Why the Software Freedom Conservancy Is Abandoning GitHub Over Copilot’s AI Training

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a nonprofit focused on free and open‑source software, announced it will stop using Microsoft GitHub for project hosting and urges other developers to follow suit.

In a blog post, FOSS licensing compliance engineer Denver Gingerich and policy researcher Bradley M. Kuhn noted that GitHub has built its ecosystem around Git, channeling FOSS contributions into its proprietary platform.

They condemn GitHub’s practice of funneling open‑source work into its own ecosystem and declare a long‑term plan to help FOSS projects migrate away from GitHub.

SFC will no longer accept new member projects that do not intend to leave GitHub, and it has created a “Give Up on GitHub” page to encourage voluntary migration to alternative hosting services.

The immediate trigger for the break‑up is the launch of GitHub Copilot, an AI coding assistant built on OpenAI’s Codex that is trained on publicly available source code, including FOSS repositories.

Gingerich and Kuhn argue that Microsoft has never discussed the copyright implications of training AI on public code, questioning why Copilot is trained only on FOSS and not on proprietary Windows code, and whether licenses and copyright holders should be consulted.

They cite legal risks highlighted by Kuhn and lawyer Matthew Butterick, who claim Copilot creates an “intellectual property black hole” by severing the link between input (licensed code) and output (generated code).

While no lawsuit has yet been filed, GitHub’s terms grant it rights to use hosted code to improve its services, and Microsoft’s legal team says it is not bound by license compliance, shifting responsibility to Copilot users.

Copilot’s documentation advises users to treat generated code like any other third‑party code, applying security testing, IP scanning, and vulnerability tracking.

Gingerich and Kuhn conclude that GitHub’s behavior on Copilot is far worse than that of other for‑profit hosting providers.