r/linux • u/MMORPGDev • 2d ago
Development Linux Kernel Developers Plan To Remove "Assisted-By" Tag Requirement For AI/LLM Usage
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Dropping-Assisted-By-Req94
u/Tellurio 2d ago
Offtopic: I wonder why the post about Linus Torvalds making kernel features with AI coding was removed a couple days ago. It feels like a relevant discussion to have these days so why remove it?
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u/AWonderingWizard 2d ago
Probably because this subreddit has been heavily AI skeptical until daddy Linus told us how to think.
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u/Kevin_Kofler 2d ago
Why don't you use his own term: dictator Linus?
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u/AWonderingWizard 2d ago
Because he's not really a dictator, we can fork. Let's give Linus the credit he is owed. Him and Stallman are both examples of taking certain dogmas to their absolutes. One is too idealistic and the other is too pragmatic. Linux has seen success for lots of reasons, and Linus has been a huge part of that.
AI is useful, but all Linus looks is the pragmatic side of AI and does a great deal of harm by ignoring all other sides. He tries to sidestep social responsibility, in my opinion.
His argument against GPLv3 is a great example of this. His laissez-faire attitude over hardware-software locks stems from his pragmatism- he develops software not hardware. This is sidestepping the social responsibility that comes with the power of heading one of the greatest FOSS institutions the world has ever seen.
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u/Indolent_Bard 2d ago
He knows that no companies would be using Linux on hardware if it was GPLV3. Considering how often companies contribute to the Linux kernel, we should be thankful for his pragmatism.
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u/AWonderingWizard 2d ago
Linux already drew many companies ire. Linux would be used if it were GPLv3, it just likely would not have been used in projects like Android (or it might have been and we would have had a more free Android). Because of Linus, we get to witness exactly why GPLv3 is necessary.
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u/thomas-rousseau 2d ago
Unfortunately, Linus's pragmatism seems to dominate the community as a whole at this point beyond any care for social responsibility or a commitment to libre software. Capital subsumes all in its path, after all
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u/Gugalcrom123 1d ago
Linus is not some sort of deity. Stallman does not like LLMs.
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u/WJMazepas 2d ago
Probably because generates a lot of pointless discussion
People that love AI will rejoice People that hate AI will complain People that dont love AI but uses at work will say "its a tool like any other"
Some people will comment that Linus was already a "vibe coder" because he asked for features and then a human would make that feature for him, and then he would review just like a feature made by a LLM
And then this would repeat forever
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u/fankin 2d ago
because it's a tabloid level conversation
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u/TampaPowers 2d ago
That gets a lot of upvotes so this sub now has a number of serial posters that just throw these posts up with sometimes even more clickbait titles than the original
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u/foolish_shrimp 2d ago
If AI is so good, why do they always want to hide that they’re using it.
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u/AngheloAlf 2d ago
Not to defend AI, but those can generate noise.
Also the human should be held responsible for the submitted patch, not the toaster
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u/teleprint-me 2d ago edited 2d ago
I expect to get downvoted for saying this, but I see this argument a lot.
To me, it makes sense to include the model that was used because it makes it easier to identify the source.
Some people view it as an advert, which I guess makes some sense.
I just view it as a reference label. Its basically just citing the model used.
Its like saying adding in authorship and references is just noise, which doesnt make sense to me. Obivously, a model cant own the code and the human author should accept responsibility.
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u/nonbinarybit 2d ago
Same. I keep the "co-authored by" byline, but add both model and instance information as well (if a Claude chooses their own name, that goes on the attribution line too). If AI wrote the bulk of the code but I pushed the commit, I still add attribution. If I wrote the code but had AI summarize the changes, I'll clarify that as well. It's a provenance thing, for me.
(Regardless of how one might feel about AI identity, it's much easier to find WHICH Claude was behind a commit if they have their own names, makes tracing code changes much easier if I can track down who was working on what.)
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u/Mornarben 2d ago
I agree completely — I’m gonna view huge chunks of Sonnet 4 code very differently from Opus 5.5, regardless of how genius the person steering is
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u/PixelatedGiant 2d ago
I just view it as a reference label. Its basically just citing the model used.
But what purpose does that serve? What can be done with that information?
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u/teleprint-me 2d ago edited 2d ago
What purpose does a reference serve? If you need a detailed rationale for why citations matter, I recommend the APA Style Guide Reference which details the importance of why. You can find a copy on archive.org.
Most models are trained on proprietary datasets, even if theyre open weight, and the LLM predicts the entropy based on an autoregressive algorithm. The output distribution is then sampled using a PRNG.
Setting a fixed seed alongside a lower temperature can reduce entropy and increase reproducibility.
You can - to a degree - replicate the outputs of the model if you know what inputs were used. The RL training creates a style bias which is easily identifiable and allows reproduction of the generated work.
This means the model will be biased toward the same predictions and will most likely reproduce similar enough outputs for the same algorithm even if the input and outputs slightly differ.
Providers are now baking in watermarking through the use of Googles SynthID which makes identification somewhat easier if the inference engine includes it which is likely if its a remote provider, even if its imperfect and error prone.
It matters because of licensing, liability, ownership, and reproduction and maintenance.
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u/PixelatedGiant 2d ago
What purpose does a reference serve? If you need a detailed rationale for why citations matter, I recommend the APA Style Guide Reference which details the importance of why. You can find a copy on archive.org.
It's not really a reference. You lack most of the settings and even if you did manage to reproduce the output you still don't know the logic behind it. It's not the same as looking up a quote in a book and reading the surrounding text for context.
It matters because of licensing, liability, ownership, and reproduction and maintenance.
The human who committed the code should be responsible. The model is irrelevant, even more so if they tweaked it after getting a response.
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u/teleprint-me 2d ago edited 2d ago
 The human who committed the code should be responsible.
Basically you agree with me here. I literally said this already.
 It's not really a reference. You lack most of the settings and even if you did manage to reproduce the output you still don't know the logic behind it. It's not the same as looking up a quote in a book and reading the surrounding text for context.
Not true. APA requires LLM disclosure and has an adapted format for this already.
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u/PixelatedGiant 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sorry I worded that badly. Attributing knowledge of something to a different author serves two purposes:
- The ability to refer back to sources for more knowledge. You can look up a quote and read the surrounding context or the entire book/paper/etc. itself.
- Giving credit and showing that the idea is not yours.
LLMs clearly can't fulfill point #1. You go back to the LLM, punch in all the aforementioned settings and reproduce the same result. But no new knowledge is gained, there's nothing more there. Then we have authorship or giving credit. But as we both agree, the human has to take responsibility for that anyway so it can't fulfill point #2 either.
I'm not arguing that ADA is insufficient, I'm arguing that the whole idea of attributing authorship of code to an LLM serves no purpose.
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u/halfwiteximus 2d ago
If I see something was assisted by "Gemini 3.8 Flash" I'm going to trust it less than one assisted by "Opus 5.5" or similar. Since there's such a wide capability gap, which one was used does matter.
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u/PixelatedGiant 2d ago
I'd say you should be just as suspicious of any code regardless of who or what wrote it. You also shouldn't expect people to have knowledge of how these models behave and have it color their perception of the code. The code should stand on its own. If anything I see what you just said as a negative and yet another reason to remove these tags.
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u/halfwiteximus 2d ago
That's a fair point. I suppose my point is that there's a practical difference between a contribution from "Joe Schmoe" and "Linus Torvalds". Personally I'd see a similar difference between different models. As you say though, we maybe shouldn't treat those contributions different, and instead evaluate on more objective factors like how critical the patch is, what it actually changed, and then we can use that to triage code review.
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u/Business_Reindeer910 2d ago
i think you covered it at the beginning.
:> suppose my point is that there's a practical difference between a contribution from "Joe Schmoe" and "Linus Torvalds".
There still is and this marker's effect hasn't changed.
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u/Mr_s3rius 2d ago
A lot of the time there isn't just one model involved.
In Claude, I tend to lay out plans with Opus and Sonnet to execute it. But that cheaper model has the ability to forward tricky questions to a more expensive model again. And then code review is run by yet a different agent. So that's two, three different models.
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u/ForDaLulz 2d ago
Yeah this exactly. I also often use different models to review stuff to get different perspectives (just as with different developers). The detailed tagging is just bloat without any real purpose imo
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u/frankster 2d ago
To me, it's just an advert for different companies. Realistically, 90% of software will have some assistance from an LLM, just as it does from a compiler, a static analyser, etc etc. Interesting they don't see gcc worthy of noting as an assisting tool, but that coccinnelle is worth mentioning!
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u/stylist-trend 2d ago
Agreed. I don't mind an "assisted by AI" tag or something, but I'm not a big fan of when it's like "Co-engineered by the latest ClaudeTM OpusTM 5.5"
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u/Epistaxis 2d ago
I think it actually is important to say which LLM version wrote the code. They have different "personalities", different capabilities (their users have strong opinions about these), and we may discover one of them has a specific habit that we really wish it wouldn't have (in the worst case maybe it's compromised and has been inserting backdoors or somesuch), so it could be helpful to be able to search for previous code written by that same LLM version.
This is one of the same reasons that a human coder signs off with a name, or at least a consistent pseudonym, instead of just
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u/stylist-trend 2d ago
I don't think any of this should matter if the code is properly reviewed by the human submitting it (if they expect kernel developers to read it, the least they should do is also read it themselves), and that the human takes responsibility for the code. From my understanding, the kernel doesn't mind when submissions use AI assistance, but purely unreviewed AI-coded slop shouldn't make it to the LKML.
Both humans and LLM based tools should be able to detect backdoors, and submissions shouldn't be so large that a backdoor could easily hide in it anyway. I get the worry, but I don't feel like these hypotheticals translate well into the real world.
Signing off with a name is that human taking responsibility, something an AI cannot do. I feel like that's different.
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u/inemsn 2d ago edited 2d ago
Interesting they don't see gcc worthy of noting as an assisting tool
Compilers are completely deterministic and have fixed outputs, the generation of which we completely understand, can audit, and trace.
Comparing a fucking LLM to gcc is possibly the dumbest attempt at an analogy that I've seen all day.
Edit: I will say, I do agree that it being an advert for different companies is bad. A general-purpose "LLM-assisted" flag rather than one that allows branding specification would probably be better.
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u/SinnohConfirmed 2d ago
This right here is the core reason why I personally don't like LLMs at a fundamental level. Pretty much all forms of automation pre-LLM were deterministic. Any decision that wasn't deterministic was made by the creator of the machine or the person using it. LLMs automate that kind of decision making. Even if LLMs were efficient enough to run on a netbook and made everything we want with no mistakes at all, I have a hunch that surrendering our minds to tech like this will send humanity down a dark path. It takes the soul out of creating something that no form of automation has before.
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u/frankster 2d ago
Mindless acceptance of automation doesn't require non deterninistic tools - consider accepting merge tools attempts to resolve conflicting merges, without reading the merge yourself...that's a practice almost as old as three way merges!
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u/SinnohConfirmed 2d ago
Very true. I often think about how when applying for a job online applicants will be filtered out by an LLM. Before the AI boom recruters would just enter a bunch of key words and if your resume didn't contain then then you would be rejected. This is definitely a deterministic way of doing it, but it is just as shitty. LLMs aren't making the situation any better though.
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u/FeepingCreature 2d ago
Tbh if it was a less mature language I could absolutely see compiler annotations. "Tested with gcc 6.5-amd64."
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u/frankster 2d ago
Cooking is a random process, yet we can tame the randomness to the extent that we are perfectly happy boiling an egg for 2 minutes even though we don't know precisely how the egg will turn out. 99% of the time the egg turns out fine. The error rate is important.
There are some tasks that llms will give you a perfectly good solution even though you don't know in advance what the solution will look like. There are other tasks that llms will do a shit job at.
This task could well generate a correct and adequate solution with no follow up prompting: "Write me a bubble sort algorithm that operates on this array sorting by the ABC attribute."
This task is unlikely to generate a correct solution: "write me a terraform config that defines X infrastructure using the latest version of a certain provider which has just undergone a major breaking change to the format."
Nonetheless, even in the second task, in conjunction with terraform validate, and some iteration, the llm agent may well end up at a correct solution.
Now let's look at deterministic tools such as static analysers, compiler error messages, etc.
Even though compiler error messages and static analysers might be deterministic, there is still a non-deterministic human interpreting the error message and coming up with a solution. I don't know about you, but I have come across some fucking shit efforts to get rid of compiler error messages.
I personally don't see much difference between a non deterministic human choosing how to solve a deterninistic compiler error/warning, and a non deterministic human choosing whether to accept or change a non deterministic solution generated by an llm.
Bad humans will make bad changes to the code, whether they use deterministic or non deterministic tools to assist them.
Gcc as a tool not only deterministically converts human readable code to machine code, but also is a component of a non deterninistic process that converts errors/warnings from its analysis into code changes.
And now I think it's important to reply to your comment at the same level:
Comparing a fucking LLM to gcc is possibly the dumbest attempt at an analogyÂ
No u r
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u/inemsn 2d ago
Mess up your cooking, you eat a bad meal. Mess up your kernel, you brick your machine. These are NOT comparable in any way, error isn't acceptable when developing a kernel.
AI bros are fucking incapable of coming up with a functioning analogy lol.
there is still a non-deterministic human interpreting the error message and coming up with a solution
That human is capable of rational thought and critical thinking, whereas an LLM is not and simply emulates what looks like a correct solution.
I personally don't see much difference between a non deterministic human choosing how to solve a deterninistic compiler error/warning, and a non deterministic human choosing whether to accept or change a non deterministic solution generated by an llm.
Then you don't understand LLMs.
Bad humans will make bad changes to the code, whether they use deterministic or non deterministic tools to assist them.
And knowing that said bad humans are using LLMs irresponsibly is yet another tool in maintainers' box to know that they aren't to be paid attention to.
but also is a component of a non deterninistic process that converts errors/warnings from its analysis into code changes.
This is only true if you tell it to do that.
So don't. Lol. No one does.
Every single AI addict replying to this is worse than the last.
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u/Focus089 2d ago
I would like to be informed of LLM usage so I can avoid patronizing that technology due to ethical considerations that I don't have for the other tools you mentioned. I would also accept a switch to "made-without-gen-ai" if the default assumption becomes that AI was used. I understand we are now in a sad reality where it will be impossible to totally avoid because, for example, it seems every OS is embracing it now - maybe I can pick the one using it the least. But for more optional things like entertainment I want to be informed.
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u/frankster 2d ago
I have zero tolerance for communicating with bots masquerading as humans, or humans acting as bots through usage of llms. But I think that's a different category of usage to thoughtful usage of llms that assist with tasks.
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u/MatchingTurret 2d ago edited 2d ago
When almost every commit goes through AI review with Sashiko, one could argue that every patch is at least partially "assisted by" AI. It's kind of like the CA Proposition 65 cancer warnings that became meaningless because now almost everything has a warning label.
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u/peakdecline 2d ago
What's the benefit of the tag? It seems to be it serves no purpose other than to be a lightning rod for ideological, rather than technical, discussions.
The merit of the code stands on its own. The responsibility of the code goes to the one who submitted it. I don't see any benefit to this tag.
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u/WaitForItTheMongols 2d ago
If the code is bad, it is useful to know whether it comes from novicehood or from AI - someone who submits bad code needs advice to fix it, and the nature of that advice is different depending on where the badness came from. If someone doesn't know what a semaphore is, they can learn, but if the code was AI to begin with and the person barely knows C at all, they're unlikely to be able to learn usefully so it is not worth wasting the effort trying to teach them.
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u/vkevlar 2d ago
We're still in the early stages, so I'd say it should keep the tag, to generate more scrutiny on generated code. This might also help pick out plagiarized sections, or copyrighted code that the AI is pasting in that would cause issues with licensing down the line, when we finally get some regulations on AI.
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u/ficiek 2d ago
Nobody is hiding anything, the policy is impossible to enforce and therefore pointless.
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u/foolish_shrimp 2d ago
It's also impossible to enforce child labour being used on the Linux kernel, but we can reasonably assume it isn't being used and if it was discovered that it had been, there would be consequences. 'People will just lie' is a bad argument, we assume a level of ethical integrity and basic decency from others.
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u/RangerNS 2d ago
can reasonably assume it isn't being used
Can we? I mean, without a
X-Child-Labour: Falsetag in the git signature, who is to say?2
u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC 1d ago
And yet the kernel maintainers refuse to add a child labour tag!
Why are they afraid of transparency? What are they hiding??
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u/Shap6 2d ago
equating the morality and legality of child labor to a developer using AI as a code assistant is wild. this is why we can't have normal discussions about this technology
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u/inemsn 2d ago
he didn't equate fucking any of that, he equated causality. that you don't see that and barge in here going all "wow this is wild, we can't have normal discussions" is literally the ACTUAL reason why we can't have normal discussions about this technology. fuckers like you will always come along with only bad faith on your minds.
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u/Shap6 2d ago
i understand it, i think it's a bad analogy that misrepresents the reality of what is being discussed here 🤷
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u/inemsn 2d ago
In both cases, something that we hypothetically want to ban or at least force the disclosure of may possibly be happening without said disclosure. Or to put it another way, a policy we want to enforce is impossible to enforce as it can be easily circumvented by just lying about whether or not you're respecting said policy. Given that your exact word for word point was "the policy is impossible to enforce and therefore pointless", it completely fits the bill.
The analogy isn't bad, you just don't want to listen to it.
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u/Nalivai 2d ago
It's possible that we can't have normal discussions because some of us don't understand how analogy works
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u/TribeWars 2d ago edited 2d ago
The analogy only works if linux kernel patches right now had a "no child labour used" field. If someone suggested adding it, the exact same arguments would apply to that change, i.e. almost everyone is already not using child labour and it's not reasonably possible to verify that they didn't.
Besides, a 15 year old landing a kernel patch would most likely be cherished as a prodigy programmer instead of being seen as an exploited child.
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u/somethingrelevant 2d ago
the linux kernel doesn't have that because you can confidently assume 100% of linux kernel submissions are not using child labour. there is no need for a label. if it came out that 30% of all submissions were made using child labour, it - well it wouldn't be labelled I assume, it'd be banned, but you see the point hopefully
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u/IncidentalIncidence 2d ago
the analogy doesn't work in the first place; assuming a basic level of ethical integrity isn't how we know child labor isn't being used on the linux kernel, we know that because it takes years of computer science education to contribute to the linux kernel and it isn't profitable to do. If it were a task that were easier for children to do and one that directly generated profit, then we would be worried about child labor, because it is a widespread problem in industries where that is the case.
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u/foolish_shrimp 2d ago
I didn't say it was equivalent. I am trying to make the point that plenty of things are 'impossible to enforce,' but are enforced.
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u/unknown_lamer 2d ago
It's kind of depressing how often this argument comes up. It implies that LLM users are inherently dishonest people who lack professional ethics. I would like to believe that most people don't turn into pathological liars just because they get access to a powerful text generation tool.
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u/Secret_Conclusion_93 2d ago
Shifting the responsibility back to human. back then we don't force user to declare that they copy pasted a solution from Stackoverflow either.
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u/Shap6 2d ago
Do they normally tag the other tools they use? Or does AI need special treatment for some reason?
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u/inemsn 2d ago
the AI is the only tool they use that is both non-deterministic and whose output is not often manually inspected and reviewed. So yes, obviously AI does need special treatment and this should be clear to anyone who does any of this.
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u/xeio87 2d ago
The code is deterministic, it's what's in the patch and what needs review.
There is no AI in the actual review.
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u/inemsn 2d ago
Alright, but the problem isn't the code, the problem is the person behind it. The maintainer to whom the patch was submitted is gonna review the code, and they were gonna do that anyways, but they also need to know who they actually ought to take seriously. Disclosing that you used AI is important because it makes it a lot easier for maintainers to realize if the person they're interacting with has a history of putting in sloppy, vibe coded, unreviewed (on their end) code that they don't even understand. And when you're a maintainer of the linux kernel, it's kinda important to know which people are only there to waste your time.
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u/xeio87 2d ago
Disclosing that you used AI is important because it makes it a lot easier for maintainers to realize if the person they're interacting with has a history of putting in sloppy, vibe coded, unreviewed (on their end) code that they don't even understand.Â
I guess Linus has a history of putting in "sloppy, vide coded, unreviewed code" he doesn't understand now. 🤡
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u/Candid_Highlight_116 2d ago
pre-LLM AIs are used for generating FPGA binaries I think. lots of optimization techniques are technically derived from AI researches, just not the controversial developments thereof
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u/ZorbaTHut 2d ago
The same reason we don't force people to publicly post thousands of minor details of how their company is run. If it's irrelevant, then mandating disclosure is just bureaucratic noise.
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u/Nalivai 2d ago
If part of their company operational procedure is "and then we outsource our job to a slave mine in Cambodia and when it gets back we stamp our logo on it and sell you with markup" we kind of famously force people to disclose it.
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u/ZorbaTHut 2d ago
And if part of the company operational procedure is "we use a table saw instead of a miter saw" then we don't.
I think burden is on you to prove that "using one computer program instead of a different computer program" is equivalent to slave labor.
(All companies mark things up, though - that's where the profit comes from.)
. . . but, also,
we kind of famously force people to disclose it.
No? We don't?
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u/Nalivai 2d ago
There is a number of big differences between this specific computer program and a lot of the rest that we were using before that. We can't simultaneously treat it as this new big magical agent that everyone should use forever and ever, and just another type of a saw. And it's not how it's treated.
No? We don't?
America, I assume? You don't? That will explain a lot, yeah.
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u/ZorbaTHut 2d ago
There is a number of big differences between this specific computer program and a lot of the rest that we were using before that. We can't simultaneously treat it as this new big magical agent that everyone should use forever and ever, and just another type of a saw.
Sure; we can treat it like a CNC machine, or the invention of the mechanical loom. A marvelous new invention that dramatically improves what we can do but which still does not require disclosure.
If you're claiming it should require disclosure then I think you have to explain why, because I don't believe it's obvious.
America, I assume? You don't? That will explain a lot, yeah.
Yes, like all other countries on this planet, America does not.
As far as I know, there's a few countries (plus California) that make cursory attempts at this, but I'm gonna emphasize "cursory" here; they don't actually do what you're claiming they do.
If you think there's an exception I would be interested in hearing it.
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u/RamaAnthony 2d ago
The entire usage of AI/LLM (even for coding) and normalization of its business model within Linux ecosystem (by using it and even removing disclosure tags) seems to be anti-thethical to FOSS principles but what do I know.
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u/Zaphoidx 2d ago
How?
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u/foolish_shrimp 2d ago
Firstly AI is built from copyright theft, FOSS is generally very avoidant of copyright theft, the idea is generally to allow people to decide what something they created is used for.
Secondly, the end goal for AI companies is to sit between you and everything you need to do, like uber do with taxis or door dash with deliveries, but for every single interaction you have with the outside world. The subscription fee and user penetration these companies are aiming for, it's genuinely horrifying. We should not be indirectly supporting a world where you pay openAI $2000+ a month to live in a frictionless AI vacuum.
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u/emuboy85 2d ago
We have been making open clones of closed sources for decades, sometimes infringing patents, does that count as well ?
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u/ozone6587 2d ago
Firstly AI is built from copyright theft
Not according to all judges that have sided with the AI companies in court. This argument literally always loses. Everyone wants to act like an arm-chair lawyer but as soon as I point out JUDGES don't agree with technophobic redditors I hear crickets.
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u/RancidVagYogurt1776 2d ago
First of all are you somehow under the impression that judges always get it right? Judge after judge upheld Marijuana laws and convictions for decades, and now it's legal in most of the US. So hows that work? For the longest time the law was that my people weren't even considered human. Judges siding with AI companies doesn't mean they're right.
Secondly, being anti AI is not technophobic and no amount of saying that is going to make it a thing. Fetch isn't going to happen. ;) It's funny because I have DECADES in tech fields, I understand the technology better than most, and to me people like you who blindly shill it and pretend that it isn't built on theft are about on par with people who heavily backed NFTs.
Do you know why AI companies recently all talked about slowing development and cited safety? Because they can't turn a profit because the tech doesn't do virtually any of the things promised. It's only really good at things like coding that are very rigid and well documented because the models devoured all of the documentation. AI can't learn or innovate so without human knowledge to consume innovation stops. You know what that's called? A dead end.
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u/saltyjohnson 2d ago edited 2d ago
First of all are you somehow under the impression that judges always get it right? Judge after judge upheld Marijuana laws and convictions for decades, and now it's legal in most of the US.
I agree with you, but this is a bad example. Judges don't make the law (well, it's complicated\). They apply it to render judgements on whether somebody violated the law. The law was one way. Now the law has been changed by the legislature and it's a different way. Judges don't have egg on their face because they applied the law how it was at the time of their judgement lol
But again I agree with your overall position.
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u/underisk 2d ago
because the models devoured all of the documentation
More than that, they devoured basically all publicly available code regardless of its license. Then people seem amazed that it can reproduce a flawed, lesser version of that code on demand. It’s barely veiled theft.
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u/ozone6587 2d ago
First of all are you somehow under the impression that judges always get it right?
I love how it always comes down to the justice system being imperfect. You know, I agree. But at the same time it is hypocritical and ignorant as fuck to claim training LLMs is a copyright violation when the courts do not support that.
Secondly, being anti AI is not technophobic and no amount of saying that is going to make it a thing.
No amount of denial changes the definition of words. It is technophobic regardless of what you claim.
Do you know why AI companies recently all talked about slowing development and cited safety? Because they can't turn a profit because the tech doesn't do virtually any of the things promised.
Amazing how it's proving mathematical results left and right but it's not behaving as promised. All you have is a conspiracy theory about the slow-down rather than looking at the Hugging Face incident as evidence. We are not arguing at the same level here. I don't argue with conspiracy theorists.
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u/the-jelly47 2d ago
The majority of regular Linux contributors are corporate SWEs directly employed by tech companies to work on the Linux system to benefit the companies themselves. Many others are indirectly funded by tech companies through nonprofits. FOSS fundamentalists tend to ignore this fact. The core of the Linux ecosystem is driven by, funded by, and developed for tech companies.
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u/Hug_The_NSA 2d ago
In what way?Â
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u/aeropl3b 2d ago
These models are trained on licensed content, and then do not attribute or appropriately generated content that is extracted from training sources. This is antithetical to the entire FOSS model.
By promoting the usage of AI and dropping the attribution requirement to note when a human is likely deferring most/all of the decisions to an automaton known to be derived from IP theft is basically saying we can all be done with the principles that make FOSS work. It is antithetical to the mission of open and trust built communities around technology when the new accepted premise is others can simply steal your work and repackage it and then sell it for millions with zero attribution to the original authors.
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u/Darq_At 2d ago
These models are trained on licensed content, and then do not attribute or appropriately generated content that is extracted from training sources. This is antithetical to the entire FOSS model.
Welcome to the Free Software movement, friend.
I have a ton of respect for OSS, but it's always been about short-to-medium term gains in terms of software quality, rather than actual freedom. Philosophically and ethically, Free Software is, was, and always has been the better approach.
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u/Hug_The_NSA 2d ago
Here's something I've thought about a lot lately. The ai "stealing" from licensed content in your analogy doesn't really translate well. It isn't just copying and pasting licensed code into FOSS projects, at least not typically. It is more like derivative work. For example when Microsoft (or any paid developer) employees make contributions to FOSS software, they can't possibly seperate all their coding experience from work either. I don't see how it's fundamentally different. Like if I make a painting inspired by a book I read, how is that different than ai making a painting set in a book universe? Why is the ai stealing and I'm not?Â
I'm not trying to be super pro ai here, but to me ai generated content seems more like derivative work than theft.Â
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u/cakemates 2d ago
I dont care either way, but whats wrong with the assisted by? I use it to contribute and dont mind the label. And the dev should own the code regardless.
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u/ContraryConman 2d ago
The only argument I can see in favor of this is that it serves as advertisement for specific AI companies. In a year, OpenAI and Anthropic will be able to point to the kernel's commit history and say X% of Linux kernel source code changes are written by our product
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u/astrobe 2d ago
If you follow the link to the mailing list, the core of the problem is that they can be overwhelmed with AI-generated PRs, with only 2-3 persons doing the triage. That tag was supposed to make it easier for the reviewers to reject the "low-effort" LLM-written PRs. But obviously, people can just lie about it, so they're back to square one after all.
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u/TampaPowers 2d ago
Only thing I can think of right now is that perhaps they want to avoid accusations of ai slop thrown at devs that use it responsibly, because most people will just read that label instead of checking whether the code is actually good.
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u/glowtape 2d ago
Meh, AI use should be attributed, so if things fuck up, and eventually keep fucking up, one can do root cause analysis.
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u/KnowZeroX 2d ago
I have a feeling they are removing it for legal reasons, it has already been ruled in some jurisdictions that things made by AI can't be copyrighted. So then comes the question, can you legally apply a license to AI made stuff?
By removing it, they can avoid the legal issue of licensing.
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u/stonerism 2d ago
This seems like the most plausible reason. AI llm usage should be auditable with the model or models used. It seems implausible now, but it might become relevant to know what models have been touching which code.
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u/aeropl3b 2d ago
Imo, all of these labels and disclosures are entirely up to the developer regardless of the policy. It comes down to trust by the maintainers doing the reviews and planning projects.
As a FOSS project maintainer myself, I look at PRs and if they make sense and the author can explain/fix things competently I will engage. If not, I just close their PR and move on.
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u/0riginal-Syn 2d ago
Absolutely. If you are a good maintainer, the addition or subtraction of "assisted by" labels mean little.
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u/Booty_Bumping 2d ago
In practice, AI attribution does two things:
- Serves as an excuse for unreviewed crap
- Advertises the AI vendor's product, giving free publicity to companies with all sorts of ethical problems
Banning it makes perfect sense.
Do you cite your IDE's autocompletion? You probably only do that when it fucks up and ruins your day.
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u/Fuzy-78 2d ago
Torvalds is just giving up, let AI and the devs push slop and hide it. Keep your old kernels, kids.
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u/liright 2d ago
Surely, a random redditor has more expertise on the state of the linux kernel development and the state of frontier AI systems than the literal kernel developers and the guy who made Linux.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 2d ago
Alright everyone stop having independent thoughts and just uncritically accept whatever your betters tell you.
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u/Ancient-Access8131 15h ago
Ah yes reddit, the famous bastion of independent thought.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 15h ago
You're right, it's not, that's why so many people are cucking themselves in this thread and just deferring to what The Lord says on the topic instead of thinking for themselves.
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u/Nervous_Seesaw6179 1d ago
lmao that thing is gonna look like bun's rust rewrite github here in a bit 😆😆
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u/Otherwise_Wave9374 6h ago
Removing a dedicated tag can be reasonable if responsibility remains with the human author, but maintainers still need enough context to review unusual or mechanically generated changes. A practical compromise is to document material AI assistance in the cover letter when it affects design or testing, without adding permanent commit metadata for every autocomplete. Tests and rationale should remain mandatory. https://www.aiosnow.com is relevant because mature AI workflows depend on auditable human checkpoints, not merely disclosure labels.
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u/Scoutron 2d ago
This comment section is insufferable. Filled with people who don’t know what they’re talking about offering their opinions or threatening to switch off Linux (good luck finding that alternative lol)
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u/SoilMassive6850 2d ago
Maybe because its a consensus being made behind closed doors and not elaborated in the mailing list, what changed? What about "you can just ignore the contribution" means that attributing LLM changes doesn't have value and what harm is there?
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u/weaklingoverlord 2d ago
Kinda off-topic: dunno how I feel about AI usage in general and the ethical, environmental, societal, etc impact. Sure there are benefits, but I just dunno... I suppose it will later on be just like e.g the slave labor used in the manufacturing of our electronic goodies where it's just accepted?
I hope things work out ok for all involved.
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u/Willybrown93 1d ago
Oh boy! Now we don't even get to know when the stealing machine has been used! Cool! The people here all clearly really care about the moral integrity of FOSS for sure :))
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u/Most_Strike_93 2d ago
If you want to break the ceiling, then they will start to talk about opening the windows?
Sorry, let me rethink about it.
Now it is Linux has already open the windows for them, but they want to break the ceiling further?
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u/MorallyDeplorable 2d ago
cool I never credited gcc or vi either so it just makes sense
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u/Nalivai 2d ago
By this logic I shouldn't disclose that I outsourced my work to an Indian bodyshop and then just did a lazy review.
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u/MorallyDeplorable 2d ago
Bro quit following me from thread to thread because I pointed out you didn't know what a compiler was
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u/UnrealHallucinator 2d ago
Its probably so developers are forced to take more ownership of their patches and not offer excuses