r/linux • u/MMORPGDev • 19h 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-Req
513 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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431

u/UnrealHallucinator 19h ago

Its probably so developers are forced to take more ownership of their patches and not offer excuses

128

u/Shap6 19h ago

As it should be

62

u/BatemansChainsaw 16h ago

The reduction in transparency is the problem here.

7

u/fankin 14h ago

what tramsparency? the developer takes ovnership, what more you want?

23

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 13h ago

The developer to take ownership for using AI.

5

u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 11h ago

I hate AI but it's too late. People are misusing it everywhere. The brutalist path forward is making them accountable for it under their own name instead of making excuses.

0

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 8h ago

They can make excuses anyway and making the AI contribution a secret does literally nothing to change that.

I don't hate AI, my favorite/most-used app uses AI assistance. I respect that the developer is transparent about it. I trust the developer more because they are transparent.

Developers who keep AI usage a secret are untrustworthy. Developers who need to keep secrets are bad developers.

9

u/OliM9696 12h ago

Shit code is still gonna be called out

1

u/Legitimate-Store3771 2h ago

They are, that's the point. If I see Kevin made a change and I can trace a bug bag to him and document that, and I can see that in the last 2 months Kevin has made more bugs than anyone, Kevin is getting a talking to whether he's using AI or not.

2

u/mort96 12h ago

Transparency

54

u/zabby39103 17h ago

Reducing information reduces your ability to assess a situation. This is the equivalent of turning logging off.

28

u/cornmonger_ 16h ago

a maintainer doesn't care about the "situation"

commits either meet acceptance criteria or they do not

8

u/mort96 12h ago

And an important criteria is, "how well does the contributor understand the code they're contributing?"

7

u/Secret_Conclusion_93 12h ago

Nope, the criteria is the code themself, and following proper procedure.

-6

u/mort96 12h ago

Is that really for you to decide?

4

u/Leliana403 12h ago

And an important criteria is, "how well does the contributor understand the code they're contributing?" 

Is that really for you to decide?

0

u/mort96 12h ago

Well I happen to think it's an important criteria. But no, it's not for me to decide, it's for the maintainer of any given subsystem to decide.

0

u/Leliana403 12h ago

Well maybe the other person happens to think 

the criteria is the code themself, and following proper procedure. 

Why is your opinion any more valid than theirs?

4

u/0riginal-Syn 12h ago

It is more about the code being submitted and how well the maintainer can understand it. In the end the code has to work and be maintainable. If there are questions, then we ask the contributor to explain. This is regardless if the submission was "AI submitted". I have seen some down right terrible code submissions by developers not using LLM. I am not saying I am for LLM at all. I am for good maintainable code.

1

u/Tomi97_origin 5h ago

Nope. The contributer may never contribute again. They aren't signing up to maintain this code in the future, so their understanding doesn't really matter all that much.

What matters is if the code works and how well the maintainer can understand the code.

-2

u/cornmonger_ 12h ago

nope. that's not acceptance criteria

17

u/UnrealHallucinator 15h ago

Hardly. A lot of senior linux developers don't even put in the name anymore it's literally just "assisted by: llm". There's no real information. Removing the tag makes it so that now people are wholly and solely responsible, there's no off loading responsibility saying "claude misled me" or whatever. It's also just bloat.

1

u/Most_Strike_93 10h ago

I see, reasonable. I also hate when the commit messages has the bot emails. Maybe it is not a bad thing

1

u/UnrealHallucinator 9h ago

Do you mean sashiko?

1

u/Most_Strike_93 9h ago

Sorry, what sashiko is? If you mean the sign co-authored by , yes. I also do not like it if the contributors contribute the pr with me with the emails of robots, I just think they do not understand this context and won't take responsibility for it. So I think your explanation is reasonable for me. I also have thought about that. But I also view this kind of thing as the sign LLM party has gone further. I do not know if I like this change or not

•

u/UnrealHallucinator 21m ago

Nah I misunderstood what you meant. Sashiko is the ai that reviews each patch submitted and pre informs you about potential problems.

•

u/UnrealHallucinator 14m ago

About llms: yeah it's gone quite far but the party isn't ending.

17

u/redcorerobot 16h ago

Its not relevant information and its not enforcable. If the code submitted is bad the person submitting it did a bad job. The tools they used to do a bad job dont really make a difference in that calculation

14

u/gurgelblaster 16h ago

It is absolutely relevant information, not least for long-term evaluations of future use.

2

u/Hithaeglir 14h ago

How? The only question is the copyright since nobody knows that. If the code sucks, the developer is responsible and on repeated slop, maybe prevent contributions for a while. Slop should hit the developer's reputation.

1

u/gurgelblaster 13h ago

It will, yes, but should also hit the tool, for damaging good developers.

1

u/Hithaeglir 13h ago

I think developers have some responsibility for how they use the tools or have some self control.

0

u/gurgelblaster 5h ago

They do, and some tools are impossible to use safely and well.

-1

u/0riginal-Syn 12h ago

If you cannot assess the "situation" whether it is tagged with "assisted by LLM" or not, you should not be a maintainer reviewing submissions.

8

u/Indolent_Bard 16h ago

And this does that how exactly?

3

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

3

u/gurgelblaster 16h ago

So how does that force more ownership?

8

u/KeyboardG 15h ago

Its because Linus took the AI name off of the project he is working on and got called out.

•

u/UnrealHallucinator 17m ago

Link to kernel lore plz. I find it hard to believe Linus got called out on anything and even more hard to believe he changed a policy based on that. He's not a billionaire.

0

u/Daktyl198 11h ago

No he didn't. The only branch without an LLM tag is one where it was used purely as an analytical tool and not to generate any code.

4

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 12h ago

How does this force the developer to take ownership and not offer excuses?

2

u/zackel_flac 11h ago

Because your name is on it fully, your responsibility and you can't come back and say: AI did that shit

3

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 11h ago

Yes you can, because AI did that shit.

1

u/zackel_flac 11h ago

This is the whole point: don't let AI do all the work because it can't be trusted. AI did X should never be am excuse for shipping it.

5

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 11h ago

If AI can't be trusted, why keep QI involvement a secret?

-1

u/zackel_flac 11h ago

If? There is no if my friend, have you ever shipped code from AI directly to prod?

Human can't be trusted too, this is why we set responsibility onto people so that somebody has to act when something goes south. Your AI won't care if a plane crashes they have nothing to lose. Losing our life as human being is important on the other hand.

3

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 11h ago

So how does making AI involvement a secret make the human more accountable?

Use your brain, don't take this in the same circle again. "Because they can't blame the AI" wrong, they can still blame the AI. Give me an actual reason to keep AI involvement a secret.

1

u/zackel_flac 11h ago

This is not about hiding. Do you tell the world what text editor you are using when shipping code? What git version? What static analyzer you ran and what linter you used to detect bugs for you? I have never seen people signing with valgrind nor ASAN, yet they probably fixed more stuff than LLMs to this day.

AI is just another tool on the engineers belt, this is why dropping it makes sense. It's just a tool, not a responsibility taker. Singing is about responsibility, it's not about telling you did X with Y.

Even today what prevents you from not co-signing and reporting AI usage? Nothing. You can copy paste what AI tells you, or rewrite it soemhow and claim it to be yours.

I get your point now, but controlling AI usage seems useless nowadays. We need people to treat it like a tool though, nothing more

1

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 7h ago

Do you tell the world what text editor you are using when shipping code?

I have zero qualms telling people I use Kate. 

Why is it not equivalently easy to tell people you use AI?

Why can I do it so easily and you can't? What's wrong with you?

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-1

u/AffectionatePlastic0 10h ago

The whole point is that the one who sent the PR is responsible for it's content. Not Claude/Gemini/Qwen/GLM.

How they have created this patch is out of scope.

2

u/zackel_flac 8h ago

Then the "Assisted-By" tag can be removed, it serves no purpose, or else let's be pedentic, let's add all the tooling used: valgrind, gcc, libasan and so on.

1

u/UnrealHallucinator 9h ago

You've gotten a lot of answers but essentially patches made to the kernel are never accepted without review anyway. The main thing this evicts is the dev who submitted the patch to not hide behind an ai when questioned by the maintainers of the file in question.

1

u/Wb9VBScxu2uZJHeq2E3W 8h ago

But he can still hide behind an AI after being questioned.

This does literally nothing to prevent or discourage that.

Why do I feel like I'm talking to people who are incapable of thinking?

•

u/UnrealHallucinator 19m ago

Dude if you've never contributed to the kernel just say that. Holy dunning kreuger.