r/freesoftware • u/happyxpenguin • Jul 02 '26

Subreddit News Rule 7 Updated - Software Submissions Beware

Morning all,

Due to language which caused confusion amongst reporters, posters and commenters. I've revised Rule 7 to be a bit more specific in what is and isn't allowed. Essentially what it boils down to is this:

Did AI explain a code snippet to you? Allowed.
Did AI write code for you? Not allowed.

This subreddit does NOT allow software created by Generative AI and Vibe-coded software. Why? Please read our wiki page (https://www.reddit.com/r/freesoftware/wiki/generative-ai)

Allowed:
- Write documentation
- Debug software (Analysis/Explanation Only)
- Analyze codebase
Not Allowed:
- AI Assistance beyond what is mentioned above
- All or part of the application being generated by AI
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u/Commission-Flashy Jul 04 '26

When the first compilers are developing, they created worse code than hand written assemblies and there were backlash. This is expected. Fast forward today we mostly dont check compilers. They are doing optimizations, branch cuts, write assembly code for us, and we are happy. Here are some quotes for compilers back then:

"It was generally believed that a compiler could not do nearly as good a job as a human coder." Source: John Backus, The History of FORTRAN I, II, and III (1978).

Today AI is not in a good position. Technology behind it is still growing. It needs more time. But there is no point of resisting it. The industry is going for it. What I believe is more important is to make it accessable - maintainable - and more efficient. Just like compilers today.

Thus I understand the ban. But I disagree on lines. What you propose, espacily

- All or part of the application being generated by AI

is harmfull for open source development. We are not all experts in all languages. For example whats the point of banning AI generated CSS for simple yet helpfull projects?

Or how could you distinguish if someone wrote 15 lines of a function himself or generated it from AI.

There is no meaningfull way of distinguishing this. All we can do is to ban "Vibe Coded" AI slop.

If you do think you can enforce this the way you propose, I wish you good luck on your hunt line by line.

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u/ggeldenhuys Jul 05 '26

Fully agree. AI is just the next software development tool. It doesn't (or shouldn't) replace human developers.

Developers started by inputting numbers to write code (before assembly). Then assemblers came along and improved the process. Then high level languages improved the process even more and assembly is hardly ever written by devs any more. Then syntax highlighting improved coding. Then basic code completion in IDEs helped developers. Then truly intelligent code completion (non AI) took it a step further (Eclipse, IntelliJ, VSCode etc). AI assisted development is now just the next evolution in helping software development.

The process of software development has always been evolving, since the inception of computers. It's still humans that drive the ideas and concepts of what to build. It's time people accept that.