1792
Don't be that guy. (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by hperrin@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

When you're talking to an open source dev, just remember that they are literally giving you their time for free, and they are people who don't like to be treated poorly.

Edit: Just to be clear, I don’t mean any ill will toward the guy. He’s frustrated and he’s just taking it out in the wrong venue at the wrong people, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.

Edit 2: The reinstalling he’s talking about is NPM. So just running npm install. It’s because he tried removing the node_modules directory, which is a reasonable thing to do, but it means you need to reinstall the modules with that command.

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[-] mastefetri@infosec.pub 73 points 5 months ago

It depends on if the first guy is complaining about having to reinstall this specific software, or if the software borked his entire system to the point that he has to reinstall his entire OS. Because that happened to me once. But in the first scenario he is being a dick, and in the second one not so much.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 5 points 5 months ago

No. It's provided without warranty nor guarantee that it'll work or even leave your system intact. That's the core of most opensource licenses. Dev owes nobody nothing.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[-] mastefetri@infosec.pub 4 points 5 months ago

I didn't say anyone owed anyone anything. I was saying one level of frustration was understandable, one was not. Anyhow, my case happened twenty years ago when creative commons barely existed.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago

Then you're right. The frustration would be understandable, the expression thereof towards the developer, not.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

what's with the link in every comment? just curious

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago

It's a non-commercial copyleft licence for the comment in case the case against Microsoft's CoPilot is won.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I don't quite understand, why would Microsoft sue you for a lemmy comment?

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 0 points 5 months ago

Just to be sure, is this a serious question or a troll?

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

serious question... not everyone on Lemmy is a computer expert, lol

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

🙂 my bad

No, not sue me for lemmy comments. AI is trained with lots of data. The world wide web is full of publicly accessible data like our comments. However, not all publicly accessible data may be used without a license. Examples thereof are news paper articles, videos, still pictures, etc. Normally, if you want to use those commercially, consent has to be given by the license holder and a in some cases a fee has to be paid.

Microsoft Copilot is an AI model to help people write code. However, it was trained mostly on opensource code (code made publicly available) which was very often licensed. And it is done so in such a manner that commercial use is allowed with the obligation to make that commercial code publicly available too. Microsoft does not make the code for Copilot publicly accessible and uses code licensed in many, many other ways - and it does so without asking for consent.

This is often a double standard as companies that hide their code fight very hard to keep it secret and/or pursue those in court who do not get a license to use it. However, they will happily use licensed consent to their benefit without consent nor potential payment.

With some clever tricks, AIs have been duped into revealing their training data (often licensed, sometimes very private e.g addresses, birthday, health information, etc.). Lawsuits have ensued (against the AI owners like Microsoft) and are currently active with a pending verdict. Until the verdicts come, I add the license link to my comments. Who knows, maybe it will have an impact, maybe not.

Hopefully I could explain the situation in an understandable manner for you.

Have a good day.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I see - thanks for taking the time to explain the backstory, very interesting.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 5 months ago

You're welcome. Thank you for reading :)

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this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
1792 points (98.4% liked)

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