If GitHub could guarantee that the code Copilot had ingested was only made with OSS licenses, then I don't see what the problem is.
But as far as I understand, GitHub trained Copilot on any public repository on GitHub, meaning even if it doesn't have a license specified (so the user publishing it still has the copyright to it), then I don't see how it can be OK.
> I checked if it had code I had written at my previous employer that has a license allowing its use only for free games and requiring attaching the license.
yeah it does
That's a pretty bad example. He prompted it using the exact function header taken from the code he is complaining about.
It'd be much more interesting if he setup a function that was doing a similar thing but with different parameter types and names, and a different order of parameters (ie, like a real problem).
It is hard to see how verifying licenses is a solvable problem, when licensing for code dependencies can be transitive. For ex - if I copy code from a GPL codebase like Linux and create a Github repository with an MIT license.
I can’t say I remember the terms saying anything to the effect of granting Microsoft a perpetual unlimited license in addition to whatever license I package with the code when I signed up. Not doubting it, but I would have expected that to raise some suspicion long before Copilot was around.
