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Well, whatever... its just another reason why it's best to self-host your git services...
Guess I'll need a new host for some of my recent repos. Oh well. Nothing that I haven't dealt with for other reasons (with GitHub and Bitbucket).
I'm not sure if these tools will stick around, but if they do I'm not sure you'll be able to find anyone that isn't using them in a couple of years. I hate it but it does turn out that dropping a trillion dollars on automating writing software has yielded results.
7. 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).
That feels like a reasonable middle ground. Allow some things with some AI written code, but don't allow stuff that is a majority of AI code.
Let's be real here: Most future projects will be mostly written by AI.
Sure, the good ones will have proper human QA. But Claude Code is so much faster at writing and rewriting surprisingly good code, that ignoring it is just like ignoring IDEs was a decade ago.
You can still write code without AI, syntax highlighting, code-suggestions, documentation tooltips, inspections, and fully integrated version control. But all these tools legitimately make software development easier.
How on earth will they determine that though?
I can't see the future, but this all doesn't sound like an ideological "vibe code is bad, we don't allow it" but a "the copyright of vibe coded content is unclear across jurisdictions, we don't allow it." So I don't think it's something they'll say "hey, this looks vibe coded, deleted." Many projects self proclaim they're vibe coded. Many projects list every commit that is vibe coded. It seems likely they'll go after those projects instead.
But yes, I'm not an oracle, and Codeberg could always heel turn and turn this into a witch hunt, but I don't think they've earned that reputation.
It does sound like "vibe code bad".
Because if they were actually concerned about copyright, they would ban all LLM code, not just some LLM code.
There is no need for a repository hosting software to decide what people are allowed to upload unless it is literal Nazi or kiddy diddle content or something else illegal.
Did you not read the actual change?
- 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).
mostly
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).
mostly
Seeing how codeberg is FOSS only, I'm not suprised. Vibe-coded projects is a HUGE legal trap considering licensing. And seeing how it's based in Germany (notorious about siding with license owner against regular individuals) it only makes sense
How can I prove that I have ownership over code I wrote myself, and that it isn't copyrighted somewhere in the world? How can anyone prove that code is written by a human or AI (if you don't commit obvious AI harness files and folders)?
Developers also "generate" code and are also "trained" on code they written as freelancers or employees for others which is potentially copyrighted. In that aspect just because it's written by hand, doesn't imply the writer has copyright on it.
How can I prove that I have ownership over code I wrote myself, and that it isn’t copyrighted somewhere in the world?
As long as you had no access to that code and have some proof of that then that should be quite easy. I.e. you never worked for a company that claims copyright on something you wrote.
Developers also “generate” code and are also “trained” on code they written as freelancers or employees for others which is potentially copyrighted.
Then you need to do a proper clean-room rewrite with people who had provably no access to the original code.
Well, if I use AI, it's still considered I wrote the code, just with help. And I personally never saw the code nor had access to it. Also, whatever I implemented must be clean room implementation then. If it was that simple, then we would not have the copyright issue to begin with. LLM can't be an author nor can it be legally liable.
Like anyone who's offended by this isn't already slopping for Microsoft's GitHub.
A repo host that can remove your repo at any moment because someone can accuse your code of being “vibe coded” is not a repo host I’d trust. It shouldn’t matter how good, bad, or A.I. written your code is. It’s a hosting platform.
This right here
I mean, I agree with you, but there’s still room for abuse.
Have you seen OpenClaw’s issues page?
Vibe coders and AI agents are floating it with garbage, if they were to do that to Codeberg, it’ll probably run out of resources pretty quickly
Just use that cat girl captcha thing, every other FOSS site uses, and the problem is solved.
How bad cou...
HOLY SHIT
I mean the host can always remove your repo. We’ll see how they handle it; but I would assume it won’t be without care. But yet another reason to host your own as well.
I get it, but determining and moreso verifying code is mostly generated is so intractable that this will likely not do anything practically. Well, perhaps it will discourage some disclosure.
I don't think anyone expects to catch every vibe coded project that might end up on the site. It's seems to be about nurturing specific direction for their community, giving admins clear rules on this issue and making their decisions easier in case they do find (or get a report about) a clearly AI "led" project.
Even if vibe coder manages to stick around, they can't be sure their projects won't disappear at random due to the new rules. Might be enough to prevent some of them from using the site.
I think a lot of the time with these things is not really about filtering every single offending project but stablishing a legal precedent to remove a project the moment it is found to be violating the rules.
Guess I'll pull all my stuff from Codeberg then, vibe coded or not.
That's dangerous as hell, because there is no guarantee that your stuff is deleted for the wrong reason.
It's their decision. But I dislike it.
There's never a guarantee that they won't delete your stuff for the wrong reasons. That's not something you had before this. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I just mean if that's a legitimate concern you have that you should be backing things up in different ways as well.
Sure. And of course I'm backing up my code somewhere else.
But this clause makes it much more likely that my repositories get deleted. And there are other services connected to it, e.g. an app via Fdroid/Obtainium. Losing Codeberg means disconnecting the apps.
Has Codeberg earned a reputation of deleting things without warning and not making good decisions though?