From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CBAA23D544; Sat, 7 Mar 2026 20:49:40 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1772916580; cv=none; b=IP8VaUMrZqASFbyK6sba15ZfZNaObiu9JomW0qMekc0Uy5pLwHGZZbW8q5OQKxNwrBk3oa0PTco75Su5PRZGl7li+yINGN1EL8qp/3FKfQnh0LP6ERd7gubOdMJQCGuKQqHyU3YJTLBrlePKpzRbFX7dX671+aKWaqRfA8p/qCg= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1772916580; c=relaxed/simple; bh=KVCw0l4YoUvUBcgfiwo1Q8YcmfmuN8TSOmPlXPwB6ns=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:Message-ID:MIME-Version; b=PJ4cemZBQbH5eVfWP82ZMAAgrhyGlvbjm60ALDSqUKfoRzhfdc5X0RrVsfifAsZ1/ln/sad20TuHV4yU6uvo/sbEpSruc3tPC3FCwj13WNVCW0Cj+/4D5w4rmFn1/s4R4lvEl3Go3/XvWl/FTfEEuXaXbf8ZijswyWBXnanRiz4= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=hP+wSEOM; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="hP+wSEOM" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 30E15C19422; Sat, 7 Mar 2026 20:49:38 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1772916580; bh=KVCw0l4YoUvUBcgfiwo1Q8YcmfmuN8TSOmPlXPwB6ns=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:From; b=hP+wSEOMrVpCHWt8koPMoeCki/BZfWLtrxoEDdzNtyeqqnxHWX00AHbLfho59Cv5I F2trlkeAO6NYDLtNz103rJEJAdu8napp0jJSPKasKWkxyMlPLTu4fNCfr5adqCa1vM aMzIwJWQqBbfuRfqG5wd84EWydeYlmuiwRH8yqfkyhT1L58/1Ssb9XQmPAtNso+zos HtvC7n+E0kMe/DQd7jmBXtA/pCsn2j4O9cb8dEjKrHAV9pd6lTizinfAs8KXvOS1IO i+mSA8XBqKm1ECm0Jdmyo/G5VBYlkht7MmccyOYBD7I/MIRZQwBYgjAsylPhzuJnM1 NgiMBTvcZnsGQ== From: Christian Brauner To: tech-board-discuss@lists.linux.dev Cc: Christian Brauner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org, christianvanbrauner@gmail.com Subject: LLM based rewrites Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2026 21:49:20 +0100 Message-ID: <20260307-clean-room-6118793eb175@brauner> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.47.3 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: tech-board-discuss@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Developer-Signature: v=1; a=openpgp-sha256; l=1373; i=brauner@kernel.org; h=from:subject:message-id; bh=lKZTz8iFNmdFIsWFiws8JZB605ODgdwLBPzCHX0Zl00=; b=owGbwMvMwCU28Zj0gdSKO4sYT6slMWSuMeT8tWkrv1FewdbPX0/U2NS8OO3+3kFh2fq1x7dx/ ywUU45c1VHKwiDGxSArpsji0G4SLrecp2KzUaYGzBxWJpAhDFycAjCRhT0M/yzWJfrF+TzkvXv8 dtJP8zJX1a93nlvYfet13rXyUni3xwSGf9qfzPUYou8/uF7yNJRN6cHiCiOG6z2v98utup/zL2u GDwsA X-Developer-Key: i=brauner@kernel.org; a=openpgp; fpr=4880B8C9BD0E5106FC070F4F7B3C391EFEA93624 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hey, I believe it is a rite of passage to at least once cause a shouting match with a non-technical topic. It seems increasingly viable to rewrite an entire codebase using an LLM and it currently looks like there's at least some examples as in [1] where people try to use an LLM based rewrite as a clean-room implementation to relicense the project. I think the FOSDEM talk at [2] is related to this as well. Maybe this is a "let's worry about it later" situation but I wonder whether this is something that the LF or TAB is actively following. I'm not asking for a legal analysis. I'm mostly looking for reassurance that we as the kernel community and our representatives have an eye on this. I find this quite worrisome. Fwiw, I was made aware that there's a tangentially related discussion on the distribution mailing list at [3]. Thanks! Christian Link: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327 [1] Link: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/releases/tag/7.0.0 [1] Link: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/SUVS7G-lets_end_open_source_together_with_this_one_simple_trick [2] Link: https://lore.kernel.org/a3f792e918674e208492a077679ae6ffc88ce0c9.camel@gentoo.org [3]