Overview
- Moderators of r/opensource posted a rule change Saturday that forbids projects that use AI, are made by AI, or are intended for AI and also requires projects to be at least one year old and have multiple contributors.
- The new rules explicitly tell non‑English speakers to find other communities, with moderators saying they cannot reliably tell AI‑generated text from translations.
- Moderators have signaled selective enforcement and narrow exceptions for incidental accessibility features such as automatic captions, but they have not published clear enforcement rules.
- The policy prompted immediate community backlash and the creation of r/TrueOpenSource as a refuge for developers who want an AI‑tolerant space.
- The ban raises practical questions because many major open‑source projects and maintainers already use AI tools for coding and review, meaning eligibility for core projects is now uncertain and could exclude long‑standing work.