Status: pre-draft concept exploration. Not ready for use.
AIAL is an attempt to design a permissive software license that allows contributors to make explicit, structured declarations about the AI-assisted or AI-generated origin of their contributions — without pretending to conclusively resolve unsettled questions about AI authorship and copyright.
The goal is not to replace MIT or Apache. The goal is to explore whether a narrow, conservative extension — provenance declarations + an optional contributor-limited no-claim layer — is coherent and useful enough to be worth formalizing.
When a contributor uses an AI system to produce a substantial portion of their code, there is currently no standard way to:
- disclose that provenance in a structured, machine-readable form,
- express "to the extent I hold any rights here, I choose not to assert them" without falsely claiming public domain status,
- do any of the above without overreaching on unsettled law.
AIAL v2 is attempting to address this narrowly.
- It does not claim to determine whether AI-generated code is copyrightable.
- It does not declare generated code to be public domain.
- It does not require SPDX changes.
- It is not a restriction on AI training use.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| AIAL_LICENSE_v2_SKELETON.md | Working skeleton of the license text (not final legal prose) |
| AIAL_PROVENANCE_SPEC_v0.1.md | Companion provenance declaration specification |
| AIAL_FAQ_FOR_REVIEWERS.md | FAQ addressing likely misconceptions |
Three separable layers:
- Permissive license core — intentionally close to MIT/ISC in shape
- Provenance declaration layer — informational, not legally self-executing
- Optional no-claim / covenant layer — contributor-limited, explicit opt-in only
The provenance categories are: generated-origin, ai-assisted, human-authored, mixed, unknown, inherited.
Conservative defaults apply: absence of a declaration implies nothing. mixed and unknown imply no special legal effect.
This is an early-stage conceptual exploration. The skeleton and spec are working drafts used to test whether the architecture is coherent before investing in polished legal text.
Nik the human — feedback welcome via issues.