The GNU Compiler Collection will reject copyright-significant contributions derived from LLM output, with limited exceptions for trivial changes and test cases.
The main confusing (or confused?) actor in the FOSS space in relation to this probably really is the Linux kernel.
I’ve seen so many projects reference significant LLM patches as acceptable “because the kernel does it”. It continues to blow my mind that the kernel would accept such a risk.
The kernel absolutely does not do that. What theyre referring to is linus saying he was fine with people using claude for analysis purposes or to double check your pr, not submitting whole ass ai prs
The main confusing (or confused?) actor in the FOSS space in relation to this probably really is the Linux kernel.
I’ve seen so many projects reference significant LLM patches as acceptable “because the kernel does it”. It continues to blow my mind that the kernel would accept such a risk.
The kernel absolutely does not do that. What theyre referring to is linus saying he was fine with people using claude for analysis purposes or to double check your pr, not submitting whole ass ai prs
It seems like they do though, because
it’s explicitly allowed
and beyond that,
some numbers suggest it’s highly likely that it’s happening with no public concern or pushback from the kernel leadership.
I’ve also brought up these concerns on the mailing list, with apparently no response from the maintainers, even though Linus was CC’ed here by another kernel dev. Specifically, my suggestion to not allow AI code submissions resulted in no response.
I’m not saying I would be owed a response. But the implications of that seem pretty clear.