VS Code Update Added Copilot As Default Co-Author To Git Commits (heise.de)
- Reference: 0183129504
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/05/05/0335220/vs-code-update-added-copilot-as-default-co-author-to-git-commits
- Source link: https://www.heise.de/en/news/WTF-Microsoft-forces-Co-Authored-by-Copilot-in-commits-11279554.html
> On April 15, 2026, a Microsoft employee made a change to Visual Studio Code and pushed it within 8 hours without review, notification, or documentation. The [2]change added "Co-authored-by: Copilot" by default to the end of commit messages in Git when Copilot was used in creating the code. However, the implementation was bugged, and the message was [3]added to every commit regardless if Copilot was used or disabled . Since this [4]message was automatically added to the end of commit messages, users were not aware of it as the UI does not show this addition when making commits. The change as been reverted as of May 3, but not before 1.4 million commits were made. Unfortunately, those messages cannot be cleansed and are permanent.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~UnknowingFool
[2] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/310226#issue-4271775814
[3] https://www.heise.de/en/news/WTF-Microsoft-forces-Co-Authored-by-Copilot-in-commits-11279554.html
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBkJuXtV23o
I want to be a co-author (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Copilot was trained using my code, I want to be added as co-author to all code done using Copilot. Thank you.
This is why (Score:2)
Microsoft pays its employees so well.
Just like all those other programmers people say deserve their rich salaries.
And are permanent? (Score:2)
"The change as been reverted as of May 3, but not before 1.4 million commits were made. Unfortunately, those messages cannot be cleansed and are permanent."
Nonsense. It's just ones and zeros. They can be changed. Microsoft just doesn't want to.
Re: (Score:2)
Git creates a hash to track information. Removing the comment would result in a different hash.
Re: (Score:2)
Restore the repo from backup at the filesystem level, and the hash will be valid because it was valid at the time you backed up.
Re: (Score:2)
Idiotic. Git has this built in. You can git rewrite history but all of the hashes will be different and tags wrong.
Re: (Score:1)
That is not how hashs work .... facepalm.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, so?
You can't change a comment with a commit. You have to go back to the first change you want to make and rebuild from there. It's not that big a deal. You have to do the same thing if you, for example, accidentally commit a key, password or something else that shouldn't be in the repository.
This whole crytpo OMG it's IMMUTABLE thing is just silly.
Re: (Score:2)
> This whole crytpo OMG it's IMMUTABLE thing is just silly.
The messages are immutable. The situation can be fixed. Those are two different things. Those Copilot authorship messages always be in repository for those projects.
Re: (Score:2)
git commit --amend -m "New commit message"
Why can't folks just run that?
Re: (Score:3)
> git commit --amend -m "New commit message"
> Why can't folks just run that?
My understanding is that change can easily be done before the code has been pushed. Once it is pushed, then it creates all sorts of problems downstream. A version control system would be of less value if version history could be changed later whenever someone wanted. To me it seems the easiest way would be to abandon those branches and fork new ones. That does not erase the messages but remain in a different branch thus they are permanent. The new fork would be without these Copilot authorship messages.
Re: (Score:1)
The fork still has the messages of the original commits.
Why would they go away just because one makes a fork or a branch?
I guess "in theory" you could make a kind of fork and forget all previous commit messages during forking ...
Re: (Score:2)
git commit --amend -m "CoPilot needs to die in a fire"
Re: (Score:2)
The point of version control systems is to track version changes. The value of these systems would be less if anyone can make changes later to alter the version history.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone who has force push permission can make changes. Period. That's how git works.
Why am I seeing so many totally clueless posts in /. now?
Re: (Score:2)
And if there have multiple revisions pushed since this botched change, how is that handled? Do they all get undone?
Was the VS Code change (Score:2)
Co-authored-by: Copilot
Microsoft being sloppy (Score:2)
A little slop for you, and you. Oh, hey there, some slop for you too. Some slop here, some slop there. Hell, let's put slop everywhere! Slop, slop, slop, mmm... mmm... good!
I'll say it again (Score:4, Funny)
If there's one thing that comes to my mind when I think about Microsoft developers, it's quality software .
Re: (Score:3)
poor quality software?
Rewriting history? (Score:2)
I found some of them in my little hobby project. How can I remove those from my git history
Copyright issue? (Score:2)
Wouldn't this make it difficult (Copyright office review) to impossible to Copyright any code committed with this message? AI authored content can't be copyrighted (unless the CR office deems enough human intervention was included,) so any protections would be void for that commit, regardless of license applied? This seems problematic.
Isn't this fraud? (Score:1)
Fraud for commercial gain. Microsoft is getting advertising and exposure for their product. That exposure surely would cost tens of thousands of dollars if you were to pay the developers to add that line. I seriously doubt an employee did this on their own "without review, notification, or documentation." I think jail time for corporate employees doing shit like this should be a last resort but at this point I don't really see any other good options.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
HOLY SHIT dude. Maybe use Occam's Razor a little more. Somebody fucked up. It probably needs to go in their personnel file. We don't need to go after their family.
Re: (Score:2)
An alternative explanation would be that Copilot itself was responsible.
Re: (Score:3)
> An alternative explanation would be that Copilot itself was responsible.
Maybe it's bucking for a promotion to Pilot.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean Hanlon's Razor
Re: (Score:2)
Somebody fucked up, some people will gain (maybe massively) from this, and other have their work shat on, but who cares, it's just a woopsy tootsy, no need to do anything, eh?
Re: (Score:2)
"Hey, what's the big deal? We used to append 'P.S. I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail' to every outgoing email way back in the day, and no one ever had a problem with that..."
Re: (Score:3)
The "big deal" is that the Hotmail footer wasn't claiming authorship of a creative work. The addition to the commit comment is.
See the difference?
Re: (Score:3)
> Fraud for commercial gain. Microsoft is getting advertising and exposure for their product. That exposure surely would cost tens of thousands of dollars if you were to pay the developers to add that line. I seriously doubt an employee did this on their own "without review, notification, or documentation." I think jail time for corporate employees doing shit like this should be a last resort but at this point I don't really see any other good options.
I think jail time should be reserved for the marketing fuckwad that publishes a press release in a few months claiming every one of those commits as proof that Copilot has one the AI code wars.
Re: Isn't this fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's even worse. LLM generated code can't be copyrighted.
Re: (Score:2)
For this reason some projects like open source forbid AI generated code as it brings copyright into question.
Re:Isn't this fraud? (Score:4, Interesting)
> I think jail time for corporate employees doing shit like this should be a last resort but at this point I don't really see any other good options.
Let them go free, but jail literally everyone above them on the org chart.
I actually propose that every executive salary be capped at a percentage of the sum of their direct reports, and that they share responsibility for any act they take.
Re: (Score:3)
> I actually propose that every executive salary be capped at a percentage of the sum of their direct reports, and that they share responsibility for any act they take.
Have you heard of the Wheat and Chessboard problem? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Humans are bad judges of numbers, but let's run with it for a second. What's reasonable? 120% cap?
I make $50k as a programmer. There are 5 people in my team.
Our team leader's salary is now capped at $300k. There are 3 product teams in the department.
Our VP leader's salary is now capped at $1.08million. There's 3 departments under the Chief Product Officer.
Our CPO now makes $3.888million. A typical enterprise has 15 C-suite
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem
Re: (Score:1)
Microsoft is above the law, as they've proven countless times already.
Not fraud because it's consensual; user opted in (Score:1)
People made the conscious decision to use proprietary software in spite of the FACT that they can never be sure what it's going to do. They knew , before they ever launched Copilot, that Copilot is written to serve Microsoft's interests above the user's interests, and the user decided to run it anyway. In the event of a conflict, Microsoft wins and the user can go fuck themselves.
The software is your agent. You opted in to whatever it happens to do today. You know for sure that the toy will sometimes do dumb
Re: (Score:3)
> I seriously doubt an employee did this on their own "without review, notification, or documentation."
The point is there should be a normal process. There should be a review process. There should have been notification about changes. And of course such changes should have been documented. The change was approved and pushed. Later MS admitted they did not thoroughly test the ramifications while also admitting testing found issues with the change . . . yet they pushed the change anyway.