Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add agent coding assistant configuration to Linux kernel

Jiri Kosina
2025-08-04T22:03:32Z

On Mon, 4 Aug 2025, Sasha Levin wrote:

> > The above guidance is quite vague. How me as a maintainer should know
> > that whatever AI tool has been used is meeting those two conditions
>
> In exactly the same way you know that a human contributor didn't copy
> code with an incompatible license.
>
> Quoting from Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst :
>
> - Signed-off-by: this is a developer's certification that he or
> she has the right to submit the patch for inclusion into the
> kernel. It is an agreement to the Developer's Certificate of
> Origin, the full text of which can be found in
> :ref:`Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
> <submittingpatches>` Code without a proper signoff cannot be
> merged into the mainline.
>
> The Signed-off-by tag doesn't mean that a commit was reviewed, it
> doesn't mean that someone tested it, nor does it indicate that the
> person who signed off belives it is correct.
>
> It only means that the person has legally certified to you what is
> stated in the DCO.

Al made a very important point somewhere earlier in this thread.

The most important (from the code quality POV) thing is -- is there a
person that understands the patch enough to be able to answer questions
(coming from some other human -- most likely reviewer/maintainer)?

That's not something that'd be reflected in DCO, but it's very important
fact for the maintainer's decision process.

--
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs