The moderators of r/opensource, one of Reddit's best-known forums for open-source software, have introduced new submission rules that ban projects using AI, created by AI or intended for AI. The post published Saturday evening reads: "AI, as it exists today, is incongruent to this Open Source community." The reaction was immediate, and a rival community, r/trueopensource, was created in the comments.
Moderator Wolvereness, GitHub name Wesley Wolfe, stepped in to explain that there is nuance and room for selective enforcement, citing software that includes AI-based accessibility features such as automatic captioning. That has not calmed complaints from members who find the rules too broad, vague or misguided. Many pointed out that the Linux kernel already contains AI-generated code, which under the current rules would also fall under the ban.
Image: Medium — https://medium.com/@josemlwdf/opensource-6a159e9dd3b0
The AI ban is the point that has drawn most attention, but the restrictions go further. Proposed projects must be at least a year old, actively maintained and have multiple contributors. This shuts out solo developers launching new projects who are looking for help. The post also says the moderators "can no longer field requests asking for maintainers or people to contribute."
The rules also effectively exclude anyone who does not speak English: "If you don't speak English, you need to find a different community." The reasoning is that moderators cannot distinguish AI-written text from AI-translated text, and non-English speakers cannot verify themselves whether a translation is accurate.
The episode comes as the quality of AI-generated contributions weighs ever more heavily on open-source projects. According to maintainers, about a quarter of new pull requests on open-source projects are low quality, what the sector calls "AI slop." On the other side, the Linux Foundation estimates AI could halve the time needed to write open-source code. The r/opensource case shows how hard it is to turn that tension into rules that do not also exclude people who use the tools legitimately.
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