A community built around sharing open source projects has decided that a good chunk of modern open source doesn't belong in it. The moderators of r/opensource posted new submission rules on Saturday evening, and the comment section has been on fire ever since.
What the new rules say
The post opens bluntly: "If your project uses AI, is made by AI, or is intended for AI, it's not welcome on r/opensource." The moderators add that "AI, as it exists today, is incongruent to this Open Source community."
The AI ban is the headline, but it isn't the only change. Taken together, the rules say:
- No AI in any form. Projects that use AI, are made by AI, or are intended for AI are out.
- Age minimum. A project must be at least one year old.
- Active maintenance. Abandoned projects don't qualify.
- More than one contributor. Solo projects don't qualify.
- No recruiting. In the moderators' words, "we can no longer field requests asking for maintainers or people to contribute."
- English only. More on that below.
The English-only clause
This is the part that reads like a drafting accident, except that the moderators spelled out their reasoning. "If you don't speak English, you need to find a different community," the post says. The logic is that moderators "cannot distinguish between AI-written and AI-translated," and since a non-English speaker can't check whether a translation came out right, the moderators see no safe way to let them post.
It is a tidy solution to a moderation headache. The headache goes away because the people causing it are asked to leave.
Who gets shut out
Combine the age, maintenance and contributor requirements and you get an unusual filter. A solo developer with a new project, who is exactly the person most likely to want help, can't post it. And if that developer could post it, the rules would stop them from asking for contributors anyway.
It is a curious position for a forum about open source. The movement's usual pitch is that anyone can show up and help. This subreddit has now ruled out the showing up and the asking.
The revolt
The reaction has been loud. Commenters have called the rules too broad, misguided or vague, and some have gone further and set up a rival subreddit, r/trueopensource.
One frequently raised objection is practical. Commenters point out that the Linux kernel now contains some AI-generated code, so projects built on it could, on a literal reading, fall foul of the ban. A rule that sweeps in the kernel is a rule that needs a lot of footnotes.
Moderator Wolvereness has been wading into the thread to supply some. He says there is nuance in the rules and room for selective enforcement. His example is "software that incidentally has accessibility features that use AI," such as automatic captioning, which would not necessarily be penalized.
That explanation may calm some people, but it also tells you something. A rule written as a flat prohibition and then softened in the comments by the person enforcing it is, more or less, the vagueness critics are complaining about. What counts as incidental, and who decides, is not in the post.
What isn't known
The reporting so far doesn't say whether the moderators plan to revise the rules in response to the backlash, or how enforcement will work in practice. It also doesn't say how many members have moved to the new subreddit. What is on the record is the text of the post, the moderator's clarification and the scale of the objections.
A set of rules meant to keep one community tidy has, in a single weekend, produced a second one.