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AIAL — AI-Attribution License

Status: pre-draft concept exploration. Not ready for use.

What is this?

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.

The problem being explored

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.

What AIAL is not

  • 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.

Repository contents

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

Architecture (v2 direction)

Three separable layers:

  1. Permissive license core — intentionally close to MIT/ISC in shape
  2. Provenance declaration layer — informational, not legally self-executing
  3. 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.

Current status

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.

Author

Nik the human — feedback welcome via issues.