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Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

gitlab.redox-os.org

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Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#161

Post by duskdozer »

tentacleuno wrote: post #36
_zagj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The LLM ban is unenforceable Just require that the CLA/Certificate of Origin statement be printed out, signed, and mailed with an envelope and stamp, where besides attesting that they appropriately license their contributions ((A)GPL, BSD, MIT, or whatever) and have the authority to do so, that they also attest that they haven't used any LLMs for their contributions. This will strongly deter direct LLM usage. Indir…

> As an aside, I've noticed a huge drop off in license literacy amongst developers What do you mean by this? I always assumed this was the case anyway; MIT is, if I'm not mistaken, one of the mostly used licenses. I typically had a "fuck it" attitude when it came to the license, and I assume quite a lot of other people shared that sentiment. The code is the fun bit.

The chardet debacle is probably one of the most recent and egregious.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#162

Post by olmo23 »

stabbles wrote: post #67
ptnpzwqd wrote: post #6

I think this is a reasonable decision (although maybe increasingly insufficient). It doesn't really matter what your stance on AI is, the problem is the increased review burden on OSS maintainers. In the past, the code itself was a sort of proof of effort - you would need to invest some time and effort on your PRs, otherwise they would be easily dismissed at a glance. That is no longer the case, as LLMs can quickly g…

For well-intended open source contributions using GenAI, my current rules of thumb are: * Prefer an issue over a PR (after iterating on the issue, either you or the maintainer can use it as a prompt) * Only open a PR if the review effort is less than the implementation effort. Whether the latter is feasible depends on the project, but in one of the projects I'm involved in it's fairly obvious: it's a package manager…

Another great take I found online: "Don't send us a PR, send us the prompt you used to generate the PR."

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#163

Post by lukaslalinsky »

mixedbit wrote: post #115
lukaslalinsky wrote: post #20

I think we will be getting into an interesting situation soon, where project maintainers use LLMs because they truly are useful in many cases, but will ban contributors for doing so, because they can't review how well did the user guide the LLM.

If an author of a PR just generated code with an LLM, the GitHub PR becomes an incredibly inefficient interface between a repository owner and the LLM. A much better use of the owner time would be to interact with LLM directly instead of responding to LLM generated PR, waiting for updates, responding again, etc.

As a project maintainer, I don't want to interact with someone's LLM. If a person submits a PR, using LLM or not, the person is responsible for any problems with it. How they respond to review is a good indicator if they actually understand the code. And if they used a bot to submit the PR, I'd simply consider it a spam.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#164

Post by miningape »

VorpalWay wrote: post #102
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #59

While I am more on the AI-hater side, I don't consider this to be a good idea: "any content submitted that is clearly labelled as LLM-generated (including issues, merge requests, and merge request descriptions) will be immediately closed" For example: - What if a non-native English speaker uses the help of an AI model in the formulation of some issue/task? - What about having a plugin in your IDE that rather gives sy…

> What if a non-native English speaker uses the help of an AI model in the formulation of some issue/task? Unfortunately, when I have seen this in the context of the Rust project, the result has still been the typical verbose word salad that is typical of chat style LLMs. It is better to use a dedicated translation tool, and post the original along with the translation. > What about having a plugin in your IDE that r…

> and post the original along with the translation

this so many times - it's so incredibly handy to have the original message from the author, for one I may speak or understand parts of that language and so have an easier time understanding the intent of the translated text. For another I can cut and translate specific parts using whatever tools I want, again giving me more context about what is trying to be communicated.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#165

Post by zhangchen »

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #20

I think we will be getting into an interesting situation soon, where project maintainers use LLMs because they truly are useful in many cases, but will ban contributors for doing so, because they can't review how well did the user guide the LLM.

[flagged]

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#166

Post by darkwater »

ptnpzwqd wrote: post #6

I think this is a reasonable decision (although maybe increasingly insufficient). It doesn't really matter what your stance on AI is, the problem is the increased review burden on OSS maintainers. In the past, the code itself was a sort of proof of effort - you would need to invest some time and effort on your PRs, otherwise they would be easily dismissed at a glance. That is no longer the case, as LLMs can quickly g…

The problem was already there with lazy bug reports and inflammatory feature requests. Now there is a lazy (or inflammatory) accompanying code. But there were also well-written bug reports with no code attached due to lack of time/skills that now can potentially become useful PRs if handled with application and engineering knowledge and good faith and will.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#167

Post by jacquesm »

orf wrote: post #154
jacquesm wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a dick move because you are opening up an open source project to claims of infringement without recourse. Why on earth would you force stuff on a party that has said they don't want that?

Sure, but back in reality no you’re not? No more than any other contributor? If I want to use an auto-complete then I can, and I will? Restricting that is as regressive as a project trying to specify that I write code from a specific country or… standing on my head. Sure, if they want me to add a “I’m writing this standing on my head” message in the PR then I will… but I’m not.

No, you can't. See, that's where you are just wrong: when you don't respect the boundaries an open source project sets that you want to contribute to then you are a net negative.

Restricting this is their right, and it is not for you to attempt to overrule that right. Besides the fact that you do not oversee the consequences it also makes you an asshole.

They're not asking for you to write standing on your head, they are asking for you to author your contributions yourself.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#168

Post by duskdozer »

MadameMinty wrote: post #125
Muromec wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds complicated in theory, but it's easier in practice. Potential long time contributor is somebody who was already asking annoying questions in the irc channel for a few months and helped with other stuff before shooting off th e PR. If the PR is the first time you hear from a person -- that's pretty drive-by ish.

Why would I ask annoying questions when I can identify, reproduce, pinpoint the bug, locate it in code, and fix it? Doing it alone should make it clear I don't need to ask to understand it. And why would I be interested in small talk? Doubt many people are when they patch up their work tools. It's a dispassionate kind of kindness. Not to mention LLMs can be annoying, too. Demand this, and you'll only be inviting bots…

Because you may misinterpret the correct fix or not know that your implementation doesn't fit the project's plans. Worse if it's LLM-generated.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#169

Post by duskdozer »

ckolkey wrote: post #136
swiftcoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it really is - drive-by changes have been a net burden on maintainers long before LLMs started writing code. Someone who wants to put in the work to become a repeat contributor to a project is a different story.

I've gotta disagree with you here - it's not uncommon for me to be diving into a library I'm using at work, find a small issue or something that could be improved (measurably, not stylistically), and open a PR to fix it. No big rewrites or anything crazy, but it would definitely fit the definition of "drive by change" that _thus far_ has been welcomed.

>find a small issue

>No big rewrites or anything crazy

I think those are the key points why they've been welcomed.

Re: Redox OS has adopted a Certificate of Origin policy and a strict no-LLM policy

#170

Post by sillysaurusx »

jacquesm wrote: post #146
stabbles wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For well-intended open source contributions using GenAI, my current rules of thumb are: * Prefer an issue over a PR (after iterating on the issue, either you or the maintainer can use it as a prompt) * Only open a PR if the review effort is less than the implementation effort. Whether the latter is feasible depends on the project, but in one of the projects I'm involved in it's fairly obvious: it's a package manager…

My rules of thumb is much shorter: don't. The open source world has already been ripped off by AI the last thing they need is for AI to pollute the pedigree of the codebase.

Suppose almost all work in the future is done via LLMs, just like almost all transportation is done today via cars instead of horses.

Do you think your worldview is still a reasonable one under those conditions?

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