What on earth are they thinking...
@mariorod's public README says one of his focuses is "shaping narratives and changing \"How we Work\"", so there you go.
Why would I even spend time choosing a copyleft license if any bot will use my code as training data to be used in commercial applications? I'm not planning on creating any more opensource code, and what projects of mine still have users will be left on GH for posterity.
If you're still serious about opensource, time to move to Codeberg.
> The data used in this program may be shared with GitHub affiliates, which are companies in our corporate family including Microsoft
So every Microsoft owned company will have access to all data Copilot wants to store?
Now "Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training" is enabled by default.
Turn it off here: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features
Do they have this set on business accounts also by default? If so, this is really shady.
> Why are you only using data from individuals while excluding businesses and enterprises?
> Our agreements with Business and Enterprise customers prohibit using their Copilot interaction data for model training, and we honor those commitments. Individual users on Free, Pro, and Pro+ plans have control over their data and can opt out at any time.
Ah, so when the inevitable "bug" appears, and we all learn that you've completely failed to honor anything, what will be your "commitment" then? An apology and a few free months?
Time to start pushing for a self hosted git service again.
Looks like not, but would it actually have been shadier, or are we just used to individual users being fucked over?
People are weirdly willing to shrug when it's some solo coder getting fleeced instead of a company with lawyers and procurement people in the room. If an account tier is doing all the moral cleanup, the policy is bad.
To add on to your (already helpful!) instructions:
- Go to https://github.com/settings/copilot/features - Go to the "Privacy" section - Find: "Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training" - Set to disabled
You can't believe Microslop is force-feeding people Copilot in yet another way?
> and didn't even post the direct URLs to disable in their blog post
You can't believe Microshaft didn't tell you how to not get shafted?
1- Vulnerabilities, Secrets can be leaked to other users. 2- Intellectual Property, can also be leaked to other users.
Most smart clients won't opt-out, they will just cut usage entirely.
Now is the time to run off of GitHub and consider Codeberg or self hosting like I said before. [0]
I'm not sure there are any good GitHub alternatives. I don't trust Gitlab either. Their landing page title currently starts with "Finally, AI". Eek.
"others are doing it too so it's ok"
Enabled = You will have access to the feature
Disabled = You won't have access to the feature
As if handing over your data for free is a perk. Kinda hilarious.
Before anyone comes to me to sell me on AI, this is on my personal account, I have and use it in my business account (but it is a completely different user account), I just make it a point to not use it in my personal time so I can keep my skills sharp.
Dark pattern and dick move.
Maybe it's already active in our accounts and we don't realize it, so our code will be used to train the AI.
Now we can't be sure if this will happen or not, but a company like GitHub should be staying miles away from this kind of policy. I personally wouldn't use GitHub for private corporate repositories. Only as a public web interface for public repos.
Mobile
At this point, is there any magic in software development?
If you have super-secret-content is a third party the best location?
A user can be a contributor to a private repository, but not have that repository owner organisation’s license to use copilot. They can still use their personal free tier copilot on that repository.
How can enterprises be confident that their IP isn’t being absorbed into the GH models in that scenario?
If someone takes that code and pokes around on it with a free tier copilot account, GitHub will just absorb it into their model - even if it’s explicitly against that code’s license to do so?
Who in their right mind will opt into sharing their code for training? Absolutely nobody. This is just a dark pattern.
Btw, even if disabled, I have zero confidence they are not already training on our data.
I would also recommend to sprinkle copyright noticed all over the place and change the license of every file, just in case they have some sanity checks before your data gets consumed - just to be sure.
> freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. In order to obtain freely given consent, it must be given on a voluntary basis.
djmashko2•1h ago
Sounds like it's even likely to train on content from private repositories. This feels like a bit of an overstep to me.