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<p>This response is inadequate and not thoughtful. While the OSI
tries to be consistent with and coordinate with the SPDX project,
the OSI does not have any control over the SPDX project, so it is not
a solution to say that the problem can be fixed with changes to
SPDX. Your revised draft then assumes that these tags have been
added to SPDX, something we cannot assume in license approval. In
my opinion this version of the license must be rejected for this
reason. I would also suggest in the future you be more thoughtful
about your responses, and make sure they actually are responsive
to the points raised and are workable solutions.</p>
<p>It doesn't address Josh's point that over time a file, or a
project, will have a mixed authorship. Up until now, typically,
but not always, changes would be licensed under the same license
as the code that is being changed. However, you are presenting a
situation where there is likely going to be mixed content in the
same file, some AI-generated, some partially, some human - what is
your solution to that? Is it your expectation that different
people use the same license but check a different box? How should
that be noted within a file? How will users know which code is
which? If the code isn't <i>entirely </i>AI-generated, does it
matter that some of it is? If it's not entirely AI-generated,
doesn't the user have to assume that someone owns copyright in the
code and behave accordingly?</p>
<p>Pam</p>
<div class="moz-signature">Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
4641 Post St.<br>
Unit 4316<br>
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762<br>
+1 919-800-8033<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.chesteklegal.com">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/13/2026 11:54 AM, Nik wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CALoGuP33x+Egm5aV6V0a52FgT=Xh-wjtp=g2w9P_yYZg2JzN8g@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">Thank you for the substantive feedback. Both points
are well taken and I want to<br>
address them directly. I attach new license text according to
raised questions and propositions.<br>
<br>
\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501<br>
<br>
POINT 1 \u2014 THE NAME<br>
<br>
You are correct that "MIT" is a registered trademark of the
Massachusetts Institute<br>
of Technology, and using it in a new license name creates
ambiguity at best and<br>
trademark risk at worst.<br>
<br>
It is good idea to rename it to:<br>
<br>
AI-Attribution License (AIAL)<br>
<br>
The new name reflects what the license actually does \u2014 extends
attribution<br>
requirements to cover AI authorship \u2014 without borrowing the MIT
name. <br>
It is also more descriptive for developers choosing a license.<br>
<br>
The SPDX identifier would become: AIAL-1.0<br>
<br>
I welcome any alternative name suggestions from the community if
there are<br>
objections to "AI-Attribution License" as well.<br>
<br>
\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501<br>
<br>
POINT 2 \u2014 PER-FILE ATTRIBUTION<br>
<br>
This is the more substantive point and I agree with it
completely.<br>
<br>
You correctly identified that a single project-level Authorship
Declaration is<br>
insufficient for any real-world project with a development
history. <br>
Real projects can contain:<br>
- files written entirely by humans (pre-AI era)<br>
- files generated by AI, never touched by humans<br>
- files where a human wrote 80% and AI generated 20%<br>
- files inherited from third-party OSS projects<br>
- files modified by multiple AI tools across multiple years<br>
<br>
A single checkbox in a root LICENSE file cannot honestly
describe this mix.<br>
<br>
The solution, as you suggested (referencing APL2.0), is per-file
attribution.<br>
The good news is that the ecosystem for this already exists and
is widely<br>
adopted: the REUSE Specification (reuse.software, FSFE) combined
with SPDX<br>
per-file headers.<br>
<br>
REUSE already defines two standard tags per file:<br>
<br>
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Jane Doe<br>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later<br>
<br>
The revised license extends this with <br>
two new optional-but-recommended AI-specific SPDX tags:<br>
<br>
SPDX-AI-Authorship: [fully-generated | ai-assisted |
human-authored]<br>
SPDX-AI-Tool: [tool name and version]<br>
<br>
These tags are:<br>
- Consistent with existing SPDX tag-value syntax<br>
- Backward-compatible (they are optional for human-authored
files where<br>
no AI was involved at all)<br>
- Machine-readable and scannable with standard grep/REUSE
tooling<br>
- Compatible with the REUSE specification \u2014 they sit alongside
existing<br>
SPDX-FileCopyrightText and SPDX-License-Identifier tags<br>
<br>
The project-level LICENSE file retains a simplified Authorship<br>
Declaration as a default/fallback for projects that have not yet
adopted<br>
per-file headers, but per-file headers take precedence where
present.<br>
<br>
\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501<br>
<br>
REVISED LICENSE \u2014 AI-Attribution License (AIAL) v1.0<br>
<br>
The revised license text is attached as AIAL-1.0.txt. Key
changes:<br>
1. Name changed from "AI-MIT License" to "AI-Attribution
License (AIAL)"<br>
2. SPDX identifier changed from AI-MIT-1.0 to AIAL-1.0<br>
3. Project-level Authorship Declaration retained as fallback
default<br>
4. Per-file attribution via new SPDX tags defined and required
for<br>
files where the project-level declaration does not apply
uniformly<br>
5. Precedence rule: per-file tags override project-level
declaration<br>
6. Inherited OSS files: explicit provision for files where AI
authorship<br>
status is unknown (SPDX-AI-Authorship: unknown)<br>
<br>
\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501\u2501<br>
<br>
Thank you again for the careful reading. This kind of feedback
is exactly<br>
what makes the process valuable.<br>
<br>
Nik<br>
<a href="mailto:nik.sharky@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">nik.sharky@gmail.com</a></div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">\u043f\u0442, 13 \u043c\u0430\u0440. 2026\u202f\u0433. \u0432 18:35,
Josh Berkus <<a href="mailto:josh.berkus@opensource.org"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">josh.berkus@opensource.org</a>>:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On
3/12/26 5:30 PM, Nik wrote:<br>
> I am submitting the AI-MIT License, Version 1.0 for OSI
approval. The <br>
> full license text is attached to this email as a plain
text file (AI- <br>
> MIT-License-1.0.txt).<br>
<br>
So this is interesting, but will need some iterations I think
<br>
(completely aside from any requirements the attorneys have).<br>
<br>
The first part is the name; we may not be able to call it MIT,
which is <br>
after all a trademark of the folks in Cambridge and this is
not their <br>
license. So we might need to call it AI-Attribution or
something (which <br>
would be a good name considering the purpose of the license).<br>
<br>
The second, larger problem occurs in the actual construction
of software <br>
with AI assistance. As written, this license targets only
brand-new <br>
projects which are created "from scratch" and never modified
again. <br>
This is fine for those, but I think project creators want to
plan for <br>
success.<br>
<br>
For any substantial project which has a history of
development, there is <br>
going to be a mix, including: files that are wholly
AI-generated, files <br>
which are AI-assisted, files which were written by humans, and
files <br>
which were inherited from other OSS projects whose licenses do
not <br>
require AI attribution so we don't know. Further, files which
have been <br>
modified several times are going to have been modified by
several AI tools.<br>
<br>
If you want to follow this concept, I really think that some
kind of <br>
per-file attribution (ala APL2.0) is going to be necessary,
rather than <br>
a single statement of authorship over the whole project.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
-- Josh Berkus<br>
OSI Board Member<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
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