Re: [RFC/PATCH] SubmittingPatches: forbid use of genAI to generate changes

[Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 12:36 PM Christian Couder
<christian.couder@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2025 at 10:32 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> >
> > Following the example set by QEMU folks, let's explicitly forbid use
> > of genAI tools until the copyright and license situations become
> > more clear.  Here is what QEMU folks say in their commit to adopt
> > such a rule:
> >
> >     The DCO requires contributors to assert they have the right to
> >     contribute under the designated project license. Given the lack
> >     of consensus on the licensing of AI code generator output, it is
> >     not considered credible to assert compliance with the DCO clause
> >     (b) or (c) where a patch includes such generated code.
>
> Here they forbid licensing any "AI code generator output" with the DCO.
>
> > and it applies equally well to ours.

[...]

> > +=== Use of AI content generators
> > +
> > +This project requires that contributors certify that their
> > +contributions are made under Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1,
> > +which in turn means that contributors must understand the full
> > +provenance of what they are contributing.  With AI content generators,
> > +the copyright or license status of their output is ill-defined, without
> > +any generally accepted legal foundation.
>
> Here we would forbid licensing any "AI content generator" output, not
> just AI code generator output. So what we would forbid might be more
> general than what QEMU folks forbid. For example they might still
> accept a new logo, or even commit messages, made using an AI while we
> wouldn't.

As QEMU is part of the Conservancy, like Git, I wonder if they
consulted a Conservancy lawyer to come up with their wording? If they
did, maybe we could reuse that expertise?