[linkdd]

> Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software

Key words are:

  - permission is [...] granted
  - free of charge
  - without restriction
  - use, copy, …

Then:

> may not be used for the purposes of […]

The license contradicts itself.

> Don't we have to ask for permission before feeding someone's years of work into an AI?

That's the point of an OpenSource license, to give permission.

This kind of stuff makes me think very few people really understand what OpenSource is about. The very same people who will fallback to licenses such as the BSL as soon as people/companies will use the permissions that they gave, and then will complain that "no one wants to pay for the thing i did for free and nobody asked for".

[dumindunuwan]

I understand these points. As someone who truly love open source, we can see open source projects are becoming just a free training materials for AI. After training LLMs using open-source projects AI can build far superior software one day and that software may be not free, not able to replace by any non-AI software project. We all know that day is not far and that period of time all open-source software might consider legacy as no individual contributor able to implement stuff the speed of AI. What you are protecting is not only a legacy system we build decade old requirements and also the death of the purpose of why people build free software.

What we have to focus is why we created free software, not word by word terms that not fulfill the requirement at this and future time period.

[linkdd]

You can't say you love opensource and be mad that users are using the freedom you granted.

OpenSource projects are not becoming free training material for AI, AI companies are using a freedom OpenSource projects granted.

The claim that AI can build far superior software is dubious and I don't believe it one second. And even if it were true, that does not change anything.

With or without AI, permissive licenses (MIT, BSD, ISC, ...) always allowed the code to be used and redistributed in non opensource software. If you don't want that, use the GPL or a derive. If you don't believe that the GPL would be enforceable on the derivative works produced by AI, don't release your code as opensource.

OpenSource is essentially an ideology, that software should be free of use, and transparent, and freely shareable, without restriction. If you don't buy into that ideology, it's fine, but don't claim to love OpenSource when you don't. Just like a person who eats fish should not claim to be vegan.

AI will not be the end of OpenSource, firstly because it's a dead-end technology, it has already peaked years ago and is becoming worse with each new model. It does not have the ability to build complex software beyond a CRUD app (would you use a kernel that was entirely vibecoded? would you trust it the way you trust the Linux kernel?). Secondly, because OpenSource does not discriminate who gets to enjoy the freedom you granted.

You decided to "work for free" when you decided to distribute as OpenSource. If you don't want to work for free, maybe OpenSource is not for you.

[xign]

The whole point of open source license is that they are a legal document that can be enforced and have legal meaning. It's not just a feel-good article. Your argument is like saying to a client who you are drafting a contract to and say "oh yeah don't worry about the word by word terms in the contract, wink".

Also, this "non-AI" license is plainly not open source nor is it permissive. You can't really say you are a fan of open source when you use a license like this. The whole pt of the MIT license is that you just take it with no strings attached. You can use the software for good or for evil. It's not the license's job to decide.

There is nothing wrong with not liking open source, btw. The largest tech companies in the world all have their most critical software behind closed doors. I just really dislike it when people engage in double-speak and go on this open source clout chasing. This is also why all these hipsters startups (MongoDB, Redis, etc) all ended up enshittifying their open source products IMO, because culturally we are all trying to chase this "we ♥ open source" meme without thinking whether it makes sense.

If people say they "truly love open source", they should mean it.