So, at almost the exact same time I posted about how important AI is becoming to open source and software development in general... The moderators of r/opensource on Reddit announced a sweeping ban on AI. reddit.com/r/opensource/comm… Here's a summary of their new policies: 1. Blanket AI exclusion: Projects that use AI, were developed with AI, or are intended for AI are unwelcome, with some exceptions left to moderator discretion. 2. Project maturity requirements: Projects generally need a year of active maintenance, multiple contributors (roughly three or more), and an existing community. 3. Account restrictions: Posters generally need an established Reddit account with significant participation. 4. English-language restrictions: Non-English speakers relying on AI translation are explicitly excluded. 5. Permanent bans: Posting LLM-generated material can result in a permanent ban, with limited tolerance for appeals. People who know me know that I'm a tremendous open-source advocate and champion. What these moderators are describing is a bastardized interpretation of the open-source community and the principles that made it successful. I don't spend much time on Reddit, nor do I know who these moderators are, but this is a slap in the face to developers, contributors, and the broader open-source community. I understand wanting to stop AI slop. Nobody wants communities overwhelmed with low-quality, automatically generated content. But this goes WAY beyond spam prevention. We're talking about excluding new projects, individual developers, people who need translation assistance, and software built using tools that are rapidly becoming fundamental to modern development. Some of the most important open-source projects in history started with a single developer and no established community. Under these rules, those projects wouldn't even qualify to be shared. And here's what makes this particularly concerning: SECURITY. AI is already being used to discover vulnerabilities, identify potential exploits, and accelerate security research. Attackers can use these capabilities to find weaknesses faster than ever. Open-source maintainers are already stretched thin. They need every advantage they can get to review code, identify vulnerabilities, develop patches, and respond to emerging threats. We should be encouraging the responsible use of AI to strengthen open-source security, not discouraging developers from using it. The same technology that helps attackers discover vulnerabilities can help defenders find and fix them before they're exploited. Open source cannot afford to fall behind in an AI-accelerated security landscape. And apparently the community has already responded by creating r/trueopensource, an alternative I wholeheartedly support (and if you are on Reddit, I encourage you to join). reddit.com/r/trueopensource/ Open source has always thrived on openness, collaboration, innovation, and removing barriers to participation. These policies do the exact opposite while encouraging projects to not leverage the best tooling available to combat the onslaught of security matters. I'm not sure what the moderators are thinking, but this is precisely the kind of gatekeeping that risks leaving open-source communities behind as the rest of software development moves forward. Open source should be about the freedom to build, share, inspect, and improve software. Not policing which tools developers are allowed to use.