[License-discuss] [SUBMISSION] AI-MIT License 1.0 — permissive license for AI-generated code

[Nik]

Apologize, my mistake. I'm new to mailing lists and sent this to both
addresses.
This proposal is currently up for discussion, and if the community agrees,
the final text can be submitted for review and registration after
discussion, as I understand it.

Nik

пт, 13 мар. 2026 г. в 18:32, Pamela Chestek <pamela.chestek at opensource.org>:

> McCoy, I also have an email where it was submitted to license-review on
> 3/12/26 at 5:30 pm PT?
>
> Pam
>
> On 3/13/2026 9:10 AM, McCoy Smith wrote:
>
> Nik:
>
> Are you requesting approval of this license by OSI, or just discussion of
> the license? You've submitted to the license-discuss list, which is where
> licenses are discussed, but does not result in the license being put
> through the approval process. Your statement that you are "submitting" the
> license "for consideration" is ambiguous.
>
> If you are seeking approval, you need to use the correct mailing list and
> provide all the data required for a submission, which has not been done in
> your e-mail below.
> On 3/12/2026 4:20 AM, Nik wrote:
>
> Dear OSI License Review Committee,
>
> I am submitting the **AI-MIT License, Version 1.0** for consideration by
> the Open Source Initiative.
>
> ## Summary
>
> The AI-MIT License is a permissive open-source license designed to address
> a genuine gap: existing licenses were written for human authors and handle
> AI-generated code poorly, creating false implications about authorship and
> copyright status.
>
> The license is deliberately minimal — it preserves the structure and
> permissiveness of the MIT License while adding three targeted changes for
> the AI context.
>
> ## The problem it solves
>
> 1. **False authorship implication.** When `Copyright (c) [year] [author]`
> is applied to fully AI-generated code, it implies human authorship and
> copyright that may not legally exist in most jurisdictions.
>
> 2. **No standard for disclosure.** There is no widely adopted mechanism
> for disclosing whether code is AI-generated, AI-assisted, or
> human-authored. This matters for supply-chain security, regulatory
> compliance (EU AI Act), and intellectual honesty in open source.
>
> 3. **Undefined copyright status.** Fully autonomous AI-generated code (no
> human creative input) is in a legal grey zone in most jurisdictions. A
> license that claims copyright over it is at best misleading, at worst
> invalid.
>
> ## What the license does differently from MIT
>
> The license adds one structural element (the Authorship Declaration) and
> three conditions/clauses:
>
> **Authorship Declaration** — a required checkbox at the top of the LICENSE
> file with three modes:
> - *Fully AI-generated*: no copyright claimed; code dedicated to public
> domain
> - *AI-assisted*: human-directed, AI-generated; standard copyright applies
> - *Human-authored*: AI used as a tool only; identical to MIT posture
>
> **Condition 2 — Transparency**: redistribution or use as AI training data
> must not misrepresent AI origin as human authorship.
>
> **Condition 3 — No Copyright Claim**: for fully autonomous code, explicit
> public domain dedication (with a perpetual irrevocable fallback for
> jurisdictions where public domain dedication is impossible).
>
> **Extended disclaimer**: adds three AI-specific disclaimers about training
> data provenance, regulatory compliance, and jurisdictional limitations of
> the authorship declaration.
>
> ## OSD compliance analysis
>
> 1. **Free Redistribution** ✓ — no restriction on sale or distribution
> 2. **Source Code** ✓ — no source restriction
> 3. **Derived Works** ✓ — modification and redistribution permitted
> 4. **Integrity of the Author's Source Code** ✓ — no patch-file
> requirement; attribution preserved
> 5. **No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups** ✓
> 6. **No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor** ✓
> 7. **Distribution of License** ✓ — same rights apply to all recipients
> 8. **License Must Not Be Specific to a Product** ✓
> 9. **License Must Not Restrict Other Software** ✓
> 10. **License Must Be Technology-Neutral** ✓
>
> The Transparency condition (Condition 2) requires disclosure of AI origin
> but does not restrict use in any field — it is an attribution/honesty
> requirement, not a field-of-endeavor restriction.
>
> ## SPDX identifier
>
> We are concurrently requesting the SPDX identifier `AI-MIT-1.0` through
> the SPDX GitHub repository.
>
> ## Repository
>
> The full license text, README, translations, and supporting materials are
> available at:
> https://github.com/ai-mit-license/ai-mit-license
>
> ## A note on meta-context
>
> This license was initially drafted with AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic)
> at the direction of a human. We believe this is appropriate and have
> disclosed it in the repository. The license is itself an example of the
> category of work it governs.
>
> We welcome feedback from the committee and the community at large.
>
> Respectfully,
> Nik
>
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