Big open source forum on Reddit bans any project that uses AI

One of Reddit's biggest forums for free software has told AI to stay out. On Saturday, the moderators of r/opensource posted new rules. Projects that use AI, are made by AI, or are meant for AI are no longer welcome there. Some members have already left for a new forum, r/TrueOpenSource, that tolerates AI.

What changed

Open source means software whose code is public, so anyone can read it, use it and change it. A subreddit is a topic forum on Reddit. Moderator Wolvereness wrote that AI, as it exists today, is "incongruent" to this community. Projects must not make obvious use of AI. They also cannot be "intended for AI," which covers human-written tools built to plug into AI models.

The post added rules that have nothing to do with AI:

• No projects less than a year old.
• No posts from Reddit accounts less than a year old.
• No posts from users who do not speak English.

On the AI rule, the post says: "Tokens are cheap, and we don't care how many you spent to make your amazing project." Tokens are the units AI services charge for.

Why it clashes with reality

Many well-known open source projects now use AI coding, so the forum looks like an outlier. Earlier this month, Linux creator Linus Torvalds announced he had used Claude Code to write for the Linux kernel. One post on X listed Linux, Firefox, Python and Git, among others, as projects that could no longer be discussed there. That list is the poster's claim, not a ruling from the moderators.

Meanwhile, AI is being used to decompile programs. That means turning code only computers can read into versions people can read and edit. One result is ArtCraft, a free, AI-coded recreation of Adobe Creative Suite. It is labeled open source, but the new rules would keep it out.

Who it affects

Developers who share projects on r/opensource now face a stricter gate. Ordinary users are affected more indirectly. Free software you rely on may already contain AI-written code. Expect more arguments over how software gets made and who trusts it.

What happens next

Broadly, the r/opensource community appears receptive to the rule, though with many exceptions. Unhappy members moved to r/TrueOpenSource, which was created just a day earlier. Wolvereness added an edit welcoming the split. It offered a shout-out to that forum's creator and called it a possible refuge for those affected.

It is not clear how the moderators will judge what counts as obvious AI use, or how strictly they will enforce the rule.