It is certainly fascinating to see people start running away from "information wants to be free" and other Free Software principles full tilt when, all of a sudden, it's their livelihoods that are on the line. Unless my recollection is off, the GPL was never the goal of the original Free Software movement; it was merely a tool to get to the end state where all code becomes available for use by anyone for any reason without cost or restriction.
I am reminded of a line from Terry Pratchett's Going Postal in relation to a hacker-like organization called the Smoking GNU, "...[A]ll property is theft, except mine...", which I thought was rather painfully apt in describing what FOSS evolved into after becoming popular.
Your recollection is off, majorly. I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. The entire movement essentially got started because Stallman gave Symbolics his (public domain) Lisp interpreter, then Symbolics improved it but refused to share the improvements.
"No restrictions" has never been the goal and to claim that they're egoistic hypocrites who are just scared for their own livelihood because of this is just an absurd strawman.
> "I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. "
Are you sure you're in a position to be saying things like that? The closed source Xerox printer driver incident is generally viewed as the origin of RMS's thinking on Free Software, not the Symbolics incident. And, as others have pointed out, you were mistaken even on the particulars of that.
As for Free Software not being about no restrictions, may I remind you of the four freedoms that are at the heart of the Free Software philosophy? Copilot runs afoul of none of them and I would go so far as to say that Copilot is an embodiment of 1 through 3.
"A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this."
Again, the GPL is a tool to achieve the Free Software philosophy, not the end goal.
But software built from source copied using Copilot is not guaranteed to preserve those freedoms to its users. Which is the whole point of the GPL - preserving these freedoms to subsequent users, as a chain.
I've admittedly based that on what a FSF advocate told me and googling it seemed to support it. If you have some source that indicates this is wrong/biased, feel free to link it.
Anyway, that still wouldn't change that the FSF and Copyleft are explicitly anti-proprietary, not intending to be 'no restrictions'.
>It is certainly fascinating to see people start running away from "information wants to be free" and other Free Software principles full tilt when, all of a sudden, it's their livelihoods that are suddenly on the line.
Indeed. Everybody is a leet haxors when they're 14, it's 1998, and we're vying for +o in #warez on DALnet. We believed information really did "want to be free".
Unfortunately some of those same kids grew up to create today's data barons and that old saying about getting someone to understand something when their salary depends on not understanding comes into play.
I can't speak to whether or not Richard Stallman was trying to make some 4-dimensional chess move to remove software restrictions by adding software restrictions when he wrote the GPL back in the 80s, but his original intentions are irrelevant in most cases since most people who license their code under the GPL do not consult with him or consider his opinions when they choose to do so.
I think what is upsetting to those who create free[0] software, particularly GPLed works, is that their code has been used to create something that is non-free, which they have no control over (and thus takes away all the 4 freedoms).
As such I really don't understand why so many people are saying things like you have said here. These people believing in free software, including the original intent of the GPL to be a tool against copyright, does not mean they should, or would, be all for co-pilot, a non-free product by a company that once spat in the face of free software (and likely still does behind closed doors), who is using their free software, including the GPLed works, to create a non-free software.
As such, even if it ends up being legal from a license standpoint, it really feels like copyleft is being taken advantage of and exploited because nothing is given back in return (even if copilot remained free of charge, that's hardly giving back in foss lingo). So I suppose it's more a moral and intent thing rather than a legal thing at this point, unless copyright law decides copilot is a derivative work (doubtful, personally).
> Unless my recollection is off, the GPL was never the goal of the original Free Software movement; it was merely a tool to get to the end state where all code becomes available for use by anyone for any reason without cost or restriction.
Yes, but the GPL was created for a world with copyright to step towards a world without it. However we are extremely far away from such a world, and I don't see how copilot helps step towards it at all. I just don't see the argument. It just results in code that will be used potentially wrongly in copyrighted works, proprietary or not. And all of this is enabled by, as I mentioned, a non-free software created by Microsoft, who have used their huge capital to gain access to a proprietary AI by throwing money at it. Nothing about it seems fair even if it ends up all being legal in copyright terms.
[0] I'm seeing a lot of people in these threads who don't know the definition of free software or open source. Free software referes to free as in freedom, not free as in 'free beer' (gratis). Of course, free software is still often gratis, but you can still monetize it in various ways.
I am reminded of a line from Terry Pratchett's Going Postal in relation to a hacker-like organization called the Smoking GNU, "...[A]ll property is theft, except mine...", which I thought was rather painfully apt in describing what FOSS evolved into after becoming popular.