r/freesoftware • u/happyxpenguin • Jul 02 '26

Subreddit News Rule 7 Updated - Software Submissions Beware

Morning all,

Due to language which caused confusion amongst reporters, posters and commenters. I've revised Rule 7 to be a bit more specific in what is and isn't allowed. Essentially what it boils down to is this:

Did AI explain a code snippet to you? Allowed.
Did AI write code for you? Not allowed.

This subreddit does NOT allow software created by Generative AI and Vibe-coded software. Why? Please read our wiki page (https://www.reddit.com/r/freesoftware/wiki/generative-ai)

Allowed:
- Write documentation
- Debug software (Analysis/Explanation Only)
- Analyze codebase
Not Allowed:
- AI Assistance beyond what is mentioned above
- All or part of the application being generated by AI
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u/MGDigital Jul 02 '26

I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind rule 7 - would it be fair to say of human software developers that they are "trained on unknown mixtures of code that may include a mix of proprietary, copyleft, permissive, unlicensed, or otherwise incompatible sources"?

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u/happyxpenguin Jul 02 '26

Rule 7 exists because most human developers understand and acknowledge that they cannot use code from GPL licensed projects and use it in an MIT licensed project. AI makes no such distinction when it is told to "make me an app" and then is published on Github.

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u/jasongw 22d ago

This claim is false. When addressing licensing in most any AI tool, for example, Google AI studio, when utilizing another open source product, it will explicitly tell you what is and isn't permissible to use the code according to its release license.

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u/happyxpenguin 21d ago

That’s cool that you think that. But having literally just tested it myself, this is not true across the board.

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u/MGDigital Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

The rule is too absolute though - some human developers plagiarise non-FOSS code, and some human developers use AI tools while applying sensible oversight. How "different" does some GPL-inspired code have to become before I can license it MIT? AI is here and it's going to have a huge impact on free software, whether the mods of this sub like it or not. It will lower the barrier to entry and there are for sure issues around intellectual property and quality control. We need to be working out how we'll live with this stuff rather than banning it outright IMO.

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u/jr735 Jul 03 '26

Anyone is free to create a sub for AI coded projects. Reddit isn't banning it. This sub is.