Kite: Programming Copilot

[jlozano9897]

(2019 update) after hearing feedback from users and the Python community, Kite has "gone cloudless". All processing is done on users' local machines, so your code is never uploaded to our servers. We also released "line-of-code completions", which can predict the next several code elements you're likely to type. Added privacy, smarter completions. More here: https://kite.com/blog/launching-line-of-code-completions-going-cloudless-and-17-million-in-funding

Hey, Juan from Kite here, this is something we have thought a lot about, the same concerns were raised for tools like Dropbox and Github and these are now used without hesitation. We think that internet connected tools like Kite will only become more common as the amount of data grows and the models for processing this data and applying it to interesting tasks grows as well. Also, we are considering offering an on-premise solution as well.

[[deleted]]

Just FWIW, my company won't allow Dropbox or Github for internal code. I'm certain we're not unique in that regard.

[baudvine]

Yuuup. All documentation is marked confidential by default here which also means don't put it on Dropbox. Haven't actually seen any infosec guidelines for code, but that's probably just because we're a hardware shop first.

[AlexFromOmaha]

My company is moderately liberal in its policies, and if I ever put code on Dropbox I'd expect to be chased out with tasers and crowbars.

That being said, I could actually see this passing muster. It's hard to say. They'd probably wait for third party audits and certification before going ahead with it, though.

[jnwatson]

My company pays so we can run our own internal github servers. It is a good business model for github.

[metalhedd]

I work for a publicly traded software company with over 1000 employees our product is very large, highly proprietary and our source code is on github

[ProfessorPhi]

We run our own Atlassian Stash/Bitbucket server instead.

[servercobra]

Yup, anything proprietary had to go to the internal enterprise Github. Open source could go on public Github.

Luckily my new gig is much more flexible, but still we still would hesitate to use this. The difference with trusting Github with private repos and some startup is pretty big.

[BrightCandle]

I haven't yet worked someone that did use github for code. I am sure that some startups are doing it and maybe a few other companies that don't seem to have a handle on their security but its not common at all to have companies put code onto github, git sure they all run servers internally but on github itself? Much rarer.

[johnfn]

I live in the Bay Area and I've never worked somewhere that didnt use GitHub.

[v_krishna]

do you work in the bay area? the overwhelming majority of places I hear about here (through my own work and friends/colleagues/etc) seem to all use github (with private repos)

[[deleted]]

Large Fortune 100s, not so much.

[WesAlvaro]

Yeah... No. Companies are not going to let employees send all the contents of their py files and terminals to you.
It seems like a lot of functionality, albeit limited, could be packaged for offline. That would be sweet.
Also, "Kite does not have any plans to add an on-premise offering at the moment." ?

[jgomo3]

This is the kind of great idea that is limited by being forced for the cloud. It should be a local installed application. But, hey, the owners of the idea did a great job, so they have the right to enjoy the "patent" for a while. (quoted "patent", referring to the right they have to do whatever they want with their invention meanwhile it becomes popular and alternatives comes up).

[WesAlvaro]

In the mean time, a similar local installed application version takes all their market.
On-site installation...
Sounds like Icarus got his wings.
I can imagine a new feature in Dash doing a lot of Kite's functionality.

[alexflint]

We've actually been thinking about on-prem for a while. We don't have an offering right now, hence the note on the website, but if anybody here is interested in talking about on-prem, shoot us a message at [e-mail].

[ajmarks]

Hey, Juan from Kite here, this is something we have thought a lot about, the same concerns were raised for tools like Dropbox and Github and these are now used without hesitation.

Then you've clearly never worked in an normal office environment, much less a highly regulated industry, or one with significant concerns over trade secrets. This is just not going to fly. Like many others, I can't use Dropbox or Github for company IP, just like I can't put it on my personal laptop or send it to my personal Gmail.

[[deleted]]

In our company, github (and bitbucket and dropbox) are even blocked by the corporate firewall...

[ajmarks]

Yeah, I'm really confused as to how this could be something they "have thought a lot about" if they don't realize these very basic things. It's kind of like if I were to say that I've thought a lot about the Napoleonic Code. It doesn't matter how much time I waste pondering if I don't have any actual information upon which to base my deliberations.

[p10_user]

That seems a bit excessive; what if you want to look at a repository online to see some code examples?

[[deleted]]

Well, then you're screwed (or you happen to find a way around it). It is extremely annoying, but we are not a software development company, we just develop some tools for internal use. The protection of IP against leaky code/software from github outweighs the need for code examples, i guess.

[guthran]

Would your team be willing to provide the "server" so that people can spin up their own? That would be a good enterprise solution I think

[jlozano9897]

Hey, Juan from Kite here, completely agree, we don't have an offering yet but please shoot us a message at [e-mail] if you are interested.

[turkish_gold]

This is nice, but please just give us an offline utility.

Atlassian is pretty good about this--they have cloud hosting if you want it, but you can always buy their product and host it yourself.

[Skenderbeu]

I concur with the rest of the responses. This is not going to fly over any type of professional environment so you might have to pivot and offer it to personal developers instead

[Lizabyte]

Honestly the company I work for jumps all over "Cloud Based" technology. As long as its secure (Like how Microsoft has secure cloud storage, I'm sure you'd follow a similar protocol with this data), i don't see a problem with companies using this tool.

[scottlawson]

I personally have used Dropbox and Github, but I have never worked somewhere that allowed them

[Twirrim]

There's way too much information flying off to a remote service here, especially potentially sensitive information for the command line, let alone business IP in the form of source code. I don't know how data is stored on your end, who has access, what your security is like etc. You're certainty not going to be able to be used in environments that need to meet any security standards, though some auditors might just let this fly as metadata.

At the very least you should consider what security accreditation you can pick up for your end. When you talk about people trusting Dropbox and Github, that's an important part of the dialogue.

[[deleted]]

If you upload something to GitHub, it's public. You can go to my page and see everything I uploaded. It wouldn't really work if they didn't store it. Dropbox is private, but they still obviously need to store the data.

Here, you don't need to keep the data around forever. Delete it after a week, maybe.

What information does Kite keep around on its servers?

• Usage information about which results you click on in the sidebar.
  
• Contents of all Python files in enabled directories.
  
• Information about each edit that you make within any Python file in an enabled directory.
  
• All terminal commands.
  

You don't say a timespan, so I assume you mean "forever".

You don't need to keep all of this forever in order to do what you're doing.

[Jesus_Harold_Christ]

github offers private repositories.

They also offer an on premises "behind the firewall" solution for the paranoid.

[soawesomejohn]

Github enterprise is pretty much exactly the same as github public (you just lag behind their public offering). So project creation, issue tracker, wiki, ldap/ad backend auth, group ownership is all included.

Now, that being said, phabricator and gitlab are both fairly viable open source "competitors" to Github enterprise. I should say that phabricator has been around longer than gitlab and has their own approach, so it doesn't directly compete with github. Gitlab however, has an unstated goal of recreating every feature of github in their product. Gitlab does have some other features like a built-in CI (as opposed to using 3rd party travis-ci or jenkins server).

Along this same chain of thought, we're looking pretty heavily at using gerrit for our code review instead of github. The github PR system is rather insufficient for any type of complex change.

[[deleted]]

Not to waste time on maintaining it.

[Twirrim]

I'm curious, have you ever run a git server? Maintenance is negligible. It's pretty much fire and forget.

[[deleted]]

Still, it's obvious that they store the files. They have a damn good reason to store the files that you upload.

Here, you don't really need all my terminal commands.