While projects like QEMU consider limited acceptance of AI-assisted patches, Flathub has taken the opposite approach by strengthening its Generative AI policy. Flathub now explicitly bans AI-generated or AI-assisted applications and extends this restriction to the entire submission process.
This change was introduced in Flathub’s documentation repository with a commit titled “Reword LLM policy to make it clear it’s not allowed.” The update broadens the requirements for app authors, replacing earlier language focused on low-quality AI-generated submissions with a rule that covers both applications and the materials used to package them for Flathub.
The revised policy applies to both the application and the submission process, including the manifest, metadata, patches, build scripts, and pull requests. It also clarifies that applications encompass BaseApps, extensions, and any artifacts produced by flatpak-builder.
In light of this, submission PRs must not be generated, opened, or automated using AI tools or agents. Flathub also requests that submitters do not seek AI-based reviews in pull requests, including automated Copilot reviews on GitHub.
The most significant change, however, concerns application content. Flathub now prohibits applications containing any AI-generated or AI-assisted code, documentation, or other content. This replaces previous language that only restricted submissions where most code was AI-generated without meaningful human involvement or where code quality was low.
The revised policy also updates language regarding copyright and licensing. It now covers applications or changes containing copyrighted, license-incompatible, or ethically questionable code, rather than only submissions or changes. Such submissions may be rejected without further review, and repeated violations can result in a permanent ban from future submissions and activities.
The policy allows for exceptions, which may be granted for mature, well-maintained projects. However, the documentation does not specify an approval process for these cases.
The changes were announced by Bart Piotrowski, a Flathub maintainer, with a post on his Mastodon profile.
I was already moving more things over to snap this will just encourage me to do it even faster. I’m not going to wait and wonder if software I use will lose support on flathub.
I use both snap and flatpak and there are a few programs that I can not find on snap with official support and vise versa since I also have same issues on flathub. I try to stick with official supported options when possible and if a certain option goes away at some point I will take another look and go from there. I’m not going to worry about this since I know how to change course if needed.
so officially supported flatpaks will have no issues with copyright and licensing but will probably be rejected anyways if they use ai for anything. Lots of projects already admit to using ai. This is extremely stupid. I know redhat based distros and others did not do a very good job of making there own flatpaks for popular programs.
If this is actually enforced flathub will become a place that does not have much to offer and could go extinct. Firefox has implemented AI-assisted tools to help developers with coding, finding vulnerabilities and patching. Will Firefox and all its forks actually be removed since it would be impossible for forks to do anything about ai code and what about chromium browsers and almost any other major project and even smaller projects. I think this guy wants to destroy flathub since these projects will not change how they do things for flathub since flathub is not where the majority of the planet gets there software. Flathub is such a tiny source for distributing there software compared to everything else that these companies will not care and will instead just focus more on snap and other linux and non linux options I guess.
I looked at his post and him talking and it sounds like existing stuff that is already on flathub will be allowed to continue while new stuff would be blocked unless given a exemption or pass or something.
If it was such garbage, how did it make past their (Flathub) quality checks in the first place?
I don’t understand why AI gets a free pass on V&V (in general) and human engineers are put through the ringer. This seems to be the major problem really.
I can understand this (Flathub) policy if it has to do with IP and/or licensing, but otherwise, if the artifacts pass processes – that have been in place for decades then I don’t see the issue.
Also, some of the code and documentation coming out of agents is quite good and rather unrecognizable i.e. enforcement is going to be a problem..
What about the freedom to install whatever I want without 1 person trying to make the decision for me??????
Stupid choice
With some flatpaks on flathub already not being maintained as often as there snap alternative or not being officially supported compared to the alternative i’m not really sure if this is a good idea. Many projects now use ai to help code and many of those projects are open source. If this means less choices for what can be on flathub people will just go elsewhere for software in my opinion.
We can add here though, that considering how AI projects are pretty much low quality garbage. People going with garbage to somewhere else is completely desirable result 🙂