Re: [PATCH] Documentation: remove the requirement for LLM attribution

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

On Tue, Jul 07, 2026 at 03:28:49PM +0200, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
> On 7/7/26 14:40, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 07, 2026 at 11:49:31AM +0200, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
> >> On 7/7/26 11:20, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I think the silence suggests nobody :)
> >>>
> >>> What we could do is send a patch to simply add a section on adding a comment
> >>> explaining _what_ used an LLM and strongly suggesting it would be helpful to do
> >>> so.
> >>>
> >>> That should hopefully be uncontroversial, then later (or alongside that?) we
> >>> could submit an RFC for making the language move to 'you MUST do this', as that
> >>> will probably be the more controversial bit.
> >>
> >> Maybe we should just spell out about which scenario we care about where we really
> >> expect the disclosure.
> >>
> >> Sure, it might be more controversial and we could have that in a separate patch.
> >>
> >> I was thinking of the following end result:
> >>
> >> diff --git a/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst b/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst
> >> index 899f4459c52d2..4c2ab4dfc6da7 100644
> >> --- a/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst
> >> +++ b/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst
> >> @@ -40,20 +40,37 @@ Attribution
> >>  ===========
> >>  
> >>  When AI tools contribute to kernel development, proper attribution
> >> -helps track the evolving role of AI in the development process.
> >> -Contributions should include an Assisted-by tag in the following format::
> >> +helps track the evolving role of AI in the development process. Further,
> >> +for reviewers and maintainers it is also crucially important to know how
> >> +AI tools were used.
> >>  
> >> -  Assisted-by: AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION [TOOL1] [TOOL2]
> >> +Contributions that used AI to generate significant portions of code,
> >> +comments, or patch descriptions must include an Assisted-by tag in the
> >> +following format::
> >>  
> >> -Where (preferred):
> >> +  Assisted-by: LLM # brief description of usage
> >> +
> >> +Or alternatively::
> >> +
> >> +  Assisted-by: AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION # brief description of usage
> > 
> > I would like to drop this one. As I understand, several people objected
> > to including the product name in the git history as it is just free
> > adverising, and nobody objected to dropping it.
> 
> Yeah. I mean, we could go the following direction (dropping the models and
> encouraging also a description of usage for other tools), but not sure how
> much pushback we will get:

I haven't heard anyone involved in this mail thread objecting to the
concepts you translated into sentences below, so I think it's worth a
try. Of course there may be objections from people who are not aware of
this very conversation.

> diff --git a/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst b/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst
> index 899f4459c52d2..a085a15d59990 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst
> @@ -40,20 +40,26 @@ Attribution
>  ===========
>  
>  When AI tools contribute to kernel development, proper attribution
> -helps track the evolving role of AI in the development process.
> -Contributions should include an Assisted-by tag in the following format::
> +helps track the evolving role of AI in the development process. Further,
> +for reviewers and maintainers it is also crucially important to know how
> +AI tools were used.
>  
> -  Assisted-by: AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION [TOOL1] [TOOL2]
> +Contributions that used AI to generate significant portions of code,
> +comments, or patch descriptions must include an Assisted-by tag in the
> +following format::
>  
> -Where:
> +  Assisted-by: LLM # mandatory brief description of usage
>  
> -* ``AGENT_NAME`` is the name of the AI tool or framework
> -* ``MODEL_VERSION`` is the specific model version used
> -* ``[TOOL1] [TOOL2]`` are optional specialized analysis tools used
> -  (e.g., coccinelle, sparse, smatch, clang-tidy)
> +Similarly, usage of other specialized analysis tools should be
> +indicated through an Assisted-by tag in the following format::
>  
> -Basic development tools (git, gcc, make, editors) should not be listed.
> +  Assisted-by: [TOOL1] [TOOL2] # optional brief description of usage
>  
> -Example::
> +Examples for ``[TOOL1] [TOOL2]`` are coccinelle, sparse, smatch, and
> +clang-tidy. Basic development tools (git, gcc, make, editors) should not
> +be listed.
>  
> -  Assisted-by: Claude:claude-3-opus coccinelle sparse
> +Examples::
> +
> +  Assisted-by: LLM # translate patch description
> +  Assisted-by: coccinelle # batch conversion with small manual fixups
> davhil01@e142025:~/git/linux$ 

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart