Ask HN: Is GitHub Copilot / IntelliCode Legal?

5 points

4 years ago

Two years ago, an issue was opened in Microsoft's IntelliCode GitHub repository[0] titled "Licensing issues". It receives a response from a Microsoft employee. Eventually, the argument is made that this is a derivative work, as it is derived from thousands (?) of open-source projects. From what I understand, this seems to be true.

However, here's the fun part: Microsoft is training its AI dataset on these open-source projects. Would the terms of the license still apply here?

Further, would you say the law hasn't caught up with this use of open-source projects yet?

I am also curious about the legality of GitHub Copilot, since they seem to do largely the same thing from an AI standpoint.

[0]: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/intellicode/issues/201

EDIT: IntelliCode, not IntelliSense!

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