chardet
The most recommended of 3 unicode libraries
Python library for detecting text encodings, praised for a faster AI-assisted rewrite under MIT. Critics say the relicensing was legally questionable and the rewrite was rushed and regression-prone.
Python library for detecting text encodings, praised for a faster AI-assisted rewrite under MIT. Critics say the relicensing was legally questionable and the rewrite was rushed and regression-prone.
28 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 21
- approval share
- 25%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Faster than the original
“the chardet rewrite seems to be clearly superior to the original in performance too”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite” “the AI result working from specs and tests was more performant than the original”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “AI and the Ship of Theseus” Clean-room rewrite under MIT
“went way out of his way to produce a zero-reuse, ground-up reimplementation so that it could be MIT licensed”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Malus – Clean Room as a Service” “he did the right thing to maximise the utility of the project”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project” Strong results overall
“the AI result working from specs and tests was more performant than the original”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “AI and the Ship of Theseus” “It seems like they did achieve great results with this one.”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “A curated list of AI slops”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Relicensing seen as legally irresponsible
“considering the way in which the relicensing took place, the controversy, and the implications on software licences in general”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite” “the current state is that they've done so and are ignoring people telling them they cannot”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Malus – Clean Room as a Service” “morally you don't rewrite someone else's project with the same package name”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project” - Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite”
- Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft”
- Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “AI and the Destruction of the Creative Commons”
Clean-room claim disputed
“The “same name” part to me feels somewhat disingenuous.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite” “It clearly wasn’t a clean room reimplementation.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Relicensing with AI-Assisted Rewrite” “The README has clearly been touched by an LLM.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project” Regressions, unverified code, failed CI
“Given the amount of changes I seriously doubt that this re-implementation has been reviewed properly”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project” “tons of projects that depend on the "chardet" now drag in some crappy still unverified AI slop”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project” “it was in reality a lot slower than the 6.0, and he's still digging through regression bugs”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “The West Forgot How to Make Things. Now It's Forgetting How to Code” - Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project”
- Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “AI and the Ship of Theseus”
Huge rewrite rushed without review
“Given the amount of changes I seriously doubt that this re-implementation has been reviewed properly”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project” “Half a million lines of code have been deleted and replaced over the course of four days”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “No right to relicense this project”
Other unicode libraries people recommend
The two most recommended other unicode libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| chardetThis page | 7 | 21 | 25% | 1 | — | — |
| ICU library | 5 | 1 | 83% | 3 | — | — |
| Mojibake Unicode library | 5 | 1 | 83% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
26 of the 29 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Chardet has been relicensed in a hostile manner as well”
“watch everyone who cheered on the non-GPL chardet (plus regulators) squirm”
“it was in reality a lot slower than the 6.0, and he's still digging through regression bugs”
“It seems like they did achieve great results with this one.”
“went way out of his way to produce a zero-reuse, ground-up reimplementation so that it could be MIT licensed”
“the current state is that they've done so and are ignoring people telling them they cannot”
“The chardet debacle is probably one of the most recent and egregious.”
“That's a weird statement while releasing the new version of the same project.”
“chardet v7 is GPL-derived work (currently in clear violation of the GPL)”
“considering the way in which the relicensing took place, the controversy, and the implications on software licences in general”
“the AI result working from specs and tests was more performant than the original”
“introduced an unacceptable amount of risk to whoever uses the library going forward”
“It clearly wasn’t a clean room reimplementation.”
“he did the right thing to maximise the utility of the project”
“Given the amount of changes I seriously doubt that this re-implementation has been reviewed properly”
“morally you don't rewrite someone else's project with the same package name”
“using chardet is a sign of an issue and low craftmanship”
“the outputs, even if correctly deduced, are often incompatible”
“They didn't even bother to make sure the CI passed on merging a major version release”
“you probably should have just used chardet and respected its license”
“Half a million lines of code have been deleted and replaced over the course of four days”
“What the chardet maintainers have done here is legally very irresponsible.”
“The “same name” part to me feels somewhat disingenuous.”
“tons of projects that depend on the "chardet" now drag in some crappy still unverified AI slop”
“The README has clearly been touched by an LLM.”
“the chardet rewrite seems to be clearly superior to the original in performance too”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.