Codeberg gives vibe-coded projects the toss, promotes human FLOSS

AI and ML

AI no longer welcome in human-focused community

You can take your vibe-coded project elsewhere. Codeberg, a volunteer-run code hosting community, has decided that AI-authored software is no longer welcome.

On Thursday, Codeberg announced that the members of Codeberg e.V., the Berlin-based non-profit overseeing the code hosting service, had voted to ban "vibe-coded projects" and declared that Codeberg would not use users’ code or data for AI training due to its impact on Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS).

The vote follows ongoing efforts by Codeberg to prevent automated software (bots) from taxing its infrastructure with excessive network requests. Authors Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, Otto Richter, and William Zijl argue that AI companies are shifting costs to others and damaging online communities in the process.

"LLMs are so costly that companies externalize the costs on a massive scale – on those who don't use them and society at large," they wrote in a blog post. "Increased hardware prices, energy use and environmental damage – we all pay for it!"

They point to the cost of Codeberg's SSD and memory hardware as an example, noting that a drive that only a few years ago cost €700 (~$800) now costs €3,700 (~$4,200) – if it's even in stock. The result is that Codeberg has been forced to raise prices.

The authors also call out the proliferation of projects that often involve a solo developer "working with a statistical machine that turns energy into code." They fault these folks for not having any community and argue it's unreasonable for Codeberg to spend its limited CI/CD and storage resources on ghost projects.

But the vote isn't simply about unfair resource consumption. It reflects broader unease among Codeberg members about the damage AI coding models are doing to the FLOSS community.

AI-driven price hikes, they contend, are broadening the digital divide by making personal computers less affordable, forcing more people toward corporate-owned cloud services. And beyond the environmental harm of increased water and energy use, the Codeberg authors argue that LLM use is undermining the foundation of trust and community that makes FLOSS work.

"The widespread use of LLMs in FLOSS is instead becoming a multidimensional attack on the trust between contributors and the very idea of convivial collaboration itself," they state. 

LLMs magnify maintainers' workloads, create confusion around whether projects will be maintained, and "lead to 'license laundering', where copyleft code is stripped of its reciprocity requirements by 'generating' it out of the training data."

"As we want to center on human collaboration, we will not actively support or engage in the creation of LLMs and will not put our limited resources to use for storing single-use software that would pollute our FLOSS commons," the authors conclude.

As a consequence of the community vote, projects developed and maintained mostly by an AI agent are no longer welcome at Codeberg and are urged to move to other hosting options.

This is reflected in amended Terms of Use language: "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 … and furthermore have little safeguards to ensure that they do not include harmful code." 

Enforcement of the ban seems unlikely, however, unless a project draws attention to itself, given Codeberg's statements about limited resources and its overburdened workforce.

Support for the vibe-coding ban was substantial but not overwhelming, with some celebrating the decision and others condemning it. Among Codeberg members, 358 voted in favor, 144 voted against, and 14 abstained. About half the active members voted.

"I think this is a very bad move, and the people behind Codeberg should re-consider their stance," said Armin Ronacher, creator of Flask and one of the co-founders of AI agent biz Earendil.

On its way toward Free, Libre, and Open Source Software equilibrium, Codeberg also decided to ban cryptocurrency projects, citing a similar move by SourceHut in 2023. 

A proposed amendment to make it Codeberg's stated purpose "to oppose discrimination and promote a diverse FOSS community" passed with a two-thirds vote but is not yet merged. The protection extended to philosophical outlook does not cover belief in AI. ®