linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add agent coding assistant configuration to Linux kernel

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Message-ID: <aIpSlhPTC9G1AqvO@lappy>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2025 13:12:54 -0400
From: Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>
To: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>, Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	corbet@....net, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
	workflows@...r.kernel.org, josh@...htriplett.org, kees@...nel.org,
	konstantin@...uxfoundation.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <linux@...blig.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add agent coding assistant configuration to Linux
 kernel

On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 05:59:25PM +0100, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 12:36:25PM -0400, Sasha Levin wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 12:18:29PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>> > On Wed, 30 Jul 2025 16:34:28 +0100
>> > Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > > Which looked like someone else (now Cc'd on this thread) took it public,
>> > > > and I wanted to see where that ended. I didn't want to start another
>> > > > discussion when there's already two in progress.
>> > >
>> > > OK, but having a document like this is not in my view optional - we must
>> > > have a clear, stated policy and one which ideally makes plain that it's
>> > > opt-in and maintainers may choose not to take these patches.
>> >
>> > That sounds pretty much exactly as what I was stating in our meeting. That
>> > is, it is OK to submit a patch written with AI but you must disclose it. It
>> > is also the right of the Maintainer to refuse to take any patch that was
>> > written in AI. They may feel that they want someone who fully understands
>>
>> This should probably be a stronger statement if we don't have it in the
>> docs yet: a maintainer can refuse to take any patch, period.
>>
>> > what that patch does, and AI can cloud the knowledge of that patch from the
>> > author.
>>
>> Maybe we should unify this with the academic research doc we already
>> have?
>>
>> This way we can extend MAINTAINERS to indicate which subsystems are
>> more open to research work (drivers/staging/ comes to mind) vs ones that
>> aren't.
>>
>> Some sort of a "traffic light" system:
>>
>>  1. Green: the subsystem is happy to receive patches from any source.
>>
>>  2. Yellow: "If you're unfamiliar with the subsystem and using any
>>  tooling to generate your patches, please have a reviewed-by from a
>>  trusted developer before sending your patch".
>>
>>  3. No tool-generated patches without prior maintainer approval.
>
>This sounds good, with a default on red. Which would enforce the opt-in
>part.

I don't think we should (or can) set a policy here for other
maintainers. Right now we allow tool-assisted contributions - flipping
this would mean we need to get an ack from at least a majority of the
MAINTAINERS folks.
-- 
Thanks,
Sasha