April 26, 2026
No bots, lots of beef
Human Source License (HSL)
Humans-only code license drops — cheers, side-eye, and AI panic
TLDR: A new “Human Source License” aims to keep code free for most people but charge big companies and AI model providers. Commenters love the human-first stance but roast the “AI slop” wording, question a suspicious corporate exemption, and doubt whether anyone can actually enforce it.
A new “Human Source License” is throwing elbows at Big Tech and bots, and the comments are a full-on brawl. The pitch: keep code free for regular folks and researchers, but make the mega-corps and AI model builders pay. Its creator says it’s payback for AI companies mining decades of human code without permission. Supporters are waving the flag for human creators, but skeptics are screaming vibes over viability.
The sharpest jab? One commenter says the text “reads as AI slop,” while others pounce on a head-scratching carve-out: a “Migros Exception” that appears to exempt a specific corporation from fees. Cue the nepotism alarms and a thousand side-eyes asking, “Why is that in there?”
Here’s the simple version: free for the 99% (individuals, research, and internal company use), but if you’re a company over $100M or you train or run AI models for others, you need a paid license. Also: human hands only—no AI-written contributions. It’s a draft (v0.2), not yet lawyered up, and the repo is here: github.com/xdgrulez/human-source-license.
Drama watch: some cheer it as a “you shall not pass” sign for AI, others warn bots can just rewrite the code and dodge the rules. Memes of “No robots allowed” signs abound, alongside frantic calls to “make lawyers great again.”
Key Points
- •HSL is a source-available license designed to address AI-era extraction of open-source code.
- •The license is free for individuals, researchers, and internal organizational use.
- •Companies with over $100M inflation-adjusted revenue must obtain a commercial license for external software or services.
- •AI-related uses for third parties (training, running, supporting models) require a commercial license regardless of revenue.
- •HSL v0.2 is a working draft structured for European and US jurisdictions and has not been reviewed by a lawyer.