[lugm.org] Fwd: FSF-funded call for white papers on philosophical and legal questions around Copilot

Sun Aug 1 10:51:46 UTC 2021

something to look forward to

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Donald Robertson, III, FSF <info at fsf.org>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2021 at 07:15
Subject: FSF-funded call for white papers on philosophical and legal
questions around Copilot
To: Pritvi Jheengut <z.coldplayer at gmail.com>

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https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-funded-call-for-white-papers-on-philosophical-and-legal-questions-around-copilot
<https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-funded-call-for-white-papers-on-philosophical-and-legal-questions-around-copilot>*

Dear Pritvi Jheengut,

Microsoft's GitHub recently announced a new service known as Copilot. This
service uses machine learning to help suggest code snippets to developers
as they write software. GitHub trained this neural network with the code
hosted on GitHub; while the Free Software Foundation (FSF) urges free
software developers not to host their code on GitHub
<https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html#GitHub>, many
do, and even many who don't have their work mirrored there by others.

We already know that Copilot as it stands is unacceptable and unjust, from
our perspective. It requires running software that is not free/libre
(Visual Studio, or parts of Visual Studio Code), and Copilot is Service as
a Software Substitute
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html>.
These are settled questions as far as we are concerned.

However, Copilot raises many other questions which require deeper
examination.

The Free Software Foundation has received numerous inquiries about our
position on these questions. We can see that Copilot's use of freely
licensed software has many implications for an incredibly large portion of
the free software community. Developers want to know whether training a
neural network on their software can really be considered fair use. Others
who may be interested in using Copilot wonder if the code snippets and
other elements copied from GitHub-hosted repositories could result in
copyright infringement. And even if everything might be legally copacetic,
activists wonder if there isn't something fundamentally unfair about a
proprietary software company building a service off their work.

With all these questions, many of them with legal implications that at
first glance may have not been previously tested in a court of law, there
aren't many simple answers. To get the answers the community needs, and to
identify the best opportunities for defending user freedom in this space,
the FSF is announcing a funded call for white papers to address Copilot,
copyright, machine learning, and free software.

We will read the submitted white papers, and we will publish ones that we
think help elucidate the problem. We will provide a monetary reward of $500
for the papers we publish.

We will also consider requests for funding to do further research leading
to a later paper.
Areas of interest

While any topic related to Copilot's effect on free software may be in
scope, the following questions are of particular interest:

   -

   Is Copilot's training on public repositories infringing copyright? Is it
   fair use?
   -

   How likely is the output of Copilot to generate actionable claims of
   violations on GPL-licensed works?
   -

   How can developers ensure that any code to which they hold the copyright
   is protected against violations generated by Copilot?
   -

   Is there a way for developers using Copilot to comply with free software
   licenses like the GPL?
   -

   If Copilot learns from AGPL-covered code, is Copilot infringing the AGPL?
   -

   If Copilot generates code which does give rise to a violation of a free
   software licensed work, how can this violation be discovered by the
   copyright holder on the underlying work?
   -

   Is a trained artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML) model
   resulting from machine learning a compiled version of the training data, or
   is it something else, like source code that users can modify by doing
   further training?
   -

   Is the Copilot trained AI/ML model copyrighted? If so, who holds that
   copyright?
   -

   Should ethical advocacy organizations like the FSF argue for change in
   copyright law relevant to these questions?

Submission guidelines

*Submissions must be received by 10am Eastern Daylight Time (14:00 UTC) on
Monday, August 23, 2021 via email to licensing at fsf.org <licensing at fsf.org>.*
General

   -

   The paper should relate to one or more of the areas of interest as
   outlined above.
   -

   We prefer that papers have the community of the free software movement
   as their target audience, but papers that are written for legal
   professionals will be considered.
   -

   We suggest that authors obtain feedback from others before submitting
   the paper. While we may suggest or request changes after our review, the
   paper should be ready to publish when submitted.

Format

   -

   The paper should be no longer than 3,000 words.
   -

   The white paper itself should not include any information that
   compromises the anonymity of the author(s), so it can be sent to the
   reviewers.
   -

   In addition to the anonymized white paper copy, attach a separate
   document which includes:
   -

      Name and email of the primary point of contact for the work;
      -

      Any removed or anonymized material, which will not be sent to the
      reviewers; and
      -

      The names and affiliations of any co-authors.
      -

   All documents should be submitted in an editable free format, such as
   OpenDocument or plain text (not DOC or DOCX).
   -

   We suggest that papers be written in English, but papers in other
   languages can be considered.
   -

   Material included from other people's works should be clearly marked
   with appropriate citations.

Review and notification

The FSF's committee will send notifications of acceptance, rejection,
questions, or possible revision requests, via email to the primary point of
contact by Monday, September 20th, 2021.
Publication

If your submission is selected for publication, we will contact you about
choosing a license for the publication. We would expect to agree on one or
more from the following list:

   -

   Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal
   <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#CC0>;
   -

   Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license
   <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#ccby>;
   -

   Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 license
   <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#ccbysa>; and
   -

   Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 license
   <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#ccbynd>.

We strongly prefer to publish the authors' names, but on the authors'
request we may agree to withhold their names.
Questions and comments

For any questions about white paper submissions, or the review and
acceptance process, please contact licensing at fsf.org.

Sincerely,

Donald Robertson, III
Licensing & Compliance Manager

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