MY no AI license

The recent AI development is exciting, yet raises numerous concerns. In order not to be part of the problem developers can resort to AI free licenses. This approach is controversial but not impossible. This page hosts such a license which I deduced from the Apache license.

Full license text

The complete license text can be downloaded here as text file (version 0.9.5).
(old 0.9.2*, 0.9.3*, 0.9.4 — *: version 0.9.3 accidentially had used 0.9.2 in license text)

Difference to the APACHE 2.0 license

To view the difference of the licenses you can download the MYnoAI 0.9.5 License as text file and the APACHE 2.0 License as text file and on a very wide terminal execute

sdiff -t -w 160 LICENSE-2.0.txt License_MYnoAI_0.9.5.txt

or use another diff tool of your choice.

The main differences you will see:

Name changed
Link changed; yet I'm still not sure where to host best
(1.) Definition of AI/LLM and the computers it runs on
(4. (e)) Disallowance to redistribute AI output
(4.) Relicensing only with AI exclusion
(7.) Disallowance to use AI output in the licensed project. When writing I was undecided whether to deny applying the license to AI output or to apply the license but deny using the output for anything. I decided it's the latter because this way the use as AI input can be prohibited in double way.
(8.) Disallowance to use the project as AI input. This was not so easy because the licensed project imposes restrictions on an entity which should have never seen the project. But these explicit restrictions/addressing was necessary to releave the team of the licensed projects from the burden to set up technical barriers against AI scrapers. (If they want to, they can install such barriers anyway.) So I put up a paragraph defining a „responsibility“, hoping that this will legally work.

Is this still free software?

The big organizations, e. g. Free Software Foundation (FSF), suppose that Software is only free if it can be modified and distributed without restrictions. A prohibition of AI is such a restriction, so an accordingly licensed project would be listed under non-free e.g. in repositories of the Debian project. (In the Debian project the views about this topic are not settled yet; information valid as of today, 27th of August 2026. // 29. 8.: Unfortunately this is confirmed by the Resolution, where proposal E won.)

In case you consider the turning-away from AI systems as neccessary to protect free software and its communities you won't completely reject to deem accordingly licensed software as free software.

A software licensed with MYnoAI still has all freedoms thinkable of, as known in open source, thereof following, under the condition that they don't happen on an AI system, following:

Permission to run (0)
Permission to analyse the code (1)
Permission to distribute to others (2)
Permission to modify, compile and distribute that to others (3)
Permission to install on every operating system
Permission to link/interact with all programs (more than copyleft)

Doesn't that prevent progress?

The technology to let computers lern is not new and has always been faszinating. It is possible to create promosing solutions with learning systems, e.g. the categorization of electronic mail.

Yet the chatbots and generators like presented nowadays are accompanied by climate damage, high resource usage and further unfavourable topics in development and daily use, not allowing for any justifiable access to this technology.
The sweeping prohibition of AI/LLM is a temporary solution which later may be replaced by more accurate rules, e.g. by class of damage.

Regardless the common focus on linear „progress“ the attention shall not be distracted from the fact that foremost non-AI techniques and tricks will generate the actual gains of efficiency and gentle modes of utilization.

Why in the license, not in the README?

Opt-out remarks in the README can be removed by any forking project and even the main project members itself, rendering them ineffective in middle/long term.

Shall the projects (also/instead) put technical measures in effect?

The projects can setup technical measures against the AI scrapers. Regardless of that it is advisable in every case to declare per license that the project shall not get in contact with AI systems.

The technical measures are only limited effective, in the project repository. In case someone publishes the code in another place without these measures the goal to keep AI system away from the code is lost.

I also want to add that these measures also exclude rare and obsolete browsers and computers too weak for proof-of-work. But a core concern of FLOSS is to reach as many people as possible.

Maturity

No project uses the license yet, and I just had limited discussion about the design and objectives, not even with legal professionals. I hope, the license text clearly expresses what is meant.

However, there are some unsolved problems, so far. They are handled in following chapters:

Problem: Opt-out mechanisms

An unsolved problem is the opt-out mechanism as required by article 4, paragraph 3. of the EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market. There's a standard, /.well-known/tdmrep.json, but it doesn't quite fit for FLOSS projects as it requires one(!) explicit copyright holder to be registered with address and there's no possibility to seperate AI from other data mining.
The license version 0.9.4x is a rather unsuccessful attempt to incoporate the tdmrep.json file.
My personal expectation is that there will be a central no-AI plattform where you can register licenses such as MYnoAI license and that in the project the sole mentioning of the MYnoAI license will obligue AI systems to refrain from using the project.

Problem solved: Definition of AI/LLM system

The definition of AI was imprecise up to version 0.9.4. In the meanwhile the definition is identic to EU AI Act, Article 3.

Problem: Submarines

Also AI „submarines“ are of a problem. A joker can introduce code output by an AI system but not declare AI use. After the project receives some wider adoption, the AI use is declared, which may make even running the MYnoAI licensed software illegal.
It is not easy to find a solution for this problem, especially as contributors are limited in liability and it isn't easy to quantify damage which is rather of moral nature.

Problem solved: Relicensing

It might be possible that the AI companies slightly modify the code, then relicense the Derivative Work without anti AI clauses.
This problem was solved with restriction of the permissive redistribution clause after 0.9.4.

Problem: Incompatibility to GPL and copyleft

Copyleft licenses are generally incompatible to the MYnoAI license.

There are proponents of GPL compatibility, see e. g. this article: Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else.

While MYnoAI license being generally incompatible to copylft licenses GPLv2/GPLv3, however, allow for following exceptions:

In case a MYnoAI library is an integral part of the system („System Library“) you can link against it. I couldn't exactly find what this actually is. In any case this covers operating system kernels, graphics drivers and C runtimes.
Furthermore when beginning a fresh GPL project you can add an exception for a project part which is licensed as MYnoAI. See GPL-incompatible libraries in GPL FAQ. Then you can e. g. link from a GPL program to a MYnoAI library.
[Formerly here was a wrong statement about the influence on such GPL licensed files which hereby is removed.]

TODO

I suppose the license can now be used in more or less safely manner

Anyway the license and page is not complete:

Page: Add How to apply: license text, neccessary technical measures/contributors conveant, political implications
Page: Add Compatibility „matrix“
License: Incoporate Auto-„delete“ of AI clauses (-> needs license generator)
License: Consider less permissive relicensing (turn towards BSD?)
Require passive/active protection (github, opt-out)
When the license gets withdrawn (from Fediverse discussion)

License of the license

This license is adapted from Apache 2.0 license as discussed in https://www.apache.org/foundation/license-faq.html#mod-license

This MY no AI license 0.9.2-0.9.5 can be used as-is or modified; I publish my modifications under CC‑BY‑SA 4.0.