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Disclosure optional, quality mandatory:
The Debian community has voted to allow members to use generative AI when creating their contributions, with the caveat that developers remain responsible for code quality.
The Linux distro's community recently decided to develop a policy on use of AI-assisted coding tools, and asked participants to vote on one of eight proposals that included an outright ban, cautious use, or just avoiding LLMs because of their impact on Earth's environment.
The rules of the vote saw community members asked to rank each of the eight proposals. Just under 600 people voted, but Debian's election team rejected many for unspecified reasons, leaving almost 450 valid votes to count.
When the tallying was done, proposal E – "Responsible Use of Generative AI" – won the day.
The proposal means "Debian neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI tools in the development, maintenance, or documentation of software, packaging, documentation, and other media published within the Debian Project."
The proposal advocates that approach because "such tools can substantially improve the productivity of contributors when used responsibly, allowing volunteers to spend more of their limited time on work that requires technical expertise, judgment, review, and collaboration."
The proposal also spells out that the Debian community doesn't believe "AI made a mistake" is an excuse for sloppy contributions.
"The Debian Project nevertheless expects that all contributions submitted to Debian, regardless of how and with which tools they were produced, satisfy the same standards of quality, correctness, maintainability, and legal compliance," the proposal states. "The use of a generative AI tool does not diminish the contributor's responsibility for the work they submit. Contributors are expected to understand, review, test, and, where appropriate, modify AI-assisted output before incorporating it into Debian."
Woe betide the dev who doesn't check their AI-generated code, as the proposal also states, "Blindly accepting or uploading AI-generated material without appropriate human review is inconsistent with Debian's established development practices."
Another element of the proposal tries to make acknowledging the use of AI a norm.
"We encourage our contributors to disclose whether a contribution was made with AI assistance, but do not require them to do so," the text states.
As our FOSS aficionado Liam Proven wrote in his report on the vote, the Gentoo Linux team has banned use of AI, while NetBSD and OpenBSD don't want any clanker-written code contributions.
Linus Torvalds, arguably the most influential figure in the FOSS community, welcomes AI-generated contributions.
In July he declared "Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects" – and recently proved it by using AI to squash a tricky bug. Torvalds has also sometimes complained about AI, such as his May observation that AI-generated bug reports sometimes made the Linux security mailing list "unmanageable."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday September 02, @12:33AM (4 children)
Good. I hope that also means responsible for their code, period.
If they want to use a Large Lameness Machine to slop out a "template" for them, great. It's not that different from copying code off of a random web site. It can not change anyones responsibility to make sure code is quality, secure, and maintainable. (I'd also argue licensed, but I guess that ship has sailed).
The trap here is that for simple stuff, what it shats out might not need any changes. So people get lazy and don't want to ever look at it at all. Can't do that.
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 02, @01:26AM (3 children)
> I hope that also means responsible for their code, period.
As responsible as ever, have a read of the end of the MIT license if you need a refresher:
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02, @05:25AM (2 children)
If you can't copyright machine-generated code, can you still be responsible for it?
Suppose it violates copyright.
Or it causes systems to brick, for anyone who uses it.
You include the disclaimer in the copyright and throw a license file in there, MIT, that disclaims liability. Courts determine that you can't copyright the code, because machine-generated. Your license need-not-apply. Then.. are you now liable? unable to disclaim liability?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 02, @03:20PM (1 child)
If the copyright is invalid, that would seem to me to lessen liability, not increase it.
But, what do I know? Sony is in the process of arguing that if players could "own" GTA6 then only one player could ever have it, ergo players are merely "licensing" the game for time-limited use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBxZFadp9Pw [youtube.com]
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03, @02:46AM
So if an author sells books, if buyers could own their own books, only one buyer could ever have the book?
🤣