It seems that Microsoft is conflating "public" with "unlicensed."
Sadly, it is a common practice. Humans are really good at rationalizing their way down the slippery slope. "I'll just use this clever way to loop over that structure. Well, actually, the whole function pretty much does what I need, I'll just drop that function in. Hmm, I could just change the API of this module a bit and that will work nicely..." It doesn't take long for learning to turn into copyright violation. I've seen this repeatedly while reviewing code of junior engineers. The engineers aren't malicious. They just sort of slide into it over time.
As Copilot gets better and better, I just don't see how it doesn't end up violating license terms, at least occasionally. Even if much of its output is fair use, as long as some of it is violating licenses, MS has a problem.
Sadly, it is a common practice. Humans are really good at rationalizing their way down the slippery slope. "I'll just use this clever way to loop over that structure. Well, actually, the whole function pretty much does what I need, I'll just drop that function in. Hmm, I could just change the API of this module a bit and that will work nicely..." It doesn't take long for learning to turn into copyright violation. I've seen this repeatedly while reviewing code of junior engineers. The engineers aren't malicious. They just sort of slide into it over time.
As Copilot gets better and better, I just don't see how it doesn't end up violating license terms, at least occasionally. Even if much of its output is fair use, as long as some of it is violating licenses, MS has a problem.