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

Michal Hocko
2025-08-04T09:23:23Z

On Mon 28-07-25 09:05:37, Sasha Levin wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2025 at 12:47:55PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > We cannot keep complaining about maintainer overload and, at the same
> > time, encourage people to bombard us with even more of that stuff.
> >
> > Clearly flagging stuff as AI-generated can maybe help. But really, what
> > we need is a proper AI policy. I think QEMU did a good job (again, maybe
> > too strict, not sure).
>
> So I've sent this series because I thought it's a parallel effort to the
> effort of creating an "AI Policy".
>
> Right now we already (implicitly) have a policy as far as these
> contributions go, based on
> https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/generative-ai and the lack of
> other guidelines in our codebase, we effectively welcome AI generated
> contributions without any other requirements beyond the ones that affect
> a regular human.
>
> This series of patches attempts to clarify that point to AI: it has to
> follow the same requirements and rules that humans do.

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

: 1. Contributors should ensure that the terms and conditions of the
: generative AI tool do not place any contractual restrictions on how the
: tool’s output can be used that are inconsistent with the project’s open
: source software license, the project’s intellectual property policies,
: or the Open Source Definition.
:
: 2. If any pre-existing copyrighted materials (including pre-existing
: open source code) authored or owned by third parties are included in the
: AI tool’s output, prior to contributing such output to the project, the
: Contributor should confirm that they have have permission from the third
: party owners–such as the form of an open source license or public domain
: declaration that complies with the project’s licensing policies–to use
: and modify such pre-existing materials and contribute them to the
: project. Additionally, the contributor should provide notice and
: attribution of such third party rights, along with information about the
: applicable license terms, with their contribution.

Is that my responsibility?
--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs