AFAIK there have been no cases setting precedence for this copyright attack globally. I am also not aware of any hosting platform under government attack for hosting AI works. Similarly, the WTFPL has no precedence and its legal status is unclear (contrast against GPL and Apache precedence). However, Codeberg recommends WTFPL. I also find it incredibly hard to believe that all 650k+ projects on Codeberg have better security than AI slop.
Either be consistent or stay off the fucking bandwagon. If you’re going to make copyright a big deal, you can only advocate for licenses that have precedence. If you’re going to say shitty security slop matters, you need a real security review process and active testing+moderation. Moderation like this opens up different classifications of scrutiny and isn’t a good look for a libre platform.
Note that I think the idea is solid and agree with the reasoning. I just don’t think this is the execution that makes people think differently about AI.
I have some small apps that I use for testing deployments that just do busy work. I have looked through the code and made corrections, but an LLM coded most of it. Where is the line for them? They are on Codeberg already, do I pull them off?
honestly I don’t think they’re going on a witch hunt here, I think they’re putting this in their term of use so that they can take projects down if some issue arises…
“Mostly” being key
Human accountability matters more than prompt quality.
I’m a Codeberg user (not a member) and I find the situation rather difficult.
Spoiler alert: It’s my fault that I have migrated my stuff from GitHub to Codeberg. I should have read the old pre-AI TOS more thoroughly, because the wording in this makes it perfectly clear that this is a place for “curated”, collaborative open source projects only. They don’t even allow private repos apart from very narrow use cases and this fact alone should have been a warning sign for me. It’s effectively a gated community and the existence of your project depends entirely on the members. I usually keep a project private until it has reached a certain level of maturity, and for some projects that means “never”. This isn’t possible with the Codeberg TOS
Now having said that, I’m pretty shocked of how things went down concerning the TOS changes about Crypto and LLM based projects. While I hate Crypto with a passion and while I’m very critical about LLM usage, the way the TOS change was communicated was patronising and extremely off-putting and rude, and those members doubled down with this attitude on matrix and Mastodon. And for me that simply means, if Codeberg wants to decide for me which tools I am allowed to use, then it’s not the right platform to host my code.
Another point to add… I wholeheartedly agree with most of what the codeberg blog post says about LLMs. However I need to be able to research them simply to know what I am talking about. For example I’m experimenting with local LLM models to find out if they are feasible for use, and there are countless other areas in Machine Learning which are very much valid software projects that do not fall into the knowledge-stealer/planet burner category outlined in the blog post. Banning “AI” is too broad and too shortsighted, and the new TOS are too draconic and vague at the same time. In effect, it boils down to “You can host your project if we like it”, and that is a terrible attitude to begin with.
Again, it was my fault to migrate to Codeberg to begin with because the warning signs were there, but this still leaves a bitter taste. I was also stupid enough to make a donation to Codeberg which I now regret as well. It’s not an open place, and the members (while most of them probably have good intentions) are too narrow-minded and too dogmatic to provide a truly open platform.
What’s a good alternative to Github btw? I don’t intend to go back and I don’t want to selfhost.
Banning “AI” is too broad and too shortsighted.
They haven’t done that. The actual terms are
You must not share projects that mostly consist of code written by “generative AI”-tools (including services such as Claude, OpenAI Codex). Such projects having an unclear copyright status (see requirements § 2 (1) 1 and § 2 (1) 3) and furthermore have little safeguards to ensure that they do not include harmful code (c.f. § 2 (1) 5).
See also their blog post, where they specifically mentions experiments as “tolerated”:
Side projects and experiments with little resource usage
I have indeed read the blog post and much more on their matrix and mastodon. The cited TOS are incredibly vague. What defines “mostly”? What defines “tolerated”?
Am I ok with my projects being “tolerated” or would I like to publish them on a platform that doesn’t hate me by default?
What makes all of this much worse is that people from Codeberg when asked how they will enforce the new TOS give conflicting answers, they themselves don’t know how to deal with that yet. Even in the blog post they say
“We understand that you want to know how the change affects your projects going forward. While we can’t give an easy answer, we’ll share some remarks that should address most of the concerns raised in the discussion.”
You can’t possibly be more vague than that, and it creates an unnecessary uncertainty and opens the door to moderation abuse in the name of a vague TOS one-liner. In consequence it now depends entirely on the codeberg admins’ individual perception of what the TOS one-liner means to assess if your project should be killed. Having seen some outright toxic behaviour of Codeberg people on mastodon and in the matrix chat regarding that topic I have serious doubts that this will be handled in a transparent way. The way codeberg is handling this topic is just just irresponsible and piss poor communication. I have completely lost my trust in them and will move on.
Edit: I think a good approach would have been to have a discussion about it not only among members but also among the userbase, and then deciding on how to go forward. But the way it seems to have happened (hearsay tbh) there wasn’t even a real discussion among the members, the TOS change was simply an agenda item in the members meeting which was then voted upon.
What defines “mostly”? What defines “tolerated”?
The staff, arbitrarily at their discretion of course.
What defines “mostly”? What defines “tolerated”?
A dictionary probably.
Good. Trash projects would make the platform worse.
Yup. And looking at the fallout from the other comments, seems like it may have been a good idea to take a stand.
(I don’t like people becoming upset, but clearly some people embrace AI a little much, and if you look at Forgejo for example then you’d know Codeberg was always on some level anti AI due to the ethics and all that. And as far as I can tell, Codeberg always wanted to be a somewhat opinionated pro ethics code host. Now I understand some people don’t like where the line has been drawn, but it’s not suprising Codeberg wants to draw a line somewhere.)
Also crypto-related projects from what I skimmed of the announcement, but I fuess the site focuses on AI because that’s what’s trendy to attack nowadays.
As part of a general ban on “Content that harms the reputation of Codeberg.”
Sounds like a pretty unreliable place to be hosting projects at this point. Any time the mob turns on a new target you could suddenly be in violation.
Edit: over at an issue where clarification of these rules are being asked for, a moderator gave his “personal” interpretation of them and admitted other moderators might interpret them differently. So I guess it depends on which moderator is making the decision and what they feel like at that particular moment.
Yeah I’ll have to move all my projects again. Sucks
Drive-by cynicism, huh? They give pretty extensive reasons for their choice. You’re free to read them.I did. And headlines often tell the intent of the news media, even if the article itself is well-made.
I realise I misread your original comment, apologies
Lolololol fuck these guys and they’re prejudice. Good luck with that, I’ll go with more level heads and not reactionaries.
It’s amazing how you all start loving fashy ideals when someone doesn’t align 🤣
Yer go give all your projects source to M$, I’m sure it will work out great for you.
Just follow the lead that the big mobs lead you into, their doing it to benefit you and your fellow man.
Or maybe just use your fucking brain, you daft cunt.
they’re prejudice
*they’re’ve
How on earth is taking a pro human stance for ethical reasons “fashy”?
🙄👌👍 pro human 🤣
You can disagree with my opinion, but at least point to where the fashy-ness is in the original statement or their policy so I understand what you mean.
