Reddit's r/opensource bans AI slop, and quite a few humans for good measure

New rules also shut out solo developers, fledgling projects, and anyone who doesn't speak English

Reddit's r/opensource community has declared war on AI-generated software by introducing a sweeping set of new rules that also manage to shut out solo developers, newcomers, and anyone who doesn't speak English.

The crackdown, announced over the weekend, bans projects that use AI, that were created with AI, or that are intended for AI applications. 

"The long story short, if your project uses AI, is made by AI, or is intended for AI, it's not welcome on r/opensource," moderator Wolvereness wrote. "AI, as it exists today, is incongruent to this Open Source community."

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To get a project featured on the subreddit, developers now need to show it has been actively maintained for at least a year, has an established community, and has at least three contributors, give or take. Student projects such as note-taking apps and PDF viewers aren't welcome either, and developers can no longer use the subreddit to find people willing to help maintain their software.

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That creates a chicken-and-egg problem for independent developers, who apparently need an established community before they can use an open source forum to find one. Even projects with no AI involvement could fall foul of the rules. One Reddit user pointed out that their nine-year-old project, which has more than 300 GitHub stars and dozens of resolved issues, would no longer qualify because they're its sole contributor.

The moderator also imposed a minimum Reddit account age of one year and requires significant prior contributions. Anyone who attempts to post and then contacts the moderators seeking an exception risks being permanently banned and muted.

Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising restriction concerns language. "If you don't speak English, you need to find a different community," the announcement states. Moderators say they cannot distinguish AI-written content from AI-translated text, and that non-English speakers cannot verify whether a translation is accurate.

That particular rule has gone down about as well as you might expect. Fellow moderator ssddanbrown publicly objected, saying they hadn't been consulted about the changes and only learned of them through moderation notifications.

"I don't agree with that rule. Especially so with how it was said," they wrote.

The rules also raise awkward questions about projects like Linux, whose developers have taken a different approach to AI-assisted contributions. The kernel allows developers to use the technology while holding them responsible for the resulting code. Earlier this month, maintainers even decided to drop the requirement to disclose AI assistance.

Asked whether that meant Linux would be banned from r/opensource, Wolvereness suggested it would probably still be allowed, arguing that enforcement would depend on whether a project was obviously the product of AI-generated code.

"There's no 'objective' way to implement this policy," the moderator acknowledged. Apparently, AI is forbidden unless the moderators decide otherwise.

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The row comes as open source developers increasingly find themselves at odds over how to handle AI-generated contributions. System76 recently banned AI-generated code and other content from its COSMIC desktop project, while parts of GNOME have introduced similar restrictions. Other GNOME developers, however, have questioned the wisdom of rejecting AI-discovered security vulnerabilities simply because a machine found them.

The debate has also caused rifts within KDE, while NetBSD has emerged as something of an AI-free alternative for developers who would rather keep generated code out of their projects altogether.

Not everyone is convinced that blanket bans are the answer. Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently argued that competent developers should be free to use AI tools, while warning against low-effort patches submitted by people who don't understand the code they're contributing.

Reddit moderators have opted for a broader approach, and one that has already prompted the creation of alternative communities, including r/TrueOpenSource and r/OpenSourceAIAllowed. The original announcement has since been updated to point disgruntled users towards these alternatives.

Of course, r/opensource is a Reddit community, not an authority on what qualifies as open source software. Its moderators are free to decide what gets posted there, just as developers are free to take their projects elsewhere. ®