Deadlock is in active development, so... I think so?
72 karma · joined March 9, 2018
It is 'borrowing' because you don't own it, not because you don't want to clone/copy it. Sometimes it is cheaper to borrow than it is to clone/copy; sometimes it is not.
I have to wonder if B-tree de-duplication would have helped with that particular case? The PostgreSQL 13 documentation seems to imply it, as far as I can tell[0] (under 63.4.2):
> B-Tree deduplication is just as effective with “duplicates” that contain a NULL value, even though NULL values are never equal to each other according to the = member of any B-Tree operator class.
I don't think it would be as effective as a partial index as applied in the post, I'm just curious.
[0]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/13/btree-implementation.html
It does feel like the code was ported as-is to Rust, and only adjusted slightly to compile; there are going to be pain points as a result of this process. I suspect this is the source of some of the author's complaints, especially given:
> Although it provides us with a greater sense of how the code is executing, it brings very little value to the algorithm itself.
Rust is, in general, for people who find value in having that information; it is okay to not want to have to worry about ownership, borrowing, safety, etc., but it seems a bit odd to complain about this when that's what Rust is for? If you want to focus on just the algorithm, and not how it's executing, then OCaml is definitely a valid choice.
However, the point about GADTs - can Rust's recently-stabilized GATs not work in the same way? Though I will admit that Rust's GATs don't seem nearly as powerful as OCaml's GADTs in this regard.
A derivative work is not fair use. If you end up with a significant portion of another person's program in yours, (such that a substantial portion of your program is in some way related to their program), that will likely be a derivative work - but the definition of a derivative work depends on your jurisdiction and use-case. If you're unlawfully using the source material to produce a derivative work, you cannot copyright that derivative work under 17 U.S.C. § 103(a), and under the same section, you can only copyright your modifications, not the original.
It would be hard to argue fair use in this case; fair use only really applies for parodies/criticism, reporting, and scholarly works - and generally that's an affirmative defense, rather than an express or implied right you have.
Honestly, Copilot is difficult because Copilot can't be the author of the code; the person who used Copilot is the "author" of the code, and I think they'd be the ones liable for copyright infringement if copyrighted content ends up in their code.
To argue someone performed copyright infringement, all you need is to prove (1) a valid copyright exists; (2) that the person had access to the work; (3) the person had the opportunity to steal the work; and (4) that protected elements of the work had been copied (afaik generally under a "substantially similar" standard). Copilot offers an easy way to check both (2) and (3) - a copyright holder could argue that people had access to their code through Copilot, and that Copilot offered an opportunity to steal the work.