# Outreach Letter: Free Software Foundation

**Date:** 22 November 2025
**To:** Free Software Foundation
**From:** Palimpsest Stewardship Council
**Subject:** Extending Software Freedom Principles to Creative Works in the AI Era

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Dear Free Software Foundation,

We write to you as fellow advocates for user freedom, transparency, and the protection of fundamental rights in the digital age. The Free Software Foundation has been instrumental in articulating and defending the principles of software freedom for over three decades, establishing the philosophical and legal foundation for ethical technology development.

## The Palimpsest License: Freedom for Creative Expression

The **Palimpsest License** applies core free software principles—transparency, user control, and community governance—to creative works that face novel threats in the era of artificial intelligence and synthetic content generation. Whilst the FSF has rightfully focused on software freedom, we address the parallel challenges facing narrative creators, cultural heritage stewards, and artists whose works are increasingly consumed by opaque AI training systems.

## Core Principles Aligned with Software Freedom

### 1. Transparency and Disclosure
Just as the GPL requires source code disclosure, Palimpsest requires:
- **Explicit AI training consent** – Users must know when their creative works will be used to train generative AI systems
- **Synthetic lineage tags** – AI-generated derivatives must disclose their training sources
- **Metadata preservation** – Attribution and cultural context cannot be stripped (analogous to copyright notices in GPL code)

### 2. User Control and Autonomy
Mirroring the FSF's emphasis on user freedom, Palimpsest ensures:
- **Creator autonomy** over how works are used in AI training
- **Community governance** for collectively-owned cultural works (analogous to community-maintained FOSS projects)
- **Consent-based permissions** rather than assumed extraction rights

### 3. Protection Against Appropriation
Just as proprietary software appropriates user freedoms, AI systems often:
- Train on creative works without consent or compensation
- Strip cultural context from narratives
- Generate derivatives that erase emotional lineage

Palimpsest provides legal mechanisms to resist such appropriation whilst still enabling legitimate remix and adaptation.

### 4. Future-Proofing Through Quantum-Resistant Traceability
Recognising that technological capabilities evolve, Palimpsest implements:
- **Quantum-proof attribution mechanisms** to ensure traceability survives cryptographic advances
- **Adaptive governance** that allows the license to evolve with community input (similar to GPL version evolution)

## Legal Framework

The Palimpsest License operates under Dutch law (primary jurisdiction) with enforcement through Scottish courts, reflecting European legal standards. It is bilingual (Dutch and English) to ensure accessibility whilst maintaining legal precision.

Governance follows a transparent, community-driven model via the **Palimpsest Stewardship Council**, composed of creators, legal experts, technologists, and cultural advocates.

## Why This Matters to the Free Software Community

Many free software developers are also creative practitioners—musicians, writers, artists—who contribute to culture beyond code. Furthermore:

1. **Documentation and Educational Materials** – FOSS projects increasingly incorporate narrative documentation, tutorials, and community stories that deserve protection from AI extraction.

2. **Cultural Heritage in Code** – Many FOSS projects embody cultural values, community narratives, and symbolic meaning (e.g., project names, cultural references in code comments, community folklore).

3. **AI Training on Open Repositories** – Large language models are trained on public GitHub repositories, consuming not just code but commit messages, documentation, and community discussions—often without meaningful attribution.

4. **Generative AI and Software Freedom** – As AI-generated code becomes prevalent, questions of training data transparency and derivative attribution become critical to software freedom.

## Proposed Collaboration Opportunities

We would welcome FSF's perspective and potential collaboration in the following areas:

### 1. Copyleft Principles for Creative Works
Exploring how Palimpsest's "share-alike" provisions for emotional lineage parallel GPL's copyleft requirements, and whether there are opportunities for conceptual or technical alignment.

### 2. Metadata and Attribution Standards
Developing machine-readable standards for creative work attribution that could integrate with FOSS licensing metadata (e.g., SPDX compatibility).

### 3. AI Training Ethics
Collaborating on policy positions regarding AI training on openly-licensed works, balancing accessibility with creator consent and appropriate attribution.

### 4. Educational Resources
Creating joint resources that help FOSS communities understand licensing options for non-code creative contributions (documentation, artwork, community narratives).

### 5. Governance Models
Sharing insights on community-driven governance, drawing from FSF's decades of experience stewarding the GPL and free software definition.

## Invitation to Dialogue

We recognise that the FSF's primary mission concerns software freedom, and we do not propose to expand that scope. Rather, we seek FSF's wisdom as we apply parallel principles to adjacent domains, and we welcome opportunities to collaborate where our missions intersect.

Would you be available for a conversation regarding these themes? We are flexible regarding format and timing, and would be honoured to learn from your experience advocating for user freedom in complex technological landscapes.

## Contact Information

**Palimpsest Stewardship Council**
Email: [contact information to be provided]
Repository: https://github.com/[repository-path]
Documentation: [documentation URL]

Thank you for your consideration. The Free Software Foundation has demonstrated that principled licensing can protect fundamental freedoms whilst enabling vibrant collaboration. We aspire to extend those insights to the domain of creative expression in the age of artificial intelligence.

In solidarity for freedom and transparency,

**The Palimpsest Stewardship Council**

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## Appendices Available Upon Request

- Full text of Palimpsest License v0.4 (English and Dutch)
- Comparative analysis: GPL principles and Palimpsest protections
- Technical specifications for synthetic lineage tags
- Case studies: AI training consent and cultural heritage protection
- Governance framework documentation
