Flathub, one of the most popular ways to grab applications on Linux, has a newly updated generative AI policy - where it's pretty much all banned. However, there is an exception noted for "mature, well-maintained projects" but it's not a guarantee.
A new commit was sent in and merged into the documentation, which is live now, that notes "Reword LLM policy to make it clear it's not allowed". The new policy reads:
Generative AI policy #
This policy applies to both the application being submitted to Flathub and the Flathub submission itself, including the manifest, metadata, patches, build scripts, and pull request. For the purpose of this policy, applications include BaseApps, extensions, and any other artifacts that can be produced by flatpak-builder.
Submission pull requests must not be generated, opened, or automated using AI tools or agents. Please also do not request review from any AI tools in the submission PR. Automated Copilot reviews on GitHub can be disabled by the submitter by going
[here]and changingRepository access
to exclude the repo or disabling the global "Automatic Copilot code review" found[here].Applications containing AI-generated or AI-assisted code, documentation, or other content are not allowed.
Applications or changes containing copyrighted, license-incompatible, or ethically questionable code are not allowed.
These submissions can be rejected without any further review.
Repeatedly violating these policies may result in a permanent ban from future submissions and activities.
Exceptions may be granted for mature, well-maintained projects.
To give some more context, developer Bart Piotrowski mentioned in a social media post on Mastodon:
We have updated Flathub's LLM policy to explicitly disallow AI usage for both the submission process and applications being submitted.
[https://github.com/flathub-infra/documentation/commit/992f57b30de98ddbd5e80959e9672998c83c8c97]I've had some reservations about it, so the wording before that commit was relatively milder. I know it's an unpopular opinion on the Fediverse, but I do think LLMs are inevitable, and the reality is that you can expect less organically grown code as time goes on. I believe it can be a useful tool in and outside FOSS; I hoped we will see a larger number of apps where authors made some effort beyond prompting an agent. Meanwhile, the number of unpleasant interactions I've had with entitled submitters acting as if they were bestowing their brilliant software upon us idiots who are rejecting it went through the roof in the last month. I'm tired.
As always, we are not applying this retroactively, so any vibecoded apps which were already published will remain available.
What are your thoughts on this? No matter which side of the argument you're on, having clearly defined rules around it is a good thing so that it's clear for everyone.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
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[Who?](/index.php?module=who_likes&comment_id=295228)
[Who?](/index.php?module=who_likes&comment_id=295232)
(this is a joke obviously. or is it, i can't tell anymore.)
(this is a joke obviously. or is it, i can't tell anymore.)
[Who?](/index.php?module=who_likes&comment_id=295233)
[Who?](/index.php?module=who_likes&comment_id=295234)
Meanwhile, the number of unpleasant interactions I've had with entitled submitters acting as if they were bestowing their brilliant software upon us idiots who are rejecting it went through the roof in the last month.This is a
psychologicalside effect that I'm finding more and more impossible to tolerate.
"The AI wrote this, so it's perfect, and thus I'm the new John Carmack"
I can see the fuming maintainers as if they're in front of me right now.
Maybe it's a bit too radical of an approach (but considering
wherethe LLMs train on, it may just be a copyright-safe way to handle the thorny issue), and I find Linus' approach more reasonable. But still, I can fully understand the frustration of who needs to read this kind of PRs day in and day out.
Who? "The concern that motivated the policy is unchanged, and it is worth stating precisely: the DCO is about whether the submitter has the legal right to contribute the code, not about "creative expression". The copyright and license status of LLM output remains unsettled, so that question is still open. What has shifted is the balance of risk:Nothing will really happen if AI generations are shown to indeed not be copyrightable (see: Monkey selfie copyright dispute).
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projects accepting AI-assisted content have not run into serious legal trouble so far, which suggests the probability of the risk materializing is not high;
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other organizations, such as Red Hat[1], have assessed the risk as acceptable -- though a community of individual developers does not have the legal backing of a company, and even an unfounded dispute would be a long-lasting distraction from work on QEMU."
source: QEMU dev list However, if they show that they can be copyrightable and there is some legal mess, with e.g. the training data, making it unclear
whoowns the copyright, well.. Remember the patent-trolls from a two decades ago? We would likely have a swarm of Copyright trolls mass suing with the goal of settlements. And that would be one heck of a headache to deal with.
Who? I can see the fuming maintainers as if they're in front of me right now.While I completely understand the sentiment, here is the thing: Flathub is an app store. Not the Linux police.
They are acting more and more as gatekeepers, and I while I publish on many app stores, why do I feel Flathub is just the worse experience?
Last edited by Emeric on 29 May 2026 at 2:04 pm UTC
Quoting: Emeric> I can see the fuming maintainers as if they're in front of me right now.An app store is a gatekeeper, unless they want to have no rules in place and allow anything - but they cannot legally do that. They have to gatekeep in some way, that's just how they work.
While I completely understand the sentiment, here is the thing: Flathub is an app store. Not the Linux police. They are acting more and more as gatekeepers, and I while I publish on many app stores, why do I feel Flathub is just the worse experience?
Who? An app store is a gatekeeper, unless they want to have no rules in place and allow anything - but they cannot legally do that. They have to gatekeep in some way, that's just how they work.My point is if you are ok with Flathub being noticeably worse gatekeepers than Apple, while pretending to be the good guys, then sure let's go for it ^^
Who? Quoting: EmericI don't see what banning generative AI has to do with them being "worse" than anywhere else.An app store is a gatekeeper, unless they want to have no rules in place and allow anything - but they cannot legally do that. They have to gatekeep in some way, that's just how they work.My point is if you are ok with Flathub being noticeably worse gatekeepers than Apple, while pretending to be the good guys, then sure let's go for it ^^
Who? Personally it does not change anything to me. My currently online app is "hand written", my other game has an AI generated splash image (nothing else) that I wanted to get rid off anyway at some point before publishing on Flathub.
Who? ...
We need bigger dikes...
Who? Quoting: Liam Squires-HandI don't see what banning generative AI has to do with them being "worse" than anywhere else.Like I said, just another way for Flathub to be even more hostiles to developers publishing on their platform...
First of all, their system is not just submitting applications, it's also a CI build system. I mean it's almost entirely a CI build system. Which are never particularly trivial to master. It is in fact, very complicated, and the more your applications do real things, the more complicated it gets. Then every interaction you have with the people gatekeeping you is through pull requests. Let me just tell you that they did not wait for IA submissions to be chronically annoyed by people posting their work over there.
And then they will label your applications as unsafe because it uses Internet. Or files, why not. Very forward-looking.
About some more gatekeeping, everything about your applications (names, icons, descriptions, screenshots, etc) is drawn from the source code, when rules are put for what is a correct name or what shape my icons should have, it impacts my work, not just my Flathub page.
You can check the list of quality guideline where your icons, names, description length, format, punctuation, colors, are judged : https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/metainfo-guidelines/quality-guidelines. Thankfully these rules are just about reducing visibility, not mandatory to publish.
Who? Applications or changes containing copyrighted, license-incompatible, or ethically questionable code are not allowed.They're going to have to clean up the wording on this: all code is copyrighted.
Who? Quoting: CatKillerAnd "ethically questionable". I'm not even sure what that's referring to specifically.Applications or changes containing copyrighted, license-incompatible, or ethically questionable code are not allowed.They're going to have to clean up the wording on this: all code is copyrighted.
Quoting: CatKillerThey probably mean generated code, which in US legislation tends to be without copyright.Applications or changes containing copyrighted, license-incompatible, or ethically questionable code are not allowed.They're going to have to clean up the wording on this: all code is copyrighted.
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualAnd "ethically questionable". I'm not even sure what that's referring to specifically.Same here, a copyrighted code (no matter if proprietary or GPL) can be used for training to turn it into a non copyrighted code. That is "ethically questionable" at best.