Get off of Github if you think this is a problem π€· There are alternatives like Forgejo (Codeberg), Gitlab, and Radicle (decentralised).
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
518 points (99.1% liked)
Programmer Humor
32572 readers
904 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Genuinely surprised it's even opt-out.
These companies train on Disney DVDs. Permission is not a factor. Training is transformative use, as much for counting letter frequency as for building a chatbot that can sort of code.
no, officer, you misunderstand! I'm not pirating this movie, I'm just training my intelligence on it! it is transformative use, see, I can now write you this summary!
Quoting one sentence from a book is fair use even if you shoplifted that book.
A number of my repos are listed.
But the weird part is that it also lists a repo I don't recognize. The repo does actually exist on my github account, but it's marked as "ignored", and the description says it was automatically exported from Google Code. The code seems to be a MacOS shareware file encryption tool called "BitClamp", published circa 2008.
No idea how it got on my account.
Iβm just realizing that Iβve had my college transcripts on GitHub since I graduated years ago.
They got some broken Linux configuration from me, some project with many securities fails in it and a big amount of virus codes I got from the time I was hypefocusing on worms...
I like "hypefocusing", even if it's a typo.
It's a better decription of 9/10 of the time i would otherwise say i "hyperfocus".
meanwhile I'm just here scraping GitHub repos for API keys and credentials π€·ββοΈ
for legal reasons I must insist this is a joke, and in Minecraft.
In theory, it's all supposed to be permissively licenced code and the opt out is more than other models give. I saw Starcoder as one of the more ethical models. I thought the underlying principals to be fair at least.
I'm interested in this gut hostility to it regardless. Kind of shows how you can't present LLMs in a positive angle no matter what. They shouldn't be using anything GPL or similar.
Kind of shows how you can't present ~~LLMs~~ harvesting peoples data without consent or even warning and making it difficult to impossible for people to avoid it in a positive angle no matter what.
Fixed it for you.
An LLM built from only consensually provided data would be perfectly fine, as long as it works without environmentally ruinous data centers.
In fact, that was how EVERY LLM was to begin with, until regulatory capture and corporate impunity reached the current crescendo.
But if it's permissively licenced, couldn't I just copy bits and pieces for my own project without asking?
Like I understand asking is always better and an opt in process for "the stack" or wtv would have been better received. Nevertheless, did they really have a legal obligation, rather than moral obligation, to ask given how this is licensed?
Taking GPL code would be a different situation right? They would have to also include it in their model creation... which theoretically they just could.
Most of those "permissive" licenses require redistributors to redistribute copies of the license texts in derivative works.
But I bet these AI models aren't doing that. And it's a damn neat certainty that the vibe coders who use the AI model are not attaching a license disclosure containing every permissive licenses in GitHub. Even if their vibe coded app is arguably a derivative work.
You can host copyleft as well as all rights reserved code on GitHub. It's not like Codeberg.
Yeah, they aren't supposed to scrape that stuff. That's kind of where I'm wondering if they limited their collections.
Well, they included some MPL 2.0 repos of mine at least, but skipped others that use GPL3. Yet another that is a mirror of some otherwise lost firmware files for early 2000s wifi cards (and definitely isn't free software) is also included.
So possibly they filter out GPL2/3 specifically, rather than only include known permissive licenses. Which is a pretty bad way of doing it.
Okay, I see you, I think I may have misunderstood how you were phrasing it. Thinking you were saying they were scanning all of GitHub because it's all permissive.
We'll they said they only scanned stuff that would have allowed them implicitly, now did they really respect that? Their ''stack'' is public, so people can review it. It's opensource, people can audit it at least.
The big giants can lift whatever they want from Github and we wouldn't have the means to prove it. I'm sure Microsoft is using private repos as they like. It's not a coincidence that Copilot was one of the earlier coding LLMs.
Looks for my username. Sees my 8 open repositories in there. Sees my poorly coded Uni projects are also in there.
Oh lord my code is actively helping making AI worse.
Mission failed successfully!
Glad to be part of the crew with shitty code in Github to taint them plagiarism machines!
load more comments
(2 replies)
Hope some group makes it their mission to start flooding github with garbage code.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Literally all LLMs are affected by GIGO. This is why everything it outputs sounds like a redditor.
Woo! My crappy code and group projects are in there too!
May all AI generated code be in one giant main loop thanks to my influence π
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
I donβt see a problem as long as they stick to AGPL when building a product out of it
Edit: Oh they also scraped my proprietary code π§
So they scrapped stuff that wasn't permissive? Interesting... though not really surprising.
Time to leave malicious code for Claud in git hub projects.
I'm doing my part by already writing shitty code.
β¦and now, suddenly, github being overrun by vibecoded garbage isnβt so bad
AI will poison itself trust, like when it links AI made articles.
Also, all this reminds me of drama in the Skyrim and Minecraft modding scenes, when devs publish stuff under Apache or MIT or whatever.
Then the devs find out they donβt like what others are doing with their code. Drama ensues.
β¦Thatβs kinda the deal with permissive licenses. Or posting publicly, like here on Lemmy. People will do things you donβt like with your code or content.
Eh, I donβt think itβs hypocritical to contribute to a commons and then get mad when someone comes along and tries to use the commons to undermine the commons.
Like yes, the commons is there to be used⦠but not to kill the commons.
https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/
load more comments
(1 replies)
Nah if you're a massive AI company and you scrape without contribution, you're a huge piece of shit.
It's just stealing plain and simple like anything else.
They're not a small user getting open source software, they're scraping what is already done to try and make you obsolete.
load more comments
(15 replies)
Bad News: My old GitHub repos are there.
Good News: I wrote that shit when I was 12. The code runs, but it's not good and not inventive.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I'm not much of a programmer, but why arern't more people just using GitLab instead of GitHub?
Network effect / discoverability and free CI time
Job recruiters get scared.
Still learning git but apparently there's some "power features", and, aside from that, it's the same BS network effect that keeps everyone on all the abusive platforms.
Discoverability, it's where all the other people already stashed their code, sunk cost, etc...
Siiiigh...
load more comments
(5 replies)
view more: next βΊ