except that as part of the right to archive Your Content, GitHub may permit our partners to store and archive Your Content in public repositories in connection with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault and GitHub Archive Program.

[remram]

If I upload somebody else's GPL code to GitHub, I also can't grant to GitHub the (implicit) legal rights to use that code in Copilot, because they are not mine to give.

I could previously mirror GPL code, because the GPL granted me the rights I need to grant GitHub as part of their ToS; but if they change their ToS, or if the meaning is changed by them adding vastly different features to their Service, this becomes a problem.

[zohch]

Can you explain what limitation in GPL would prevent someone from using it as training data? Also, if you are not allowed to upload GPL to GitHub, seems like the right answer is don't.

[remram]

GPL does not prevent someone from using it as part of something else, so long as that other thing abides to the terms too. In particular, GPL and many open-source licenses require attribution. The fact that Copilot spits out code from other places without attribution clashes with that limitation.

Whether you're allowed to upload GPL code to GitHub or not depends on whatever their Service is at the moment, since the terms say you grant them all the rights "necessary to provide the Service".

[eCa]

If Copilot requires separate payment or signup I[1] fail to see how it can be part of ”the Service” as defined therein, and since the rights to do ”things” to the provided code only go as far ”as necessary to provide the Service” the ToS can’t[2] be used to argue that it gives explicit permission to use provided code for this purpose. Or am I misinterpreting something?

[1] I’m not a lawyer.

[2] Still not a lawyer.

[bruce343434]

Still depends on how they defined "the Service". Can't be bothered to read the full license myself because I don't use github - but I can't imagine "the Service" is defined as including an AI copy paster.

[mumblemumble]

> The “Service” refers to the applications, software, products, and services provided by GitHub, including any Beta Previews.

So it wouldn't include just any AI copy pasters. Only the ones that are provided by GitHub.

[heavyset_go]

GitHub's T&Cs don't override licensing terms.