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Add a position statement about LLM generated content

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Nick Clifton
2025-10-13 15:16:12 +01:00
parent f039dfba55
commit c0316a54b4
1 changed files with 62 additions and 0 deletions
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binutils/MAINTAINERS
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@@ -233,6 +233,68 @@ The details of the Developer's Certificate or Origin can be found here:
https://developercertificate.org/
--------- LLM Generated Patches ---------
The GNU Binutils project is currently *NOT* accepting LLM generated patches.
This is because the copyright status of code generated by a LLM (Large
Language Model [1]) is currently unclear. The policy applies to all
parts of the GNU Binutils including, but not limited to, source code,
documentation and the testsuites.
There are however some exceptions to the policy:
* Using LLMs to assist in writing code is fine providing that the
LLM does not actually generate code. So for example using an
LLM to provide text to speech services or to search for published
information is OK.
* LLM generated code that is not "legally significant"[2] is OK.
As a rule of thumb, this means that trivial changes, such as
spelling corrections, or small code formatting cleanups are fine.
Using an LLM to inspire or help create a patch might be OK. It is a
question of whether LLM generated output eventually makes it into the
patch. If it does, then the patch is unacceptable. (Unless it can
be considered legally insignificant).
When submitting a non-legally-significant LLM generated change, it is
still necessary to clearly indicate the use of the LLM. The
identification should take the form of a line starting with the
"Generated-By: " prefix which identifies the LLM used. For example:
Generated-By: GNU-LLM version 1.0
In addition all patch submissions must involve a human. Fully
automated patch submission, whether by a bot, a script, or some other
means is not acceptable. This is because only humans can sign a
Developer Certificate of Origin or complete a FSF Copyright Assignment
and one of these needs to be in place for every submission.
The copyright assignment or DCO allows the GNU Binutils project to
trust that the submitter is legally able to make the contribution
and that the submission can be used under the terms of the GNU General
Public License (see the COPYING3 file).
Footnotes:
This policy is not set in stone. It may well be reviewed and changed
in the future.
The policy uses the term "LLM generated" rather than "A.I. generated"
as the latter could be misunderstood. See [3] for more details.
Nevertheless the policy applies to any kind of machine generated
contribution where the copyright status is unclear.
The reason for requiring trivial LLM generated patches to be labelled
is to set a precedent. In the future, if non-trivial patches become
acceptable, the standard of labelling LLM submissions should already
be in place.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
[2]: https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Legally-Significant
[3]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#ArtificialIntelligence
--------- Branch Checkins ---------
If a patch is approved for check in to the mainline sources, it can