[Standards] Re: We should require AI disclosure

On Mon, 11 May 2026 at 08:51, Goffi <goffi(a)goffi.org> wrote: Rewrite that paragraph, but drop the AI reference. If you'll pardon me making a derived work without explicit licence (copyright joke, hopefully, but see below) you end up with: This raises, I believe, copyright issues: if someone writes a whole section Actually, an author can guarantee that they are in a position to assign the copyright to the document to the XSF. By, literally, saying so. This indemnifies the XSF entirely (as long as we ensure it's explicit, which I believe we do) - as far as the XSF is concerned, we had the copyright assigned to us by someone who warranted that they were able to do so. Therefore, we believe we own the copyright in good faith. Board! It's firmly a Board matter, not a Council one. You're lucky! But anyway - I would first and foremost suggest that AI generated text is just one aspect of copyrightability and copyright ownership, and concentrate on whether or not the submitter asserts they have the right to assign, and have done so. This is particularly weak, I think, for changes to XEPs where the wording is taken from messages on the standards list. For initial submissions via GitHub we have (I think?) the IPR sign-off; though I'd prefer this to be on every submission instead of a one-off. I would much rather require that assignment (and the corresponding assertion of ability) is made much broader, and covered for example this message, and messages, comments, and so on in other XSF venues. Indeed, on a strict reading, by quoting Goffi's note here I have made a derived work, and I don't actually know that there is a strict licence permitting me to do so. More complex still is the paragraph I rewrote. I think I'm safe in assuming that Goffi would allow this. I think. But what if someone then incorporates my (derived work) paragraph into a XEP, thus assigning the copyright in my derived work paragraph wholly to the XSF? Who has done that assignment, and who needs to? I would personally lean away from having to explicitly mention AI usage, much less forbid it. It is widely misunderstood how copyright and AI intersect in both case law and legislation in different jurisdictions, and it's a lot less settled than you may think, as I note in my other message. I'm unconvinced it's possible to use AI in a way that would produce an uncopyrightable XEP contribution beyond simple grammar/spelling passes, but I worry that any mention of AI usage will make people believe that case law in the US means there cannot be any copyright at all. As I say, I've already had that with Wimsy - one of the only PRs against it was removing my copyright and licence on this basis! Dave.