164
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
164 points (93.2% liked)
Linux
15032 readers
425 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I think that contributions should be evaluated by their content, which the contributor has full responsibility, instead of trying to impose rules you can't 100% verify just because they look good on paper.
Putting a "ban" on how the code is generated, is just a statement of good intentions that you can't enforce or verify.
Most contributors tend to follow the rules of a project. Some will skirt them, some AI code will probably get in, but a ban will certainly limit it, and certainly look better in court compared to "We made it a rule that it's okay to not disclose that you used the likely copyrighted code generator".
Take for example the WINE project, which has a strict ban on anyone who has seen the Windows source code from contributing to the project (such as an ex-employee or someone who has seen the source code from a leak). This is obviously impossible to enforce; how could they reasonably prevent a microsoft employee from submitting code that might be infringing on Microsoft? They can't. But their ban will certainly aid them in court if MS ever did sue them for infringement. and I think it likely anyone who had seen the source code and wanted to add a patch would respect the rule. It's not perfect protection, but it's certainly better than "If you submit windows source code, just don't tell us, and hopefully we won't get in trouble".
WINE and ReactOS having that statement for protection, makes sense for obvious reasons, given the nature and aim of the project. Even if, as we agree, it is totally unenforceable.
This total AI ban trend we are seeing in recent times, while similar, lacks the self protection reason and the text of the link backs it up with more abstract things such as: "erodes trust", "makes it more difficult to review code", "harms privacy", etc. All good intentions, quite a show against this new type of tool (that has its problems yes), but with the only practical consequence of pushing people away.
I would prefer a set of stricter guidelines and standards, to make it easy to reject slop and bad (vibe coded) contributions.