Why did Asahi Linux change from MIT to GPL?

In its 7 November 2026 progress report, the project said it had learned of attempts to exploit its permissive licensing, including in-development code taken from personal forks without attribution or rewritten with LLM assistance. It said MIT has no protection against bad-faith actors and that it would move all repositories to GPLv2 or later.

Which Asahi code is affected?

heise online reports that the transition is complete for m1n1: versions up to 1.9.9 remain under MIT, and 2.0.0 and later are GPLv2-or-later. It reports nothing changes retroactively and that the kernel drivers were always GPL.

Did Asahi accuse a specific project of copying?

No. heise reports that Asahi did not name names, and that no one has publicly shown that any particular project took code from private forks without attribution. We do not make that accusation either.

Can a TimeBind show that someone copied my code?

No. A TimeBind shows that an exact file existed no later than a recorded time and still matches. It can support a timeline of your own work. It does not compare code, show copying, or show that a language model rewrote anything.

Does keeping a dated copy replace choosing a licence?

No. Choosing and applying a licence is separate and may need legal advice. A dated copy of the LICENSE file and of each release helps you show which licence applied to which version.

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Asahi Linux moves from MIT to GPL: what developers should keep before sharing unreleased code

Inna Hall

November 12, 2026

November 13, 2026

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Short answer: On 7 November 2026 the Asahi Linux project, which brings Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, said in its Linux 7.3 progress report that it is moving all of its repositories from the MIT licence to the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. It said it had learned of “multiple attempts to exploit our permissive licensing,” including in-development feature code “lifted straight out of our personal forks and published without attribution or lazily rewritten with LLM assistance to obfuscate its origin.” heise online reports that nothing changes retroactively, that the bootloader m1n1 is MIT up to version 1.9.9 and GPLv2-or-later from 2.0.0, and that nobody has publicly shown that any particular named project took code from private forks without attribution. For developers the practical lesson does not depend on which licence you prefer: keep dated copies of unreleased work, record each licence change, and capture anything you think was copied. A TimeBind can date the exact files you kept. It cannot show who copied what.

Last checked 12 November 2026. General information for open-source maintainers, contributors and developers who keep unreleased work in personal forks, not legal advice and not a view on which licence is better. The account follows Asahi Linux’s own words as quoted by LWN, its published policy, and reporting by heise online and It’s FOSS. The project did not name the parties it was worried about, and we do not accuse anyone. TimeBinder does not enforce licences, cannot show who copied what, and a dated file is not proof that code is yours.

What Asahi Linux said, and what the press added
What MIT and GPL do, in plain terms
Practical checklist for developers
What a TimeBind does and does not show
Limits
Tools that can help
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources checked

What Asahi Linux said, and what the press added

The statement comes from the Asahi Linux 7.3 progress report of 7 November 2026, which LWN quoted the same day. In it the developers say they were made aware of attempts to use the project’s permissive licensing “to hijack our work, with a direct view to replacing the project and aggressively monetising Linux on Apple Silicon.” They add that the MIT licence “explicitly allows this, and has no carveouts to protect against bad faith actors,” and that going forward all Asahi Linux code will be under strong copyleft licences only.

Reporting adds detail, with attribution:

Scope. heise online reports that developer James Calligeros explained the move in the report, that the bootloader m1n1 has completed the transition (versions up to 1.9.9 stay MIT; 2.0.0 and later are GPLv2-or-later), that nothing changes retroactively, and that the Linux kernel drivers were always GPL because the kernel is.
Precedent. heise notes the project points to Wine, which moved from MIT to LGPL in 2002 to prevent proprietary forks.
Names. heise says Asahi did not name names, and that so far no one has publicly shown that any particular project took code from private forks without attribution. It’s FOSS reports at least two public forks tied to AI-assisted development, and says one of them credits its AI use openly and is not the kind of bad actor the report describes. Read the primary sources before drawing a conclusion about anyone.
AI policy. Asahi’s separate Generative AI Policy says it “broadly forbid[s]” the use of generative AI tooling for material contributions, in part because LLMs pose legal risks to clean-room reverse engineering.

The story drew heavy engagement. A post by It’s FOSS on 8 November 2026 reached 102,483 impressions on X, a post of 7 November by @notreidlab reached 36,896, and a YouTube video on the change by Brodie Robertson had 84,169 views by 12 November.

What MIT and GPL do, in plain terms

heise summarises the difference this way. The MIT licence requires practically one thing: anyone who distributes the code must include the copyright and licence notices; everything else is allowed, including putting the code in a proprietary product. The GPLv2 also permits selling and distributing code, but anyone who distributes a derivative version as a program must make the source available to recipients under the same terms. That principle is called copyleft.

It’s FOSS adds a practical point: where source has to be public, copying is easier to spot. Neither licence, on its own, tells you whether a given piece of code was copied or rewritten. That is a question of evidence, and evidence usually starts with who had what, when.

Practical checklist for developers

Date unreleased work, not only releases. The Asahi complaint is about in-development code in personal forks. If you keep a private branch, export a git bundle or archive of it at milestones and keep a dated record of the file. Git commit dates are text a committer can set; see whether Git commit dates are proof of when code existed.
Record each licence change. Keep a dated copy of the LICENSE file and the commit or tag where the licence changed (m1n1 1.9.9 and 2.0.0 are an example of a clean cut-over point). Note which parts stay under the old licence.
Write your contribution and AI-use rules down. If your project forbids or limits generative AI, keep the dated policy, and keep the dates when contributors agreed to it.
Keep release artefacts. Source tarballs, signed tags and installer images at each version show what existed at each release. For code you plan to publish, see how to timestamp code before you open-source it.
If you suspect copying, capture before you argue. Save the other repository’s URL, the exact commit hash, the files and the date you saw them. A capture is a record of what you saw. Do not accuse anyone publicly on a resemblance alone.
Fingerprint the folder. The free bulk SHA-256 manifest tool can hash a project folder in your browser and give you a CSV you can date.
Talk to a lawyer before a takedown or a public claim. Licence enforcement is a legal question that depends on the licence, the facts and the country.

What a TimeBind does and does not show

A TimeBind is a dated, checkable record that an exact file existed no later than a recorded time and still matches. The SHA-256 fingerprint is made in your browser and the file is never uploaded. The record is anchored to Bitcoin (a Merkle root in an OP_RETURN). Your first Pooled TimeBind is free; after that, TimeBinds start from US$5, and an ASAP TimeBind is US$15. See how it works.

For a maintainer, that is useful for the unreleased archive, bundle, installer image or manifest you kept at a milestone. You can later show that those exact files existed no later than the recorded time and still match.

A TimeBind does not enforce a licence, does not show who copied from whom, does not show that code was rewritten by a language model, does not choose MIT or GPL for you, and does not create copyright or ownership. Developers can start at the developer timestamping hub and how to prove source code existed before a date.

Limits

This is a fast-moving story. The sources above are secondary reports of a project statement, and the facts may be updated. We have not reviewed any repository for copying and take no side in the licence debate. A dated record helps establish what you had and when. It does not decide whether code was copied, whether a licence was breached, or what remedy applies.

Tools that can help

Read Asahi’s Generative AI Policy and the licence texts themselves. For AI tools that touch your code, see GitHub Copilot and Cursor: do they train on your code, and how to opt out. The AI agent file-access checklist covers what to restrict before you let a coding agent into a repository.

If you maintain a project and are weighing a licence change or an AI contribution policy, see also the free open-source license change record checklist. It looks at old releases, contributors, copied-code notes and the dated copies to keep. It cannot show that code was copied.

Your file’s fingerprint, anchored to a global network secured by real electricity and cryptography.

Editing a file—including with AI—changes its fingerprint, not its existing network record.

How this works

Your file’s SHA-256 fingerprint, a short code worked out from its exact contents, is made in your browser, and the file itself stays on your device. A cryptographic commitment to that fingerprint, which may be combined with others, is then anchored in a block on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin is secured by proof of work: computers around the world spend real electricity to add each block, and changing an earlier block would mean redoing that work faster than the rest of the network. Until that block is confirmed, your proof is pending. Once the Bitcoin anchoring is confirmed, you can verify the proof against that recorded commitment. The confirmed record can then be checked; Pooled TimeBinds are checked through TimeBinder, while ASAP TimeBinds can also be checked independently. If you check the file later and its fingerprint still matches, that shows the file existed no later than the recorded time. The record doesn’t show who made the file, whether AI was used, or that its contents are true.

Your filestays on your device
FingerprintSHA-256
Network timestampon Bitcoin

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Asahi Linux change from MIT to GPL?

In its 7 November 2026 progress report, the project said it had learned of attempts to exploit its permissive licensing, including in-development code taken from personal forks without attribution or rewritten with LLM assistance. It said MIT has no protection against bad-faith actors and that it would move all repositories to GPLv2 or later.
Which Asahi code is affected?

heise online reports that the transition is complete for m1n1: versions up to 1.9.9 remain under MIT, and 2.0.0 and later are GPLv2-or-later. It reports nothing changes retroactively and that the kernel drivers were always GPL.
Did Asahi accuse a specific project of copying?

No. heise reports that Asahi did not name names, and that no one has publicly shown that any particular project took code from private forks without attribution. We do not make that accusation either.
Can a TimeBind show that someone copied my code?

No. A TimeBind shows that an exact file existed no later than a recorded time and still matches. It can support a timeline of your own work. It does not compare code, show copying, or show that a language model rewrote anything.
Does keeping a dated copy replace choosing a licence?

No. Choosing and applying a licence is separate and may need legal advice. A dated copy of the LICENSE file and of each release helps you show which licence applied to which version.

Sources checked

Asahi Linux, Linux 7.3 progress report, 7 November 2026, quoted by LWN.net (posted 7 November 2026), https://lwn.net/Articles/1105936/
Asahi Linux, Generative AI (LLM) Policy, https://asahilinux.org/llm-policy/ (read 12 November 2026)
heise online, “Asahi Linux changes license to stop forks from taking its code,” https://www.heise.de/en/news/Asahi-Linux-changes-license-to-stop-forks-from-taking-its-code-11519257.html (read 12 November 2026)
It’s FOSS, “Asahi Linux Drops MIT and Goes Full GPL After AI Tools Were Used to Steal Unreleased Code,” 8 November 2026, https://itsfoss.com/news/asahi-linux-drops-mit-for-gpl/ (headline is the outlet’s; see body for what it can and cannot show)
X: It’s FOSS (@Itsfoss), 8 November 2026 (public metrics read 12 November 2026: 102,483 impressions, 1,178 likes, 39 reposts, 128 replies, 102 bookmarks); @notreidlab, 7 November 2026 (36,896 impressions, 1,566 likes)
YouTube: Brodie Robertson, 10 November 2026 (84,169 views when checked 12 November 2026); The Lunduke Journal, 9 November 2026 (32,093 views)

Date the unreleased work you keep yourself

Your first Pooled TimeBind is free, with no credit card required. After that, TimeBinds start from US$5, and an ASAP TimeBind is US$15. Click here to start, or see plans and pricing.

Inna Hall

Inna Hall is an Australian lawyer admitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia in 2013. She has worked across government and private legal practice and is the director of TimeBinder, focusing on document authenticity, evidentiary risk, and blockchain-based proof of existence.