Maybe you don’t mind if GitHub Copilot used your open-source code without asking.
But how will you feel if Copilot erases your open-source community?
Hello. This is Matthew Butterick. I’m a writer, designer, programmer, and lawyer. I’ve written two books on typography—Practical Typography and Typography for Lawyers—and designed the fonts in the MB Type library, including Equity, Concourse, and Triplicate.
As a programmer, I’ve been professionally involved with open-source software since 1998, including two years at Red Hat. More recently I’ve been a contributor to Racket. I wrote the Lisp-advocacy essay Why Racket? Why Lisp? and Beautiful Racket, a book about making programming languages. I’ve released plenty of open-source software, including Pollen, which I use to publish my online books, and even AI software that I use in my work.
In June 2022, I wrote about the legal problems with GitHub Copilot, in particular its mishandling of open-source licenses. Recently, I took the next step: I reactivated my California bar membership to team up with the amazingly excellent class-action litigators Joseph Saveri, Cadio Zirpoli, and Travis Manfredi at the Joseph Saveri Law Firm on a new project—
We’re investigating a potential lawsuit against GitHub Copilot for violating its legal duties to open-source authors and end users.
We want to hear from you. Click here to help with the investigation.
Or read on.
Read in full here:
This thread was posted by one of our members via one of our news source trackers.