Ok, bye bye [LWN.net]

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 0:36 UTC (Fri) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418)
In reply to: Ok, bye bye by mb
Parent article: Codeberg: Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs

> Codeberg was a great idea, but this decision will kill it.

You are misunderstanding things, because that already happened, it already died several times due to LLM scraper bots and the sysadmins have gallantly resurrected it. Even if the official justification isn't perfectly thought out, this is a valid reaction in self defense. Once LLM scraper bots stop pounding every significant git server at usually thousands of times higher rates than humans, we can have a different kind of discussion.

to post comments

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 0:40 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

The scraper bots are a scourge. I had to password-protect my self-hosted Forgejo instance because it was being hammered. And I have no idea why the bots think it's a good idea to scrape the Web interface to git instead of just doing a git clone.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 26, 2026 13:05 UTC (Sun) by cladisch (✭ supporter ✭, #50193) [Link] (1 responses)

> And I have no idea why the bots think it's a good idea to scrape the Web interface to git instead of just doing a git clone

Because HTML has no standardized mechanism to redirect a scraper to a git repository. It might be possible to set <link rel="alternate" …>, but nobody uses it.

And, of course, those bots are vibe coded; neither the bots nor their human handlers have the ability to evaluate the returned data for correctness or usefulness. The only quality measure they have is the amount of pages and returned data, so they have no incentive to add special code to handle git repositories.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 26, 2026 15:57 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Because HTML has no standardized mechanism to redirect a scraper to a git repository. It might be possible to set <link rel="alternate" …>, but nobody uses it.

If crawlers are capable of semantically parsing out source code from a sea of HTML, they're capable of finding the "clone this repository' links.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 5:31 UTC (Fri) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (13 responses)

Except that scraper bots are a completely different thing from me or anybody else hosting projects generated with AI.
These rules will not stop a single scraper bot.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 7:50 UTC (Fri) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (12 responses)

> Except that scraper bots are a completely different thing from me or anybody else hosting projects generated with AI.
> These rules will not stop a single scraper bot.

How do you get to that conclusion? The scraper bots are getting training data for the LLMs, and part of the reason they keep doing that is because people are generating things with LLMs.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 8:29 UTC (Fri) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link] (8 responses)

Scraper bots that plague the internet are largely using botnets or similar systems as they abuse millions of residential addresses, typically with one request per IP or so, which is why they are so hard to block. It is incredibly unlikely that any of those have any relationship with anything random people generate with LLMs using models from the major companies, and instead it's widely believed the results are used for nefarious purposes by criminal organizations or the usual list of rogue states, probably to build their own models for their own usage.

So no, this Codeberg policy change will do absolutely nothing to relieve the bot-induced stress on their infrastructure. Fundamentally it's just in-group virtue-signaling to appease a minority of anti-AI zealots, and it seems to have succeeded at that, so job done?

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 11:17 UTC (Fri) by rbranco (subscriber, #129813) [Link] (7 responses)

Agree. And you have an anti-capitalist view while I lean more anarchist / libertarian.

With this move, Codeberg turns into the equivalent of a vegan non-alcoholic craft-beer brand. Of course, gebraut nach den deutschen Reinheitsgebot.

They wanted to compete with GitHub even though nobody asked for a Budweiser. Now they compete with SourceHut and even link to Drew DeVault's blog, ignoring his smear campaign against Stallman. Absolutely no morals, the end justifies the means.

It's their choice anyway. I just expect that no single cent of my tax euros goes to them.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 12:03 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (6 responses)

> It's their choice anyway. I just expect that no single cent of my tax euros goes to them.

I really don't understand the virtiol here.

Should anyone hosting a forge be required to serve absolutely everyone?

FFS, host your own stuff if you feel so strongly about someone else's rules.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 13:59 UTC (Fri) by rbranco (subscriber, #129813) [Link] (1 responses)

> I really don't understand the virtiol here.

What's wrong about the beer brand analogy?

> Should anyone hosting a forge be required to serve absolutely everyone?

You have to be somewhat neutral if you actually want to have some users.

> FFS, host your own stuff if you feel so strongly about someone else's rules.

If I ever come to this, it certainly won't be Forgejo.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 14:10 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> You have to be somewhat neutral if you actually want to have some users.

Codeberg already has far more than "some" users.

Its members have decided that there are other ways to measure "success" than absolute user count.

They can't serve everyone, so they are choosing the sorts of users they do wish to serve.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 25, 2026 11:35 UTC (Sat) by muase (subscriber, #178466) [Link] (3 responses)

> Should anyone hosting a forge be required to serve absolutely everyone?

No, but if they are fighting against an open and inclusive society, they shouldn't get any founding anymore. This rule is not only bigot – by now they couldn't even host their own tech stack anymore, with Linux, golang et al being "LLM infested too" – but it is also effectively racist and ableist.

LLMs are not only very useful to help people cross educational and language barriers, but it also almost cannot be overstated what a huge game changer they are to mitigate certain physical disabilities. A good friend of mine has a severe motor disability, and with LLMs it is the first time like ever that software development has become a comfortable hobby for him again – now people like him are officially not welcome anymore on Codeberg... Deutsches REINHEITSgebot all again, indeed.

Living your religious zealotry for yourself in your own garden is one thing; but if you start to use public money to implement your dog whistles and enforce your mindset of "necessary" proxy discrimination in the name of "public good and saving FOSS" – for anyone who values an inclusive society, this is something that should drown in all the social vitriol we have available.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 25, 2026 12:28 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> No, but if they are fighting against an open and inclusive society, they shouldn't get any founding anymore. This rule is not only bigot –

"No, but" means you don't actually believe that first word, and the rest of your response shows you have no effin' clue what 'bigot', 'racist', or even 'ablelist' actually means out in the real world.

> LLMs are not only very useful to help people cross educational and language barriers [bla bla bla bla bla]

Yeah, so what? That doesn't mean that Codeberg (or you, or I) has to provide a platform to host or promote them. Or anything else, for that matter.

> Living your religious zealotry for yourself in your own garden is one thing

Those living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 25, 2026 13:41 UTC (Sat) by muase (subscriber, #178466) [Link] (1 responses)

> "No, but" means you don't actually believe that first word

The question was

>> It's their choice anyway. I just expect that no single cent of my tax euros goes to them.
> Should anyone hosting a forge be required to serve absolutely everyone?

And NO, I don't believe that anyone hosting a forge should be required to serve absolutely every one – what you do with your own money is yours and only yours to decide (as long it's legal etc.) – BUT if your policy causes to discriminate e.g. disabled people via proxy, you should not get public founding for your project anymore. There is a clear difference between privately funded projects, and projects that are funded by public grants; and it's important to distinguish here.

> and the rest of your response shows you have no effin' clue what 'bigot', 'racist', or even 'ablelist' actually means out in the real world.

What makes you think that? You don't only do not know me, but I also mentioned an actual real-world example from my personal life how that rule affects disabled people IRL, and will effectively keep them out of the platform. I also explained how that rule raises language barriers again. It is a prime example of a policy that disproportionately affects disabled people or non-native speakers; and it is a pretty good case-study of discrimination via proxy – if you disagree with that position, I would be curious to hear an actual argument aside from "you have no effin' clue"?

And I think the bigotry is obvious too – if your entire business is built on LLM-assisted tech stacks, but you don't want any LLM-assisted code on your platform, that is not what I would call a congruent philosophy. If not even your own core tech stack conforms to your own policy, how would you call that?

> Yeah, so what? That doesn't mean that Codeberg (or you, or I) has to provide a platform to host or promote them. Or anything else, for that matter.

No, this was not about what Codeberg, or you, or I have to do – again: you can do whatever you want (as long it's not illegal). The sole argument was about why you shouldn't be granted tax money as funding if you run certain policies like the aforementioned. And it was about where the vitriol comes from if a project that receives a significant amount of public funding establishes a policy with such exclusionary side effects.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 25, 2026 16:04 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> BUT if your policy causes to discriminate e.g. disabled people via proxy, you should not get public founding for your project anymore.

(btw, I think you mean to say "funding", not "founding")

You have yet to explain how "We are not hosting projects created with/by LLMs" policy discriminates against disabled people.

"discriminating on choice of tools used to create <X>" is so laughably beyond any accepted legal definition of a "protected class" (even by the most diehard ADA ambulance chasing lawyers) that it would apply to practically everyone in nearly every field.

(Especially when there are numerous other hosting providers that gladly host LLM content, to the point of trying to force their preferred LLMs down your throat)

> not what I would call a congruent philosophy

Even if we accept your exaggerations as fact, so what?

By your definition, there probably isn't a single person in the history of humanity that is good enough.
(As the saying goes, "Perfection is the enemy of good")

Meanwhile, you are _still_ stretching any reasonable definition of "Bigotry".

BTW, I say this as someone who grew up in a bigoted and racist society, and is currently living in an area that has a long, infamously bloody history of systemic bigotry and racism. "The terms of service of software hosting provider for your personal hobby software" is laughably irrelevant to folks for whom, at best, "software as a hobby" is a distant luxury (eg requiring expensive equipment and forking over money for ongoing services when they are already struggling to keep a roof over their head and food in their bellies), and at worst, still have to suffer direct harassment and risk of injury or death.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Jul 24, 2026 8:37 UTC (Fri) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link]

Banning projects from Codeberg won't make these projects stop using AI.
And bots hammering Codeberg and AI projects hosted on Codeberg are completely different people.
Therefore, by logic reasoning, this ToS change has no effect on bot hammering.

Ok, bye bye

Posted Aug 2, 2026 17:10 UTC (Sun) by zack (subscriber, #7062) [Link] (1 responses)

If anything, banning LLM-generated content (assuming for a moment the ban will work), will make crawling Codeberg *more* useful to AI scraper bots than the contrary. This is because having a dataset of genuinely human-written code, and knowing it is so, is more valuable for LLM training than having a big bag with everything (and a growing LLM-written subset).

Ok, bye bye

Posted Aug 3, 2026 13:20 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Pretty sure Codeberg has deployed anti-crawler technology. I don't know how successful it is at keeping crawlers out, though, and the smart ones will simply git clone the repos instead of scraping the web pages.