Re: [RFC/PATCH] SubmittingPatches: forbid use of genAI to generate changes

From: Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 8, 2025, 14:23 UTC
Message-ID: <CAP8UFD1StfAY3kLNmCtBJrCVM9ADuDVjQ-WC=9yMdSSouLLCbw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqms9nkhms.fsf@gitster.g>

On Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 6:20 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

>
> Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> > Here we would forbid licensing any "AI content generator" output, not
> > just AI code generator output. So what we would forbid might be more
> > general than what QEMU folks forbid. For example they might still
> > accept a new logo, or even commit messages, made using an AI while we
> > wouldn't.
>
> I didn't think about the distinction you are trying to draw when I
> wrote the patch, but after thinking about it, I think it is a good
> thing to prevent us from adopting a new logo graphics somebody may
> have ownership rights without us knowing.  I would consider the
> commit log message as an integral part of any "contribution", and
> read the word "contribution" used in the [[dco]] section as such, if
> the rule covers the commit log message, that is very much
> appreciated.

I am not sure about logos, but for the commit message, it seems to me that it could have drawbacks related to translation or wordings.

For example if someone is not a good English writer, they could write a commit message in their native language and then ask an AI to translate it. Or they could write it in their bad English and then ask an AI to improve the wordings. I am not sure we want to forbid all that.

Show 10 quoted lines

> >> +Hence, the project asks that contributors refrain from using AI content
> >> +generators on changes that are submitted to the project.
> >
> > Here it looks like using an AI capable of generating content to just
> > check code that would be submitted could also be forbidden. I don't
> > think this is what we want, so I think we might want to reword this.
>
> Good point.  Asking agents to proofread and suggest improvements is
> like asking your friends to do so.  Care to suggest replacement to
> these two sentences (above and below)?

I could try but I would feel better if we tried to find and ask people around who have thought about this subject already.

Especially I think it's difficult to draw the line between a tool that suggests improvements and a tool that generates content. For example if I were a very bad English writer and asked an AI to suggest improvements to a commit message I wrote, then the AI might actually rewrite nearly everything and the result could be very similar to what the AI would have generated in the first place based only on the diff part of the patch.