Banning LLM-generated or assisted contributions to the GNU C Library

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 8/23/25 7:32 AM, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> some time ago Gentoo Linux debated and decided an "AI Policy" [1]. Its verbatim text
> is
> 
>> It is expressly forbidden to contribute to Gentoo any content that has been created with the
>> assistance of Natural Language Processing artificial intelligence tools. This motion can be
>> revisited, should a case been made over such a tool that does not pose copyright, ethical and
>> quality concerns.
> 
> I would like to propose that the GNU C Library adopts a similar policy.
> 
> While I see the point of all rationales given in the Gentoo decision [1], my personal
> main drive is quality control and responsibility.
> 
> We are not talking about programming a mobile phone tower defense game here.
> We are however talking about code that is used in millions of devices worldwide in
> mission-critical and security-critical applications.
> 
> And for programming that, AI technology is not ready yet.
> 
> The GNU C Library would not be the second or third project to adopt such a policy [2,3]
> (or should adopt one [4]).
> 
> This is probably a topic that should be discussed at the Cauldron in Porto.
> 
> Cheers,
> Andreas
> 
> 
> [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/AI_policy
> [2] https://www.netbsd.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html
> [3] https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/devel/code-provenance.html#use-of-ai-content-generators
> [4] https://xcancel.com/spendergrsec/status/1958264076162998771#m
> 

Thank you for raising this! :-)

I've read the thread.

And the binutils one: https://inbox.sourceware.org/binutils/878qhth0zt.fsf@redhat.com/

At a high level I don't think we should accept LLM content into the project.

At a high level I'm concerned about writing text that permits assistive technologies
that enable collabration e.g. screen readers, speech to text, etc.

I'm going to have to think more about how to square those two requirements.

-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.