It demonstrates that it stifles copying. That may make it easier for the copier to innovate, but doesn’t dispute the main argument for having copyright protection: that, without the protection of copyright, the code wouldn’t have been written.
Most of it? I would think >50% of open source code writers find it necessary to restrict the rights to copy and use their code. In a world without copyright protections, would the GPL be legal?
(and I guess courts might, in the future, say the GPL expires when copyrights on the code expire)
Sure, but given the timetable for changing the law, it still seems pretty reasonable to apply the same standard to Microsoft (and by extension Github) in the meantime
I don’t quite agree. Msft took a conservative approach to copyright to protect their own business.
Meanwhile open source software has had an immeasurable benefit to society. My computer, tv, phone, light bulb, etc all benefit from OSS—running various licenses, and only a subset using a copyleft like license.
The fact that the laws are inconsistent and expensive to defend against leads companies like Microsoft to take this conservative approach that slows down progress.
Copyright laws aren't preventing you from learning cinematography by watching said Disney movies though, and using all their techniques for your own project.
OpenAI did a dirty job though judging by the cases of the model just reproducing code to the comment, so I can understand why one would criticize this specific project.
That sucks for little snippets of software though, doesn’t it? It’s like copyrighting individual dance moves (not allowed under the current system) and forcing dancers to never watch each other to make sure they’re never stealing.
I mean, it's not like the copyrights are keeping you from doing things. It's stopping you from looking at someone else's source. And it's not like source is easy to accidentally see like dance moves are.
