patchgitk: discourage AI contributions

4 messages between Aug 23, 2026 and Aug 26, 2026, from Johannes Sixt, Weijie Yuan, brian m. carlson.

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Johannes SixtAug 23, 2026, 09:25 UTC on lore

Since the provenance of code generated by AI cannot be tracked with confidence, which would be necessary to sign off a contribution, tell contributors not to use AI.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
---
 Following a recent brief discussion[1] it looks like I should not
 accept code for Gitk that was generated by AI even if the submitter
 understands all of it. Should I discourage AI contributions outright
 like this or would it overshoot the mark?

 -- Hannes

 [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/aooRdiVdjovWSFiG@fruit.crustytoothpaste.net/T/#md44580584f30c9b3e3c9e23250baf08b7fd7fb0c

 README.md | 7 ++++---
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

Show changes to README.md +4 −2

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2e30746..c402788 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -79,13 +79,14 @@ are also accepted.
 All commits must be signed off (use `git commit --signoff`) and should
 have commit messages prefixed with `gitk:`.
 
-Email Patches
--------------
-
 Send patches to git@vger.kernel.org and CC j6t@kdbg.org. See the Git
 project's [patch submission guidelines](https://git-scm.com/docs/SubmittingPatches)
 for detailed instructions on creating and sending patches.
 
+Please do not submit work that originated from AI, because this project
+is down-streamed to the Git project, which has a rather
+[strict AI guideline](https://git-scm.com/docs/SubmittingPatches#ai).
+
 License
 =======

-- 
2.55.0.704.g7397dd7565

Weijie YuanAug 23, 2026, 13:10 UTC in reply to Johannes Sixt on lore

Re: [PATCH] gitk: discourage AI contributions

[+cc Johannes Schindelin]

On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 11:25:42AM +0200, Johannes Sixt wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Since the provenance of code generated by AI cannot be tracked with
> confidence, which would be necessary to sign off a contribution, tell
> contributors not to use AI.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
> ---
>  Following a recent brief discussion[1] it looks like I should not
>  accept code for Gitk that was generated by AI even if the submitter
>  understands all of it. Should I discourage AI contributions outright
>  like this or would it overshoot the mark?
> 
>  -- Hannes
> 
>  [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/aooRdiVdjovWSFiG@fruit.crustytoothpaste.net/T/#md44580584f30c9b3e3c9e23250baf08b7fd7fb0c

I followed the discussion between Brian and Junio, and I have no intention of further expanding the discussion about the legal and technical issues surrounding the use of AI/LLM. However, I would like to point out that several of dscho's recent commits seem to carry an Assisted-by trailer, and, unless I missed something (possibly), nobody appears to have raised the issue or strongly objected to it. Of course, I believe dscho also fully understood the code he submitted.

(This is getting a little away from the DCO legal issue that Junio and Brian were discussing.)

So how do we distinguish between "Generated" and "Assisted"? Perhaps the LLM merely assisted him with some investigative work rather than actually writing any code.

Meanwhile, in the Linux kernel community, probably the most prominent user of the DCO, within it, Linus also expressed his views [1] on the use of LLMs a few weeks ago, while the Linux Foundation has published guidance on the legal issues surrounding the use of AI. [2]

Although I know that the Git and Linux kernel communities do not follow exactly the same rules, Jonathan Corbet updated the kernel's requirements for disclosing LLM use a couple of days ago, namely:

Assisted-by: LLM [TOOL1] [TOOL2]

Perhaps this gives us a way to tell whether a patch contains content generated by an LLM. (But if we want to ban it entirely, please disregard this part.)

Thanks, Weijie

Emm, I´m not sure which thread would be the right place to continue this discussion, sorry.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=wi4zC+Ze8e+p3tMv8TtG_80KzsZ1syL9anBtmEh5Z40vg@mail.gmail.com/ [2] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/generative-ai

Weijie YuanAug 26, 2026, 06:55 UTC in reply to Weijie Yuan on lore

Re: [PATCH] gitk: discourage AI contributions

On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 09:10:54PM +0800, Weijie Yuan wrote:

> [+cc Johannes Schindelin]

Please directly ignore my previous reply. Sorry for the noise.

Thanks.

brian m. carlsonAug 26, 2026, 21:55 UTC in reply to Johannes Sixt on lore

Re: [PATCH] gitk: discourage AI contributions

On 2026-08-23 at 09:25:42, Johannes Sixt wrote:

> +Please do not submit work that originated from AI, because this project
> +is down-streamed to the Git project, which has a rather
> +[strict AI guideline](https://git-scm.com/docs/SubmittingPatches#ai).
> +

I think this seems like the right thing to do.

-- 
brian m. carlson (they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA