From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from perceval.ideasonboard.com (perceval.ideasonboard.com [213.167.242.64]) (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 1694B3B6BF4 for ; Tue, 21 Jul 2026 23:15:43 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=213.167.242.64 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1784675745; cv=none; b=JGP01gGcSmldWuAE6ycE2acmz8RDJhTLzNiPSxpE0z8QUCGWkjTYxX0ajWpvDBt+I48zJP8WUWWXZHrJlSo0mhjzLmWvk4/BMUBvUuriOBgkLMiIzB3bwXQ4O69mtsMhcQY7ZV/mdE7neD0KMlhrxiUEwcJe3n9fG3VHdPdTl5Q= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1784675745; c=relaxed/simple; bh=62FeqDMKz96xIELdXHsjvQUJgli63PEn1Ozc0gxejKQ=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=Grb7V+dY5/ocIRQH5JdvMxYR6FwLsDopK8VOBPG6PHDau9XvQFkpH/ANxNXqkc2442FbZhED/+9Xr/q4yuFEbEHaVYjf5wGBLWRi/57ckfQcwXFy7zhJWQet8Np186cBnDlycOHVD2OBi9z2Tx3djNO8IVj5vewz55GUzD5lv/g= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=ideasonboard.com; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=ideasonboard.com; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=ideasonboard.com header.i=@ideasonboard.com header.b=SQguYZFz; arc=none smtp.client-ip=213.167.242.64 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=ideasonboard.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=ideasonboard.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=ideasonboard.com header.i=@ideasonboard.com header.b="SQguYZFz" Received: from killaraus.ideasonboard.com (2001-14ba-70f3-e800--a06.rev.dnainternet.fi [IPv6:2001:14ba:70f3:e800::a06]) by perceval.ideasonboard.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 64D1ADF3; Wed, 22 Jul 2026 01:14:42 +0200 (CEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=ideasonboard.com; s=mail; t=1784675682; bh=62FeqDMKz96xIELdXHsjvQUJgli63PEn1Ozc0gxejKQ=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=SQguYZFzMDMVaYv3DW8OeH2xuynzoLeh3u5mmzAB/4OG8vQl0A36s606D9iAQ2LC9 wnOrib/Jx9CFw8n6OV+Kic/Yyqa0pN3NuZvoB1ADl3oivfe/rpR6vp/TWlodnWtTl0 Qyp2z9QBHYSgzJQZzK+eBJchw+AW2+8JG7vtC8zM= Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2026 02:15:40 +0300 From: Laurent Pinchart To: Sasha Levin Cc: Mark Brown , Jonathan Corbet , ksummit@lists.linux.dev Subject: Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Other LLM-related topics - tags, newcomers, etc Message-ID: <20260721231540.GJ536385@killaraus.ideasonboard.com> References: <87wluv7yzc.fsf@trenco.lwn.net> <20260716203810.GF1735001@killaraus.ideasonboard.com> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Hi Sasha, On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:09:56AM -0400, Sasha Levin wrote: > On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 11:38:10PM +0300, Laurent Pinchart wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 12:24:45PM -0400, Sasha Levin wrote: > >> On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 05:08:40PM +0100, Mark Brown wrote: > >> >On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 11:28:25AM -0400, Sasha Levin wrote: > >> >> On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 09:09:27AM -0600, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > >> > > >> >> > - There are many first-time contributors coming in with LLM-generated > >> >> > patches. At times, I could swear that every one of them is focused on > >> > > >> >> > Our maintainers are not scaling to handle this new flood, and I fear we > >> >> > are going to see some unfortunate things merged. One LLM-driven newcomer > >> >> > recently nearly succeeded in establishing himself as the maintainer of > >> >> > lib/. How do we hold the line against this stuff while remaining open to > >> >> > new developers? > >> > > >> >> Shouldn't it be a merits question rather than a tools question? > >> > > >> >> If the commits are correct, does it matter if they were written with an LLM? we > >> >> can insist more on supplying tests and demonstrating correctness, something we > >> >> seem to be doing quite rarely right now. > >> > > >> > The issue (which a number of projects are facing) is as much one of > >> > volume as anything else, the code generation machines are enabling the > >> > generation and submision of volumes of code where things were previously > >> > constrained by human factors. It can turn into a bit of a DoS. I don't > >> > have any particularly bright ideas here but it's definitely a thing. > >> > >> Sure, we're seeing quite the increase in patch submissions, but I'm trying to > >> argue that the issue isn't a new one: lack of maintainers, trusted reviewers, > >> and maintainer burnout has been a topic at each kernel summit for as long as I > >> can remember. AI just kicks it up a notch. > >> > >> My concern is that if we focus on the AI aspect, we still won't be solving the > >> underlying issue. > >> > >> I'm hoping we can figure out how to get maintainers great tooling, testing, and > >> community, rather than figuring out how to block a developer who uses LLM. > >> Maybe AI would actually be a great catalyst for that as well? > > > > Didn't you argue in another part of this thread that we're in no danger > > of being depending on AI for our processes ? I see a contradiction here. > > Hey Laurent, > > Not sure I follow here. I may have misunderstood you. I thought you meant developing LLM-based tools, but re-reading your comment I think you may have meant using generative AI to develop tools. > My thinking was that trying to improve our processes and tooling has been a > topic for the past decade or two. One of the times we discussed it was the 2019 > maintainer's summit (https://lwn.net/Articles/799134/) where we decided to > create the workflows@ mailing list to share our tooling and workflows. Not much > of that has been happening :) > > In the past year or two I was able to rewrite most of my ugly scripts, automate > so many of the processes I used to do manually, and just improve so many > quality of life items thanks to AI. Look even at the CVE process that was > created last year: so much of the infrastructure used to drive it was created > with AI. > > Now, if AI suddenly goes away tomorrow it'll suck for me, but I'll just go back > to writing my tools manually like I did before. I don't think that I somehow > became "dependant" on it. My concerns is largely about using generative AI to automate daily tasks. Increase such usage will cause a dependence, and the withdrawal will hurt the more usage grows. -- Regards, Laurent Pinchart