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by hnbad 1346 days ago
FWIW this in consequence means you can't legally use Copilot without becoming liable to copyright violations because it's essentially a black box and you have no insight into where the code it generates originated and even if it isn't a 1-to-1 copy it might be a "derivative work".

This is why I'm gnashing my teeth whenever I hear companies being fine with their employees using Copilot for public-facing code. In terms of liability, this is like going back from package managers to copying code snippets of blogs and forum posts.
1 comments
VonGallifrey 1346 days ago
> using Copilot for public-facing code

Why this restriction on public-facing code? Are you OK with Copilot being used for "private"/closed source code? I get that it would be less likely to be noticed if the code is not published, but (if I understand right) is even worse for license reasons.

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hnbad 1346 days ago
I don't advocate people use Copilot for anything but hobby toy projects.

I have lower expectations of the rigor with which companies police their internal codebases, though. Seeing Copilot banned for internal use too is a pleasant surprise. Companies tend to be a lot more "liberal" in what kind of legal liabilities they accept for their internal tooling in my experience.

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