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

Dr. David Alan Gilbert
2025-07-30T16:40:56Z

* Steven Rostedt (rostedt@goodmis.org) wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jul 2025 16:34:28 +0100
> Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> > > Which looked like someone else (now Cc'd on this thread) took it public,

(I didn't know of the tab discussion)

> > > and I wanted to see where that ended. I didn't want to start another
> > > discussion when there's already two in progress.
> >
> > OK, but having a document like this is not in my view optional - we must
> > have a clear, stated policy and one which ideally makes plain that it's
> > opt-in and maintainers may choose not to take these patches.
>
> That sounds pretty much exactly as what I was stating in our meeting. That
> is, it is OK to submit a patch written with AI but you must disclose it. It
> is also the right of the Maintainer to refuse to take any patch that was
> written in AI. They may feel that they want someone who fully understands
> what that patch does, and AI can cloud the knowledge of that patch from the
> author.
>
> I guess a statement in submitting-patches.rst would suffice, or should it
> be a separate standalone document?

If it's separate I think it needs to have a link from submitting-patches.rst
to get people to read it.

To summarise some other things that came up between the threads:
a) I think there should be a standard syntax for stating it is
AI written; I'd suggested using a new tag, but others were
arguing on the side of reusing existing tags, which seems OK
if it is done in a standard way and doesn't confuse existing tools.

b) There's a whole spectrum of:
i) AI wrote the whole patch based on a vague requirement
ii) AI is in the editor and tab completes stuff
iii) AI suggests fixes/changes
which do you care about?

c) But then once you get stuff suggesting fixes/changes people were
wondering if you should specify other non-AI tools as well.
That might help reviewers who get bombed by a million patches
from some conventional tool.

d) Either way there needs to be emphasis that the 'Signed-off-by'
is a human declaring it's all legal and checked.

Dave

> -- Steve
>
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