Update on "Co-authored-by: Copilot" in commit messages

(github.com)

65 points | by extesy 2 hours ago

13 comments

  • cube00 31 minutes ago
    2 days ago:

    > We did catch it internally in testing [1]

    Today:

    > bug in the code that was not found in testing.

    [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47994193

    • maxloh 26 minutes ago
      The bug is not about code behavior, but rather about getting noticed by users :)
  • Waterluvian 1 hour ago
    All the people there asking the simple question of why it got changed and getting ignored.
    • chao- 45 minutes ago
      There ought to be decent number of people within Microsoft who have "Copilot usage" as a KPI. I don't think this was gamesmanship on their part (no sarcasm, I truly do not suspect malice), but I'm sure if it could have slipped in without backlash, they would have enjoyed seeing their line go up.
    • xigoi 1 hour ago
      We all know the answer anyway.
  • est 1 hour ago
    I am using a different approach.

    `user.email` is always my email.

    `user.name` is either my account name, or model name like `gpt-5.5-high`.

    I can easily filter & blame which line was written by me or some specific AI

    • sillysaurusx 5 minutes ago
      That doesn’t quite work for cases where you’re either the primary author of a commit (asking the model for some touch ups) or when you heavily edit model output. Easier to just say “this is who’s driving the AI” and keep it to your username.
  • arcfour 30 minutes ago
    I'm not sure that anyone wants the scarlet letter of an AI coauthor on their code just because they used something simple like next edit suggestions or AI autocomplete. It seems like the "all" setting basically only exists for people that haven't figured out how to change it to something else yet.

    (Funnily enough, I always commit through the command line in VS code anyways...not sure why. But I guess I would have avoided this annoyance, so that's a plus!)

    • henry2023 21 minutes ago
      Agree. I'm more reliant on having a keyboard than on having copilot make tab suggestions and I wouldn't like my PRs to include a tag: "Keystrokes courtesy of: Keychron K3 Max".
      • Freedom2 2 minutes ago
        Definitely. Can you imagine the kind of world we'd live in if we had to sign each message with each product we used?

        This message brought to you by Xfinity Internet.

    • jasonkester 14 minutes ago
      Yeah. I wasn’t angry about this a couple days ago, but I am now.

      So the thing that’s on by default and makes autocomplete worse (plain intelligence never changed my s.x = 0 to s.xVInputRadiusDetectionThreshold = 0 if I happened to take my eyes off the screen for a moment) is now stealing credit for my work?

      I’m speechless.

      Also glad I use a standalone git client.

  • maxloh 25 minutes ago
    > There was a bug in the code that was not found in testing that attributed non-Copilot code completions to Copilot.

    The bug is not about code behavior, but rather about getting noticed by users :)

  • montroser 27 minutes ago
    It's only one sliver of the problem here, but -- do you know how often I update my code editor? Like once every five or ten years, to the version that was released a year or two ago.

    I do my own commits by hand so it's moot anyway, but there's a fair bit of "leopards ate my face" going in the GitHub thread.

    • pitched 20 minutes ago
      VSCode updates itself what feels like daily so everyone is on the bleeding edge. There are upsides and downsides to that but it doesn’t feel like a trade-off many have made purposefully.
      • ncallaway 9 minutes ago
        You can disable auto-updates for VS Code, and you can install older versions of it.
  • jwilliams 50 minutes ago
    Are they apologizing? Was it a bug? Why did they make this decision and what's the end goal? It's so unclear from the message - as evidenced by a lot of the responses.
    • zaptrem 47 minutes ago
      Seems pretty clear, Claude and Codex were getting a lot of free publicity by instructing their models to do the same and MS wanted similar results. However, a bug caused this to be applied to all commits instead of all Copilot-influenced commits.
    • utopiah 36 minutes ago
      They did say it's a bug that they even caught during testing yet somehow let go through. Author of the issue mentioned this on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47994193
      • jwilliams 11 minutes ago
        "AI attribution by default" was an intentional feature, but there were also bugs. This is why the post is so unclear.
  • peyton 1 hour ago
    Inserting authorship claims is incredibly tacky. It’s today’s “Intel Inside” sticker. I don’t want your stickers on the computer I bought.

    “Sent from my iPhone” isn’t an authorship claim.

    • AuthAuth 1 hour ago
      Sent from my iPhone is worse than intel inside or claude in the commits in my opinion.

      There is something so gross about injecting an advertising message into every single communication a user has on their device.

      • SequoiaHope 23 minutes ago
        I recall there was some understanding that it had a legitimate use as well as the obvious marketing, which was to advise the reader that the message may be unexpectedly concise or contain errors because it was sent from a cell phone, something less common before the iPhone came out. BlackBerry phones did this too for the same reasons.
      • cik 4 minutes ago
        These are the same thing. Marketing, and the ability to track reach. There's no other reason to do this.
      • Cadwhisker 15 minutes ago
        “Sent from my iPhone” is a default signature, but you can change the message under Settings -> Apps -> Mail -> Signature (at the bottom of the options page)
      • robin_reala 31 minutes ago
        At least “Sent from my iPhone” was a factual claim, unlike this mess.
      • richooret 28 minutes ago
        You misunderstand the purpose of "Sent from my iPhone" - it was a status symbol, it showed that the sender was part of the superior iPhone owning elite. It was trivial to remove, but most didnt "oh, I am too busy too remove it, I guess I'll just leave it and let everybody know I can afford an iPhone".

        You are right, it was advertising, but it advertized the user, not Apple.

        • poly2it 11 minutes ago
          That's advertising with extra steps. Apple having created an ingroup and an outgroup is very effective advertising on their side.
    • kelseydh 1 hour ago
      On the flip side there are people who believe that LLM-assisted coding changes require attribution in git history.
      • silverwind 53 minutes ago
        It's definitely helpful to know whether a PR was AI-assisted or not and the git attribution line is a simple and effective way of communicating that.

        I also recommend specifying model name and version so the maintainer knows upfront the level of slop they are dealing with.

    • dyauspitr 1 hour ago
      What’s the problem with intel inside? That’s perfectly normal.
      • reaperducer 1 hour ago
        What’s the problem with intel inside? That’s perfectly normal.

        I don't want my computer to look like it's racing in NASCAR.

  • m3kw9 1 hour ago
    Default to ON is a complete dik move
    • utopiah 36 minutes ago
      It's not even default to ON, it's default to ALL (or at least to a lot), even non co-pilot commits, that's what made people made. If it was at least correct maybe it would have gone unnoticed.
  • shimman 1 hour ago
    Honestly extremely pathetic by a trillion dollar corporation that has a massive, undemocratic, say in how technology is developed in this country.

    Microsoft should be broken up into a dozen different companies and it's quite clear they violated their consent decree from the US DOJ a few decades later, so they should get punished extra hard. Maybe nationalize Excel putting it in the public domain for starters.

    • dyauspitr 1 hour ago
      Yeah break up all the big companies so Chinese state sponsored behemoths can take over everything. This isn’t the 90s where Americans only competed with other Americans.
      • pocksuppet 7 minutes ago
        China is competing so well because it has a central bureaucracy that issues 5 year plans and issues money to get them done. Do you think America should do that too, or do you think America and China are different countries with different values?
      • henry2023 17 minutes ago
        Breaking up big tech would make US markets more competitive, not less.
      • alehlopeh 1 hour ago
        GP didn’t say all the big tech companies. Just Microslop.
      • scuff3d 43 minutes ago
        So you're saying the market is weaker with more competition?
      • Waterluvian 1 hour ago
        Honestly not sure I find that prospect worse than the American status quo. At least the Chinese regime is a rational actor.
        • jimmaswell 12 minutes ago
          "America is just as bad as China" is not cute or clever; it's trite and objectively wrong. There really is no intellectually honest argument to the contrary. For starters we don't get arrested for saying "Kent State Massacre" - can't say as much for "Tiananmen Square" in China. No matter how atrocious our government may be at times, it doesn't hold a candle to them.
      • starfallg 1 hour ago
        Nope, just break up the one that has been consistently found to be abusing their market position. Microsoft has been embroiled in this since the 90s.
  • jdw64 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • gowld 1 hour ago
    [flagged]