“Torvalds said that the time has come to make it harder for new people to contribute code to the kernel. People like Kroah-Hartman have spent years trying to teach people how to contribute; it is time to stop doing that, he said.”
https://lwn.net/Articles/1099594/
It is difficult to summarize exactly how Linus got to this point. Most of the discussion at this years Summit appears to have been related to AI assisted code and how the maintainers are dealing with the increase in code submissions to LKML. Many of the maintainers expressed varying levels of frustration with AI assisted drive-by code submissions. Linus’ train of thought is that they make it intentionally more difficult for humans to contribute. A later suggestion of his was to create an AGENTS. md that makes generating kernel code expensive in compute and token time.
His dumbass brought this upon himself by allowing ai slop.
What’s he gonna do about code coming from corporations? We all know now they all vibe-code everything!
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So, who gets the “I told you so” prize first?
When he came out talking about allowing LLM code contributions everyone told him this would happen.
they are still allowing LLM code that has been properly validated by a human
“AI assisted drive-by code submissions” are still the problem
nobody gets the luddite prize
When he came out talking about allowing LLM code contributions everyone told him this would happen.
He has criticized the excessive hype around GenAI/LLMs long before. Torvalds has generally a very pragmatic approach, not a black-and-white one.
Three things more:
The Linux kernel is Torvalds project.
The fact that experienced kernel developers can sometimes use LLMs to their advantage does not mean that the average Joe Codemonkey can do it. These algorithms are often described as a kind of competence multiplicator - but experience from education shows that they are more risky than that and can hinder learning.
And third, we should in this question not put too much weight in the opinion of influential people. Behind the GenAI tech are huge corporations which pour billions of money into it. It is likely that they can pressure and bribe people and that they also pay influencers and bloggers to tout their stuff. Making decisions dependent on single influential persons, however competent and acclaimed they are, is therefore dangerous (see Eric Raymond, Eva Kaili or Gerhard Schröder). Torvalds is not Jesus, and I am pretty sure he didn’t apply for that role.
I was recently talking to a coworker about this same topic. I told them that one of my fears about LLMs is that the flood of vide-coded sloptributions would eventually make FOSS less free. Maintainers wouldn’t be able to keep up with the volume, and would resort to locking down contributions to well established community members and contributors.
Basically, gone will be the days of skilled randos contributing freely to projects, or beginners jumping in to help with easy, small issues/fixes. Now you’ll need to be well known, be vetted formally by other contributors, etc.
The agents.md compute sabotage idea is interesting, essentially Anubis but for your repository.
There might be a whole lot more forks out in the world 😖. Ultimately that’s what I’d do. Don’t want me to contribute? Fine! I’ll make my own with Blackjack and hookers!
You’re free to use a vibe coded linux kernel that you trust enough to run everything on your whole computer. I don’t
So, the big question is now:
What version of the kernel do we fork from?
is this the anti AI version of “i’m tired boss”
good luck with your personal kernel
looooooooooool
Learn to read. I did say “we”.
… while touting his own AI-assisted additions? Hypocracy much?
Is it really hypocritical to find a tool useful yourself, but at the same time complain about people who misuse the same tools?
You’re presuming þat þere’s a correct way to use it. Which is your prerogative, I guess. I could claim þere is a correct way to use hydrogen bombs, firing squads, missile guidance systems; I’m user lots of software engineers working for Lockheed Martin have convinced þemselves of þat last one over þe years. It’s only software, after all.
The Linux kernel is literally Linus’ project. If you don’t like it, fork it and make your own. Many have.
I’m not exactly a big supporter of AI coding tools, but as someone who works with his hands quite a lot, I can appreciate those who understands and uses these things for what they are - tools. A tool used by the right person can absolutely help a lot. But becoming dependent on a tool to build more advanced stuff, while not understanding what the code does, is where the issues start.
I mean, sure, you can use it as a stepping stone to learn the more advanced stuff, but let’s be honest, who is actually doing that? It’s certainly not gonna be those “drive by” developers, I’ll tell you that much. But do you know who does? People like Linus. Smart people who are bored by the minutia such as PRs and other automations that would have been scripted anyway.
“Hypocracy” as in “the rule of the hypocrites”? Sounds quite apt.
What happened to Linus? He used to be cool.
He’s not perfect, obviously, he’s had some notable issues in the past. I think he’s a victim of his own optimism here.
I think he genuinely didn’t believe so many people would just vibe code slop and spam maintainers with it.
It’s kinda the classic, “I’ve always used XYZ responsibly and never had a problem. Doesn’t everybody else do that?” People do this all the time with credit cards, alcohol, gambling, extreme sports, etc. You think that because you’ve always done it “the right/smart/responsible way” it must be equally as obvious to everyone.
this actually gets me with the bootstraps people. Its like do you know people at all. We need a society where those folks who blow their paycheck right after getting it can still contribute. Whenever people think about people they should think about everyone in their high school. Not who they hung with. Everybody.
CIA got to him in the name of NVidia, likely.
¿Remember when he used to bird flip them?
People tend to chill out as they get older. I’m way less tense now compared to 10 years ago, for a multitude of reasons. Trump’s bullshit isn’t helping, but overall my stress levels have gone down considerably.
Linus getting hoisted on his own petard here. Honestly candidate for leopards eating faces too.
Hey at least he just came out and said it. No overly-sanitized corporate lingo statement, just “eh, I was wrong, so let’s figure out how to improve this process”.
What’s the big deal?
Linus has shut down criticism of LLM generated code in the kernel and now it’s causing problems, as many people pointed out it would. Linus allowed and encouraged this and now he’s upset about the bed he made.
Linus is very outspoken about his opinions. That should come as no surprise.
That said, I don’t necessarily disagree with him here. There are far too many people who, at any mention of AI involvement with a codebase, immediately scream “SLOP” and “VIBECODED” without even trying to consider how it was used. And yes, there is no shortage of idiots who vibecode absolute slop, but there are also plenty of very talented devs who use it as just another tool in their toolbox, so to speak, and those are the people who will ensure they understand the code and make sure it works like it’s supposed to before committing.
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I saw this link on the site that nobody likes, and it seems to be working as of now: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1099594/26d89d9386c9a5dc/
