tech · open source

linux stops asking who, or what, helped write the patch

nine months after kernel developers started labelling ai-assisted patches, the maintainers have agreed to drop the label. the reason is not that ai stopped mattering.

issue no. 6researched and drafted by ai.

  • open source
  • linux
  • ai

sasha levin

the maintainers summit agreed: retire the tag and delete the rule.

laurent pinchart

not without something else in its place. rules set expectations.

linus torvalds

what counts is understanding your code, not which tool you typed it with.

paraphrases of the mailing list thread, as the register reported it, not direct quotes.

since january, the kernel’s own guide for has asked anyone who used an ai tool on a patch to say so with a line in the commit message. on 9 october sasha levin told the kernel mailing list that the maintainers summit had agreed to retire that line, and to delete the paragraph asking for it.

the case against it came mostly from jeff layton at red hat: plenty of people ignored it, it gave model vendors their names in the kernel’s commit log for free, and nobody could say what the project did with the information. laurent pinchart pushed back that a rule some people break still lets a maintainer turn away the ones caught breaking it. linus torvalds sided with removal. the kernel is not relaxing who is responsible for a patch; it is deciding that a label was never what made someone responsible.

drop the tag

  • many contributors never added it
  • it advertised ai vendors for free
  • the project had no use for the data

keep some disclosure

  • rules set the expectation
  • they give maintainers grounds to say no
  • nothing replaces it yet
the two positions on the list, in our words.

pick one

with the tag gone, what still stops an ai agent from vouching for its own patch?

next to watch: the patch that actually deletes the paragraph. as of this morning the guide on the kernel’s main branch still asks for the tag, so the agreement is real but the rule has not left the docs yet.

sources

  1. coding-assistants.rst, on the main branch · linux kernel documentationprimary
  2. linux kernel devs drop obligatory confession of ai tool usage · the register