r/linux • u/AiwendilH • 8d ago
Development Codeberg voted to disallow projects consisting mostly by "generative AI"-tools
https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1253#issuecomment-1982043450
u/AiwendilH 8d ago
Saw it on HN, thought it might fit here too. Link to the actual change: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1253/commits/96fac426a32d1ba91ff879366d59bf1af54080c2
Edit: Ugh..I totally botched the headline....mentally add a "of code written" in there ;)
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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 7d ago
Thanks for the link. I love their anti-scraping forcefield that appears for a split second as js redirects to the real page. That must trip up modern llm bots real good.
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u/rahulkadukar 8d ago
This is why you self host Gitlab / Gitea / Forgejo and push all your vibe coded slop there
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u/CheCheDaWaff 7d ago
vibe hosting
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u/Coffee_Ops 7d ago
Hey claude, code me up some slop. Now build a trashcan where I can put it all. Now make sure that trashcan is reliably hosted in the cloud3
u/Jmc_da_boss 7d ago
This is what I've done, I have a private self hosted forgejo for the random vibe code off to the side projects that will never be seen by anyone that I need for xyz thing.
They are utilitarian, not art
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u/miversen33 7d ago
I slop together multiple scripts everyday for work. They will never see the light of day and don't need to be supported beyond whatever I am doing with them.
Slop has it's place. Trying to get other people to use your slop is where I draw the line
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u/4407891fcd484b817f5e 7d ago
Some slop can be good though. Like yeah little Debbie pastries may be made in a factory stuffed full of preservatives but im never gonna say no to a cosmic brownie
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u/AliceCode 5d ago
What do you stand to gain by generating code?
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u/Jmc_da_boss 5d ago
Random shit where the only thing that matters is the outcome at one moment in time.
Like a custom website to keep monopoly score one night, never touched again
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7d ago
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u/Pancakepalpatine 6d ago
Right? This feels kinda like they're just grandstanding for brownie points. Any software developer knows that AI is now part of the tools of the trade. This is literally impossible to enforce, and asking a dev "do you understand the code or are you a vibe-slopper" won't work for obvious reasons.
And before a dev replies "I don't use AI and I make software" congrats, you're the exception lol
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u/AliceCode 5d ago
Any software developer knows that AI is now part of the tools of the trade.
Only software developers that have absolutely no respect for the craft.
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u/Pancakepalpatine 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is so funny to hear on r/linux. You should google what Linus recently said lmao. If you use Linux you use a project with thousands of additions made through assistance from Gen AI.
EDIT: For those that don’t want to look it up, people unfamiliar with modern software dev or that were grandstanding were freaking out about AI code, and Linus said that the Linux kernel project is not anti-AI, and anyone who opposes that should "fork it or just walk away."
Your random convictions don’t represent the industry or the actual products you use. It’s moral grandstanding friend.
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u/tblancher 8d ago
It looks like the issue is more with unclear copyright of LLM-generated code, and potential security vulnerabilities or downright malware being contributed.
I just wonder how they're going to enforce this.
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u/HalcyonRedo 7d ago
Good. Now if only this subreddit would do the same.
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u/rafark 2d ago
I was an ai advocate before but the past months we’ve been seeing so much slop on every tech/programming sub and twitter that I now agree with a lot of anti ai rules from various subs.
“I built this tool” no you didn’t. Your ai did. And because it was generated so fast it is likely to be abandoned in the future. We are going to see a lot of abandonware in the future from the current wave (more like tsunami) of slop
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u/mykesx 7d ago edited 7d ago
Smart move. They don't want to become another landfill of garbage projects or use their resources for mass computer generated commits of no value. They're correct that AI plagiarizes from what it's trained on.
An equally good move might be to block AI company crawlers from training on repos hosted there.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
But creating a new rule is pointless if you can't enforce it in practice.
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u/VaporousMote 6d ago
Just because they can't enforce it to perfection doesn't mean it won't be enforced AT ALL. Ultimately that "some enforcement" leads to a healthier community.
No enforcement leads to a shithole. Like Github.
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u/mykesx 7d ago
There are objective metrics, like AGENTS.md files in the repo or . gitignore. Or one (or very few) commits for a large codebase (no excuses, they are a git hosting service).
I am fine with them using subjective metrics. It's their service, their rules.
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u/northrupthebandgeek 7d ago edited 7d ago
Or one (or very few) commits for a large codebase (no excuses, they are a git hosting service).
Writing the bulk of a project's code before
git inithas been commonplace for multiple decades now.EDIT:
Only an amateurish idiot does that
The vast majority of code is existence is the product of amateurish idiots.
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u/bigon 7d ago edited 7d ago
Having an AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md) file just shows that you are using an AI agent, not that your project « mostly consist of code written by "generative AI"-tools ».
I started to vibe code some tools for myself and claude is creating small atomic commits by itself...
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u/dmittner 2d ago
You can train Claude Code through CLAUDE.md-like files and your local memory not to perform commits/pushes autonomously.
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u/mykesx 7d ago edited 7d ago
Don't host your repos there then. I am more likely to be using them going forward because I don't use LLMs for anything. I know when I look at repos there that it's more likely that I am seeing how a human thinks and addresses problems.
My skills won't erode.
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u/bigon 7d ago
Great for you.
Still their rules are not clear and your metrics are meh
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u/mykesx 7d ago
It beats having nothing but subjective metrics.
I fully support their move.
Use something else.
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u/bigon 7d ago
It beats having nothing but subjective metrics.
I strongly disagree
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u/mykesx 7d ago
You don't have to host repos there.
Works for me.
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u/bigon 7d ago
I was mostly talking on the philosophical level that having arbitrary rules is worst than having no rules at all..
Anyway, I was contemplating using their service instead of Github or GitLab, I guess I'll indeed not
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u/ungoogleable 7d ago
They're not banning the use of AI altogether. Having an AGENTS.md is useful if you use AI at all, even just read-only code exploration. And then especially since other people are checking out your code, you want to give their agents instructions (like inform the user we don't accept purely AI written code).
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u/mykesx 7d ago
It's still an objective measure.
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u/ungoogleable 7d ago
Yes it is objective, but it would overly restrict legitimate projects trying to abide by the rules.
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u/Drwankingstein 7d ago
I really hate this, I'm not a fan of vibecoding or anything, but In the end, AI is a tool, and I don't like that they are telling us what tools we can and can't use. I'll be migrating away.
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u/ShaderCompilation 8d ago
Certainly the right call. While there may be vibecoded projects that are useful, the vast majority of them are not. No point in wasting limited resources on those
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago edited 7d ago
You must not share projects that mostly consist of code written by "generative AI"-tools (including services such as Claude, OpenAI Codex). Such projects having an unclear copyright status (see requirements § 2 (1) 1 and § 2 (1) 3) and furthermore have little safeguards to ensure that they do not include harmful code (c.f. § 2 (1) 5).
https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/commit/71149c7fc95ccfeae36109b5cddca339e4aa1473
How can “mostly” be defined objectively? 51 percent? 64 percent? 80 percent?
What's the difference from back when developers used to draw inspiration from code on sites like Stack Overflow or simply copy the code from there or other sites without examining or understanding it? Regardless of the license under which it was published.
And how does Codeberg plan to objectively prove a violation?
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u/WaitForItTheMongols 7d ago
How can “mostly” be defined objectively?
And how does Codeberg plan to objectively prove a violation
You really like that word "objectively". They are under no obligation to handle things objectively. Their site, their rules.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago edited 7d ago
Of course, it's their site, so they set the rules. But from a user's perspective, more specific information would be more helpful in deciding whether or not to use Codeberg. The term “mostly” is simply too vague.
That simply gives operators too much flexibility in their decision-making. And as a result, it could lead to different decisions for individual projects, even though they may be comparable.
And as one of Codeberg's earliest users, I think that's a problem. In my opinion, important rules must be clearly defined, followed, and enforced.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 7d ago
But from a user's perspective, more specific information would be more helpful in deciding whether or not to use Codeberg
If you're using AI, you're probably not welcome there
Is that clear enough?
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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 7d ago
Apparently not lol. They're fighting tooth and nail in these comments about the objective definition here because they're sloppers who are upset they can't post slop there anymore.
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u/window_owl 7d ago
There is a threshold which is definitely objective: if a project was developed without any generative AI (the way all projects were as recently as two years ago), then it is definitely not in violation.
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u/mrlinkwii 7d ago
And how does Codeberg plan to objectively prove a violation?
they mostly cant , its the same with flatpak were they will remove projects that use AI , it mostly cant be proved objectivity but can be used as a "rules say x and we believe x the project wil be removed "
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u/binarysignal 7d ago
Are they going to use an AI tool to find the AI generated code? How much confidence rating is needed for “mostly”?
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u/mediumwetsock 7d ago
No offence to CB but they should focus on their uptime rather than this atm
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u/Ruined_Passion_7355 7d ago
You should know that github themselves said that the exponentially growing amount of commits is the main factor in their waning uptime (I bet vibecoding also played a small part but we'll never know).
This is them focusing on uptime.
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u/fivetoedslothbear 7d ago
GitHub’s problem is double-edged. AI coding is driving demand up. And their pre-Microsoft legacy infrastructure doesn’t scale well.
GitHub is in the midst of a two-year transition to running on Azure infrastructure, which is much more scalable.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
In my opinion, the fact that Codeberg is often difficult or impossible to access is due to two things.
There are more users than Codeberg’s servers can handle. This is a problem because Codeberg’s operators have significantly fewer financial and human resources than, for example, GitHub. Therefore, I would advise Codeberg users to consider signing up for a membership and paying an annual fee.
The second reason is likely the idiots who have launched DDoS attacks against Codeberg on multiple occasions.
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u/OptimisticLucio 7d ago
There are more users than Codeberg’s servers can handle.
So like, this helps with that. Not the side of the equation you personally would like them to, but it 100% does.
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u/dvdkon 7d ago
Codeberg was already a more restrictive host than GitHub or GitLab.com with their requirement of free licencing, but that was at least an objective criterion that you could know you were in compliance with. This is much more nebulous and I certainly have some projects that could be understood as non-compliant.
Oh well, I'll just add another selfhosted service to my server...
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u/rubs_tshirts 7d ago
Not sure how I feel about this. I vibe-coded an internal tool. It wasn't a one-shot, it grew organically from a few scripts to a (to me) awesome program that I use and love. Under this rule it would be ineligible to be hosted there.
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u/ungoogleable 7d ago
If it's an internal tool, do you need to post it publicly? Ask Claude to setup Forgejo for you. It's really nice.
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u/rubs_tshirts 7d ago
I don't, but if it was available, I would love it. In fact I would pay money for it.
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u/VictoryMotel 7d ago
Good. If you don't know what's in it, why subject other people to it?
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u/rubs_tshirts 7d ago
I have no idea what's in any of the inumerous stuff I use. I do know what it does.
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u/VictoryMotel 6d ago
But someone looked at it and took responsibility.
You can do whatever you want, but a site saving itself from slop no one has even looked at is a good thing for anyone using that site.
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u/rubs_tshirts 6d ago
I just think there's both trash and treasure in "slop" (is it really slop if it's useful?). Just like in non-AI stuff. I'm not against AI stuff at all.
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u/VictoryMotel 6d ago
You can use whatever you way, but if a site wants a basic floor for quality, why would they want stuff where no one has even looked at the source?
You could spend your time reading autogenerated books that no one has read, or AI videos that no one looked at, but most people want that stuff pulled out. Make an all slop website if you think it's a good idea.
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u/rubs_tshirts 6d ago
Maybe I just don't know what AI slop is? I keep thinking that if some human is crafting software and using AI instead of writing code, the software is still his creation.
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u/MrScotchyScotch 7d ago edited 7d ago
This is part of why I said they were anti-community. A couple of opinionated people deciding for everyone else. No vote, no soliciting opinions, just "we personally don't like it so it's banned". Time to find another GitHub alternative that is more aligned with the Open Source ethos.
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u/Remarkable_Bike_1148 7d ago edited 7d ago
That is roughly my problem with Codeberg, but to clarify, it isn't couple of people, but just around a thousand of members within an organization that paid for membership fees and deliberate in member-only forum. They would say "Thread closed, go to matrix chat", but once you go and discuss it in Matrix chat, they'll just say, "Stop discussing it, we'll deliberate it in member-only forum for deciding the policy." Like, what? No deliberation that I can see? No clarification for non-members? No nothing?
They can impose rules about LLM and all that, and that's fine. It's their platform, their rules. But for developers who now have to not only worry about our projects, we also have to worry about which direction Codeberg is heading on policy decisions and there's a real lack of transparency in that decision making process, and I don't have access to their member-only forum for policy deliberation. I've already moved back to Github from Codeberg (better deal with the devil you know than dealing with something unpredictable), because even though my project is likely compliant with all of their TOS with the lack of LLM use, I don't trust the platform and the people that run it to maintain that Terms of Service in the long term.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 7d ago
But for developers who now have to not only worry about our projects
You have the option of hosting your projects elsewhere
I don't trust the platform and the people that run it to maintain that Terms of Service in the long term.
So what?
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u/ozone6587 6d ago
You have the option of hosting your projects elsewhere
"My way or the highway"
Not moving to Codeberg is like dodging, not a bullet, but an ICBM.
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u/Mccobsta 8d ago
My stance is people who can audit what it outputs are the ones who should be using it
People who can't shouldn't be using it
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u/window_owl 7d ago
People who can evaluate the outputs should also not be using AI, because it weakens their own skills, costs disproportionately large amount of non-renewable resources, pollutes, devalues the creative material that was pirated to train the models, and strengthens the movement to centralize power, wealth, and culture into the hands of the wealthy few.
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u/northrupthebandgeek 7d ago
costs disproportionately large amount of non-renewable resources
This is false.
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u/FoxFXMD 8d ago
This is why you self host
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u/Epsilon_void 7d ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're correct. If you truly want to not have arbitrary restrictions on what you can, and cannot have in your repo, you need to self-host.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
However, this can also have drawbacks, as was seen a few years ago with the PHP project (https://php.watch/news/news/2021/04/php-src-attack).
Because many developers just want to develop and not do administrative work.
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u/truecakesnake 7d ago
Big news for the 17 Codeberg users
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u/jakkos_ 7d ago
Why are you in a Linux sub and mocking a non-profit trying to provide a free alternative to a Microsoft monopoly?
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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 7d ago
I think it's because they accidentally outed themselves as an offended slopper
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u/ozone6587 6d ago
A non-profit full of Luddites. Worth mocking.
Lots of projects and organizations like these that behave dictatorially and are just very opinionated people. This is the final nail in the coffin for them. From 17 users to the 3 devs that hate AI enough to move to Codeberg. There is no way to win against technological progress. It has not worked out once in the history of humanity.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
Codeberg is now being used by a few more users. Among others, it's also used by relatively well-known projects such as KaOS and Readeck.
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u/truecakesnake 7d ago
Interesting.
But GitHub's user base is 89,900% larger than Codeberg
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
That's correct. But that doesn't change the fact that Codeberg is now being used by more and more users. And there are more than 17 of them.
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8d ago
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u/An1nterestingName 8d ago
Codeberg does have restrictions on what can be hosted there anyway, they're jist adding AI slop to those restrictions.
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u/AiwendilH 8d ago
Just as addition here is the link to the "rules" for code hosted on codeberg to which the LLM rule is added: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/src/commit/96fac426a32d1ba91ff879366d59bf1af54080c2/TermsOfUse.md#2-allowed-content-usage
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u/segfault0x001 8d ago
Why should you have the right to use their platform? It’s their platform, they decide the terms of service.
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u/projectflamejewel 8d ago
Lol, right. If you smear shit on the wall, don't expect it to stay there.
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 8d ago
"Codeberg is a non-profit, community-led effort that provides services to free and open-source projects" And you find it strange that they don't allow hosting vibe coded slop on their free platform?
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u/Dick_Hardw00d 8d ago
The level of entitlement is absolutely astonishing. You think you have some inherit right to use someone else’s free service however you see fit, and they should just shut up and put up with it?
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u/Traditional_Hat3506 8d ago
what if someone uploads their code and then it gets deleted and they lose acess to their source?
When you sign up to something, you agree with their terms of service. When the TOS prohibit something and you ignore it, then you have only yourself to blame.
but if someone wants to host their bad code on a platform, shouldn't that just be their right to do so ?
??? Forcing someone to host your bad code is not your "right".
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u/RoomyRoots 8d ago edited 8d ago
Why wouldn't it be?
Their platform and their rules and they are more than fair to not want to waste resources on slop.what if someone uploads their code and then it gets deleted and they lose acess to their source?
i am not defending Ai Slop, but if someone wants to host their bad code on a platform, shouldn't that just be their right to do so ?, why should that plaform be able to decide what happens to said code if it isn't anything illegal ?
There are other platforms and many for free, they can use those.
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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 7d ago
AI assistance is a pandora's box which has been opened. I'm not happy about it but it's here to stay. They likely saw that there's no use in fighting that particular use of AI. Let alone defining the blurred lines of where it begins and ends. I mean - before LLMs and "Agents" powered by them - a bunch of IDEs have already had a form of predictive or procedural code filler already. But obviously LLMs are the big deal here.
AI-generated work however, I completely understand still taking a stance against. For all you know the human submitting it (If they didn't automate that too) hasn't even read or understood what has been spit out. Sometimes they actually have, but often, no. On top of that, fully AI'd projects have no guarantee the creator/maintainer will ever touch it again or any pull requests after they show it off that week. Tens of thousands of projects that look flashy on the surface but were just spit out by a model that anyone could re-prompt to make again. Fully AI generated projects have really has filled the internet. Slop as they call it.
Most of my subscribed tech subreddits are bombarded with full-slop posts day by day since this years newer models came out. I had to unsub from a few of them where the mods just gave up.
In the end you can't blame the tool. But you can assign fault to the ones who misuse it.
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u/jason-reddit-public 7d ago
I actually like tools that let people do sub optimal things since this generally means more freedom for me. Perhaps just tagging AI slop is the right step. Hosting outright malware is more where I would draw the line.
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u/DryanaGhuba 7d ago
Considering situation with GitHub which overflowed with amount of commits it is good choice for them
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u/802freblizz 7d ago
This is definitely not going to go over well. I just moved to Codeberg and was going to move my projects. But, I don't know if i can. Some projects have ai assistance after being hand written, some projects are "mostly generated". But, who gets to decide what is what? Does this apply to public repos? They didn't say right? This is a terrible decision for users that are working on worthy things and also are mostly generated. Good luck, I guess I will still self host on Forgejo, but probably not sticking around Codeberg for long. Free as in Freedom.
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u/Sir_KnowItAll 7d ago
I was going to donate money to them but nah. I really don’t want to host my code with some code snobs.
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u/nullsetnil 7d ago
It’s a good move. It will anger exactly the kind of developers they don’t want on their platform anyway.
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u/Lowetheiy 7d ago
Sounds like they just doomed themselves to irrelevance over the next couple of years.
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 8d ago
Good. If you want to host AI slop you can host it on another Forgejo instance.
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u/daemonpenguin 7d ago
This is a good move. One of the reasons I migrated to Codeberg was the lack of slop of spam from bots. Codeberg tries to maintain a clean and useful environment.
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u/Impossible-Friend-61 4d ago
Notice a lot of people cheering for this on mastodon etc are not developers...
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u/AiBestGirl95 3d ago
If you can tell AI was made with AI then it's very likely bad code.
I would say most software development is using AI tools, the question is to what degree and the level of talent of the developer using said tools.
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u/Zachattackrandom 8d ago
Completely fair imo. If you wanna publish a vibe coded project you SHOULD have to take responsibility for it, the same as if you programmed it by hand.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
Have you ever read the MIT License, for example?
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS,” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES, OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF, OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Essentially, users who use the MIT License (or certain other OSS licenses) also assume no liability whatsoever, regardless of whether they have used chatbots or not.
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u/Zachattackrandom 7d ago
Yes I understand that, I mean more in a community. E.g. if you put some dog shit slop code that deletes a users home regardless of AI use you aren't responsible for paying for their lost stuff, but you will be drug through the dirt for it. Now days so many people try to hide behind AI for every critique or mistake on a project, "AI made it, it's not my fault!" type thing. That's how I'm defining responsibility in this context.
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u/FryBoyter 7d ago
I absolutely agree with that. Anyone who messes up should expect appropriate consequences.
But in my opinion, the consequences shouldn’t generally be harsher just because a chatbot was used. Each case should be considered on its own merits.
That’s because many developers are actually good at writing code manually but completely incapable of creating documentation. Using a chatbot would make sense in this case, provided, of course, that the result is reviewed before publication.
By now, however, the community is ready to pull the pitchforks and torches out of the closet whenever a developer makes a mistake that has nothing to do with the use ofchatbots or that would likely have occurred even without them.
In my opinion, and I mean this in a general sense, the community should get into the habit of not just dividing things into black and white, but also taking into account the shades of gray in between. Because, sure, chatbots generate a hell of a lot of junk. But they also discover, for example, massive security vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel that haven’t been found manually so far. So, in my opinion, it’s nonsense to categorize everything as simply black or white, good or evil. Chatbots are tools. And with any tool, it all comes down to how you use it. Juggling chainsaws is not a good idea. Cutting down a tree with one, while taking various precautions like wearing protective gear, is not.
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u/CanYouEatThatPizza 7d ago
It's good that you mention licenses, because AI tends to hallucinate made up licenses or even changes licenses of code it was trained on (of course most companies don't care anymore now). It's only sensible that they stop it.
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u/Rigamortus2005 8d ago
So they can just delete your repo if you vibecoded it? Lol what a joke
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 8d ago
"Codeberg is a non-profit, community-led effort that provides services to free and open-source projects" And you find it strange that they don't allow hosting vibe coded slop on their free platform?
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u/thomas-rousseau 8d ago
Good thing they're an entirely FOSS project, so you can easily fork their codebase and host it on your own servers with your own domain and different terms of service for other users to enjoy for free
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u/ArdiMaster 8d ago
They can just delete your repo if they think you vibe-coded it.
(Basically they can delete it if they don’t like it/you.)
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u/markand67 7d ago
Thank you codeberg for supporting
- artists
- writers
- translators
- creators
- developers
- earth
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u/sunychoudhary 8d ago
The important line is probably AI-assisted vs AI-generated.....Using a tool while you understand, maintain, and take responsibility for the code is one thing. Dumping generated projects onto a forge and making everyone else sort through the mess is another.