Vitalik: The Copyleft license can serve as a self-restraint mechanism to prevent projects from becoming closed-source in the future.

On April 16th, CoinFeed reported that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, responding to developer raulk's discussion about open-source licenses on the X platform, stated that the Copyleft license can serve as a strong self-restraint mechanism to prevent future versions of a project from becoming closed-source—unless the cost of a complete rewrite is borne, and even then, there may be legal risks associated with derivative works. Previously, raulk argued that in the era of AI agents and "vibe coding" (generating code through intuitive interaction with AI), the Copyleft license's ability to protect open-source code from closed-source exploitation is weakening, as attackers can bypass GPL obligations through LLM reverse engineering and reimplementation.