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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

#291
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this counters the argument I made above :-)

Just because they have been made before LLMs doesn't mean it can be done again, since there was just one success (GNU/Linux) and that success makes it much harder for new OSes since they need to better then it

> Just because they have been made before LLMs doesn't mean it can be done again

Erm...no? That's exactly what that means.

Earth-Ovens haven't been in widespread use for hundreds of years. People can still use them to bake bread however: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAJqGVxuJPo

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's a rather unkind comment. For the parent there's immaterial value knowing that is written by a human. From what I read in your comment, you see code more as a means to an end. I think I understand where the parent is coming from. Writing code myself, and accomplishing what I set out to build sometimes feels like a form of art, and knowing that I build it, gives me a sense of accomplishment. And gives me energy.…

Some people like to do wood working with old tools, or build their house themselves. Wonderful. We are not taking about that.

Code is a means to an end.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We, agentic coders, can easily enough fork their project And this is why eventually you are likely to run the artisanal coders who tend to do most of the true innovation out of the room. Because by and large, agentic coders don't contribute, they make their own fork which nobody else is interested in because it is personalized to them and the code quality is questionable at best. Eventually, I'm sure LLM code quali…

"make their own fork which nobody else is interested in because it is personalized to them" Isn't that literally how open-source works, and why there's so many Linux distros? Code quality is a subjective term as well, I feel like everyone dunking on AI coding is a defensive reaction - over time this will become an entirely acceptable concept.

For a human to be able to do any customization, they have to dive into the code and work with it, understand it, gain intuition for it. Engage with the maintainers and community. In the process, there's a good chance that they'll be encouraged to contribute improvements upstream even if they have their own fork.

Vibe coders don't have to do any of this. They don't have to understand anything, they can just have their LLMs do some modifications that are completely opaque to the vibe coder.

Perhaps the long term steady state will be a goldilocks renaissance of open source where lots of new ideas and contributors spring up, made capable with AI assistance. But so far what I've seen is the opposite. These people just feed existing work into their LLMs, produce derivative works and never bother to engage with the original authors or community.

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

#294

If you're curious to see what everyone else is doing, I did a survey of over 100 major source available projects and four of them banned AI assisted commits (NetBSD, GIMP, Zig, and qemu). On the other hand projects with AI assisted commits you can easily find include Linux, curl, io_uring, MariaDB, DuckDB, Elasticsearch, and so on. Of the 112 projects surveyed, 70 of them had AI assisted commits already. https://thec…

[flagged]

One's legitimate tool is the other's slop machine

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

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think of myself more like a carpenter or craftsman. > I used a coding agent for the majority of my current project and I still got the "build stuff" itch scratched because Engineers are still responsible for the output and they are needed to interface between technical teams, UX, business people etc Then you are the opposite of a carpenter or a craftsman, no matter what you think about it yourself.

What term would you use for that "opposite"?

Plumber?

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

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, LLMs generate useless word salad and nonsense even when working on issues text, you absolutely have to reword the writing from scratch otherwise it's just an annoyance and a complete waste of time. Even a good prompt doesn't help this all that much since it's just how the tool works under the hood: it doesn't have a goal of saying anything specific in the clearest possible way and inwardly rewording it…

I don’t think you’re being serious. Claude and GPT regularly write programs that are way better than what I would’ve written. Maybe you haven’t used a decent harness or a model released in the last year? It’s usually verbose, whereas I would try the simplest thing that could possibly work. However, it can knock out but would have taken me multiple weekends in a few minutes. The value proposition isn’t even close. It’…

> The value proposition isn’t even close.

That's correct, because most of the cost of code is not the development but rather the subsequent maintenance, where AI can't help. Verbose, unchecked AI slop becomes a huge liability over time, you're vastly better off spending those few weekends rewriting it from scratch.

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

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, LLMs generate useless word salad and nonsense even when working on issues text, you absolutely have to reword the writing from scratch otherwise it's just an annoyance and a complete waste of time. Even a good prompt doesn't help this all that much since it's just how the tool works under the hood: it doesn't have a goal of saying anything specific in the clearest possible way and inwardly rewording it…

I don’t think you’re being serious. Claude and GPT regularly write programs that are way better than what I would’ve written. Maybe you haven’t used a decent harness or a model released in the last year? It’s usually verbose, whereas I would try the simplest thing that could possibly work. However, it can knock out but would have taken me multiple weekends in a few minutes. The value proposition isn’t even close. It’…

> Claude and GPT regularly write programs that are way better than what I would’ve written.

I’m sorry but this says more about you than about the models. It is certainly not the case for me!

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

#298
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project maintainers will always have the right to decide how to maintain their projects, and "owe" nothing to no one. That being said, to outright ban a technology in 2026 on pure "vibes" is not something I'd say is reasonable. Others have already commented that it's likely unenforceable, but I'd also say it's unreasonable for the sake of utility. It leaves stuff on the table in a time where they really shouldn't. Th…

The entire basis of the OSS is licensing. Licensing is dependent on IPR, primarily copyright. It is very unclear whether the output of an AI tool is subject to copyright. So if someone uses AI to refactor some code, that refactored code isn't considered a derivative work which means that the refactored source is no longer covered by the copyright, or the license that depends on that.

> It is very unclear whether the output of an AI tool is subject to copyright.

At least for those here under the jurisdiction of the US Copyright Office, the answer is rather clear. Copyright only applies to the part of a work that was contributed by a human.

See https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intell...

For example, on page 3 there (PDF page 11): "In February 2022, the Copyright Office’s Review Board issued a final decision affirming the refusal to register a work claimed to be generated with no human involvement. [...] Since [a guidance on the matter] was issued, the Office has registered hundreds of works that incorporate AI-generated material, with the registration covering the human author’s contribution to the work."

(I'm not saying that to mean "therefore this is how it works everywhere". Indeed, I'm less familiar with my own country's jurisprudence here in Germany, but the US Copyright Office has been on my radar from reading tech news.)

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am authoring my contributions, using Clause Code as a tool. It doesn't make me an asshole. If the maintainers don't want to accept it, fine. Someone will eventually fork and advance and we move on. The Uncles can continue to play in their no AI playground, and show each other how nice their code is. The world is moving on from the "AI is bad" crowd.

Forking the code can be perfectly reasonable, with this or any other disagreement about policy. The main point of contention in this thread is whether you ought to lie about having used an LLM. I agree with Jacques: doing something like that would make you an asshole.
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