LLM-gen-AI - Software Freedom Conservancy
Get the latest update on our Vizio court case -->
Close navigation menu
Until July 17ᵗʰ,
we'll direct1 newly initiated Sustainerships & SFC donations to our software<br>right-to-repair work & efforts to resolve Bambu Lab's AGPLv3 violations!
$163,534 raised!
$86,473 to go!
Help us reach this goal<br>so we<br>can dedicate long-term full-time SFC<br>staff on our software right to repair work for 3D printers, & take action on Bambu Lab's AGPLv3 violations!
Facing LLM-gen-AI in FOSS
In June 2026, SFC first released our<br>Recommendations When Using LLM-backed Generative AI Systems (“LLM-gen-AI”) for FOSS Contributions. These recommendations culminated four years of work by<br>SFC's policy experts. Our policy fellow,<br>Bradley M. Kühn published<br>If Software is My Copilot, Who Programmed My Software? in 2022.<br>Later that year, SFC convened a committee of experts to study the key questions.
In parallel, SFC held multiple listening sessions over a long period<br>with our member project contributors to understand<br>their needs and concerns. That chapter concluded with the<br>publication<br>of<br>our aspirational statement<br>— which explained our collective vision of how<br>LLM-gen-AI<br>should work to maximally respect users' software freedom.
In November 2025,<br>SFC convened half its<br>staff along with a group of volunteers renowned for<br>their FOSS policy expertise.<br>SFC dubbed this committee “The LLM Elephant in the FOSS Room“,<br>as we had all come to realize that outright bans and zero-tolerance polices<br>regarding LLM-gen-AI in FOSS (as a sole approach) was no longer a good<br>strategic choice; we needed a multi-pronged strategy.
Early in 2026, our Director of Compliance, Denver<br>Gingerich,<br>published his views and experiences on this subject.<br>SFC followed that with more public listening sessions — both via<br>open-to-the-public video chats and on the Fediverse. The Elephant<br>Committee then collaboratively drafted and published<br>Recommendations When Using LLM-backed Generative AI Systems (“LLM-gen-AI”) for FOSS Contributions.
This work is now a major initiative of SFC; in the remaining weeks and<br>months of 2026 and 2027, SFC will publish a plethora of materials to<br>help FOSS contributors to navigate LLM-gen-AI and utilize it carefully and<br>strategically to increase users' software freedom and people's right to<br>software repair in devices they own.
More to come…
What We Do
The Corresponding Source
Copyleft Compliance
Vizio Lawsuit
Facing LLM-gen-AI in FOSS
Past Impact Litigation
Give Up GitHub!
Member Projects
Outreachy
Use The Source
FOSSY
OpenWrt One
Awards
Facing LLM-gen-AI in FOSS
Recommendations<br>When Using LLM-backed Generative AI Systems for FOSS Contributions
Aspirational Statement on FOSS<br>LLM-gen-AI
More to come …
Software Freedom Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity.
Privacy Policy last updated 22 December 2020.
This page and its contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.