Re: [PATCH RFC] coding-assistants: simplify attribution

[Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com>]

On Thu, Jul 02, 2026 at 03:26:58PM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 02, 2026 at 01:51:10PM +0200, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
> > On 7/2/26 12:04, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> > > (thanks for the cc-!)
> > > 
> > > On Thu, Jul 02, 2026 at 09:46:37AM +0200, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
> > >> On 7/2/26 09:27, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> I think we should just drop any attribution as a general kernel-wide
> > >>> rule and let subsystems require them as needed. Then you can have all
> > >>> the complexity in mm for this that you think is needed for your
> > >>> workflow to function. This is precisely what the subsystem profiles are
> > >>> for. So maybe just add:
> > > 
> > > A single comment is complexity?
> > 
> > I think Christian meant more elaborate rules. More than just "If you used LLMs,
> > disclose how you used them."
> 
> Yes.
> 
> I'm going to follow netdev and start dropping those tags from the
> changelog completely too. After speaking to some bpf maintainers they
> also don't use the tag. So I can safely assume that 3 large subsystems
> don't bother with it.
> 
> So seems to me that such requirements should just move into the
> subsystem profiles.
> 
> I think as a global policy this has ran its course.
> 
> > > And is it really that egregious to include a tag? You can ignore it if you don't
> > > care.
> > 
> > I hate the current tags as they are. The question I am asking myself: assume we
> > stop using the Assisted-by for LLM stuff. What to do with the other tools? Why
> > are LLMs suddenly no longer a tool to mention there.
> 
> Tbh, I think that's equally pointless. There are also very few instances
> of non-AI attribution with Assisted-by.
> 
> If the tool mattered to what was done significantly then it should just
> be disclosed in an appropriate paragraph in the commit message. The tag
> itself is imho equally useless for this. I really don't need to know
> that you used grep or git-sed or tcpdump and it certainly doesn't need
> to spam the trailers.

We've dealt with coccinelle-generated code changes for ages without
Assisted-by tags and without any issue. Submitters typically include the
semantic patch in the commit message, or just mentioned coccinelle was
used. I personally feel that the apparent generic scope of the
Assisted-by trailer tag, and the fact that this is documented in a file
named generated-content.rst, is an attempt to pretend generative AI is
"just another tool" comparable to coccinelle or checkpatch.

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart