veritanuda thinks Microsoft have finally figured how to kill Open Source...

So I was listening to CR422 and your musings over copilot, and you touched on the idea of licence washing, but I feel you over simplified it. The copilot announcement happened the same week I read this article by the SFC

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jun/30/who-should-own-foss-copyrights/

In it discusses who is it who is not in charge of open source and how responsibility can be abdicated for a variety of reasons, but that the biggest threat to the GPL, or any free software licence, is the enforcement of it. 

For a licence to count, just like a trademark, it has to be enforced rigorously. So the real threat from copilot is not just copying GPL code 'by mistake' but that copying would be automated and wholesale and so making it impossible  catch and  to be enforced. 

Suddenly you have 1000's and 1000's of products exploiting GPL code but no resources available to enforce the violations.

That is what has me worried. If you wanted to kill open source, you don't have to kill the GPL you just have to nullify it.

Call me a cynic, but I have to say I am genuinely worried that Microsoft have finally figured how to kill Open Source not by extending or embracing it, though they >heart< Linux,  but by making it irrelevant because no one can enforce the licence to make sure the  code remains free for everyone. You don't need to kill the kernel if you can break all the tools that surround it with impudence. 

It could be a dark future indeed.