Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features (www.theregister.com)
from throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to tech@programming.dev on 06 Sep 09:31
https://lemmy.nz/post/27811812

Among the software developers who use Microsoft’s GitHub, the most popular community discussion in the past 12 months has been a request for a way to block Copilot, the company’s AI service, from generating issues and pull requests in code repositories.

The second most popular discussion – where popularity is measured in upvotes – is a bug report that seeks a fix for the inability of users to disable Copilot code reviews.

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gkaklas@lemmy.zip on 06 Sep 10:25 next collapse

I’m not sure I understand the people in the thread advocating for the feature; they’re asking Microsoft to not have features that are hostile to the users?

If the managers have decided they don’t want you, and they only want vibe coders and to force AI hype on you, why would you do their job for them and try to persuade them to keep their monopoly…

Just accept that it’s bad and go somewhere else; 😕 the fact that people are used to using github and that “it’s what everyone uses”, doesn’t mean that people should stay there forever, or that Microsoft would care about the feature requests people make; stop threatening to leave or comparing github to codeberg etc, and just go create a codeberg account and start git pushing there today 🤔 (And maybe keep the github projects but only use them as mirrors for accepting PRs etc)

(I’m not saying this in a hostile way; but I really think the solution is to just go and do sth else about, it instead of trying to reason with Microsoft)

throws_lemy@lemmy.nz on 06 Sep 11:02 collapse

Just accept that it’s bad and go somewhere else;

before leaving github, it is better for them to ensure that their code on github cannot be used to train AI.

Gutek8134@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 11:09 next collapse

How about replacing it with some random mumbling? >:) They don’t care to sanitize their data.

throws_lemy@lemmy.nz on 06 Sep 11:22 next collapse

it might work just don’t delete your github account, since they have another baclup.

Just keep it and do a few commits a year at least to make sure your code can’t be used.

rozodru@piefed.social on 06 Sep 11:33 collapse

that's what I did when I moved my stuff to codeberg and my private forgejo instance. I knew deleting the repos on github wasn't going to do anything, they would likely still have them. so I just pushed a bunch of claude code AI slop into all of them. let Microsoft's AI gorge itself on the waste from Anthropics. Literally just opened up a Claude Code CLI and had it do a bunch of absolutely dumb crap and when it'd get confused and say "this isn't right" I would correct it and say "no, NO! you're completely right! keep going!"

It was actually kinda fun. like teaching a kid to ride a bike wrong on purpose.

4am@lemmy.zip on 06 Sep 13:19 collapse

I promise you that it’s far too late for that.

throws_lemy@lemmy.nz on 06 Sep 10:50 next collapse

from the comments of the article that got the most upvotes

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

Microsoft’s Copilot push isn’t strategy, it’s the old embrace, extend, extinguish play dressed up in “AI” robes. GitHub was acquired to embrace developers. Copilot is the extend phase: saturating every workflow with unasked-for AI noise, from issues to pull requests to editors. The extinguish part is already visible - trust in GitHub is collapsing, and the very maintainers who underpin Microsoft’s ecosystem are moving to other platforms.

On earnings calls, this is presented as “momentum”. In reality, it’s forced adoption: a hostile takeover of developer experience. When customers explicitly ask for an off switch and leadership ignores them, that’s not innovation - it’s managerial negligence. Any competent operator knows that coercion isn’t growth, it’s decay.

GitHub’s competitive advantage was never a Copilot sidebar, it was trust and network effects. Those are finite assets, and they’re being burned for vanity metrics. The result? A platform that once symbolised collaboration now feels like adware, and developers - the same ones whose code powers Azure and every Microsoft AI demo - are signalling they’re done.

Shareholders should be asking a simple question: what is the long-term value of poisoning the well you drink from? Copilot may inflate short-term KPIs, but the cost is strategic: erosion of goodwill, flight of open-source projects, and reputational damage that no amount of AI rebranding can fix.

I agree with the first paragraph, this is just another M$ EEE. Utilizing source codes on github to train their AI to be smarter in coding. So they can promote vibe coding to people with a little or no experience in coding.

Serinus@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 11:49 collapse

This is not what Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is. Embrace, maybe, sure. The Extend part is functionality that is critical or that people want to use. This isn’t that. (And then Extinguish is to use the Extension to eliminate the open source competition.)

rhythmisaprancer@piefed.social on 06 Sep 18:24 collapse

The article kind of lines out how they interpret 'extend' here, but as you say, it isn't perfect. Perhaps 'eeritate' or 'egg on' would fit better. Elbow?

higgsboson@piefed.social on 06 Sep 14:27 collapse

Let us get rid of ~~it, angry~~ GitHub users say ~~of Copilot features~~

Fify