The Asahi Linux project, developed voluntarily to run Linux on Apple Silicon Macs, will gradually switch from the MIT license to the GPL. This announcement, made in its progress report for Linux 7.3, comes amid tensions with Omarchy, the distribution by David Heinemeier Hansson, and revives the question of protecting free work against artificial intelligence.
The report, signed by James Calligeros, one of Asahi’s main contributors, states that all the project’s repositories will “progressively” move to the GPLv2 “or later” license. No project is named, but the timing was enough to spark reactions on X, starting with David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails. He just launched Omarchy 4.5, which allows installing Linux from macOS without a USB key.
Asahi’s technical work is based on reverse-engineering Apple’s chips, which are undocumented. For six years, its volunteers have observed macOS in operation to understand how to drive the graphics processor (GPU), audio, or Thunderbolt ports. Omarchy, a distribution based on Arch Linux, is funded by the Omacom Foundation, created in August by David Heinemeier Hansson. At the end of August, the foundation claimed $12.6 million (approximately €10.9 million). Its Mac port notably reuses m1n1, the program that bridges Apple’s boot process and Linux, as well as Asahi’s installer and kernel, via a variant called Aurora.
MIT or GPL: a difference in obligation
Until now, Asahi’s own software components were under the MIT license, one of the most permissive. It allows code to be reused, modified, and sold in a closed product, provided the copyright notice is retained. The GPL, known as “copyleft,” conversely requires anyone distributing a modified version to provide the source code under the same license. Selling a product based on Asahi is therefore still permitted, but turning it into a proprietary black box violates the license.
According to the Asahi team, several actors have attempted to hijack its work “to replace the project” and monetize Linux on Mac. In extreme cases, work-in-progress code was allegedly copied from developers’ personal repositories, then republished without credit to its authors or rewritten using a large language model (LLM) to hide its origin. David Heinemeier Hansson responds that this change does not affect him, as the Linux kernel is already under GPLv2, and assures that Omarchy will remain free. OpenBSD developer Bryan Steele, for his part, criticizes Asahi for changing the license of m1n1 without the agreement of all past contributors, while OpenBSD depends on it to boot on Mac.
A divergence on the use of AI
The two projects also clash over artificial intelligence. Asahi prohibits, in its AI policy, the use of generative AI for any substantial contribution, to preserve its so-called “clean room” method. Developers must understand a chip’s behavior and rewrite drivers without copying a single line of macOS’s proprietary code. A model trained on vast, opaque databases could regurgitate code belonging to Apple, exposing the project to lawsuits.
The Omarchy team, conversely, embraces AI-assisted development: about 130 modifications to its Mac installer are co-signed by Claude, Anthropic’s agent. David Heinemeier Hansson accuses Asahi of rejecting its improvements, such as support for Touch ID or deep sleep, without citing verifiable examples. Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw and founding patron of the Omarchy foundation, calls this rejection of AI “ridiculous.”
The refusal of AI also has a financial cost. Several donors have publicly announced the end of their monthly support, up to $100 per month (approximately €87). Asahi lives on donations via GitHub Sponsors and OpenCollective, and on the latter platform shows an estimated annual budget of about $119,000 (approximately €103,000), or about a hundred times less than the $12.6 million claimed by the Omarchy foundation.
