“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.
Edit:
Okay my bad, I shouldn’t put words in his mouth. I’ll let him speak for himself.
Edit 2: Fixed grammatical ambiguity in the original
But he isn’t saying “damn people using AI”, is he?
If you purposefully remove all nuance from what people say, you attribute to them a ridiculous position, but that’s your problem not theirs.
Lots of folks spend their time intentionally misunderstanding things so they can make jokes about the misunderstanding.
I don’t get it, but you see it everywhere.
I think it’s comforting for humans to believe things are a certain way, versus seeing them how they are.
As well as that I think people (nowadays? online? maybe it’s just a general thing though) are just bad at accepting nuance or really imagining the positions of people which differ from their own.
I’m not a subscriber, so I could only see the summary — which mainly says it’s hard to summarize.
So instead you’ve made up your own, consciously inaccurate summary. That sucks.
Help me out then. What’s inaccurate? What would an accurate summary be?
We’ve got an earlier declaration from Linus on his stance towards AI, and a couple paragraphs about maintainers being overwhelmed by AI-assisted submissions, and an alleged statement from Linus that it’s time to make it harder to contribute.
I would argue that “let people use AI” is a fair summary of his earlier declaration, and that reports from overwhelmed maintainers do indicate that “people started using AI”.
So that leaves whether the current proposal of “making it harder to contribute” stems from “damn people using AI”.
Surrounding context in the summary certainly seems like there’s a causal link there, but if you have information that shows that the “harder to contribute” policy recommendation is not related to people using AI, I’d be very interested to learn more.
Calling it “damning” people goes beyond the facts, and is antagonistic.
That’s not the way I was using “damn” there, and that’s also not the usual usage of the meme format. I meant “damn” as an adjective. Like “those damn kids”. Not as a verb, like “damn those kids”.
It’s clear there’s some frustration, right? I think it’s fair to use “damn” in that way.
Edit:
This better?
Lol if you used a comma after the word damn, I think no one would’ve taken issue with your meme. It completely changes the meaning to leave it off! It also would’ve worked to put the comma after people. Which seems closer to what you meant.
Well damn.
“AI can be used responsibly as long as people still use their brains”
People start using AI, stop using their brains
“Not like that. Stop that.”
That does seem like an accurate summary. And still fits perfectly in line with the stick-in-bike meme.
Or this:
That’s the stance though, not the solution. Explicitly requiring more effort where it was previously implied would be a solution.
I’m completely against this opinion… But man that memes are funny. You earned your upvote. :D
You understand the existing trusted parties contributing to the kernel are still allowed to use AI where they see fit, right?
He’s been consistent and realistic about AI: LLMs are a powerful tool, smart people can make effective use of powerful tools in responsible ways, and irresponsible people can use the same tools to create a flood of noise. So create a system which allows smart, responsible people to make the kernel better, and prevents irresponsible people from making the kernel worse.
Just saw that edit. Lol. The idea behind it seems to still be ignoring nuance and implying that overreacting up front is the correct move rather than trying to avoid a rush to premature judgement.
Edit: In light of your other comment about how you meant the word damn, I think this was all a miscommunication.
To call this a caricature and misinformation is an understatement. I have to think it’s intentionally spreading lies.
I asked the person you responded to if they enjoy creating a nuanceless misinformation cartoon out of the truth and here you’ve gone and directly answered that with a resounding “yes”.
Help me out then. What’s inaccurate? What would an accurate summary be?
We’ve got an earlier declaration from Linus on his stance towards AI, and a couple paragraphs about maintainers being overwhelmed by AI-assisted submissions, and an alleged statement from Linus that it’s time to make it harder to contribute.
I would argue that “let people use AI” is a fair summary of his earlier declaration, and that reports from overwhelmed maintainers do indicate that “people started using AI”.
So that leaves whether the current proposal of “making it harder to contribute” stems from “damn people using AI”.
Surrounding context in the summary certainly seems like there’s a causal link there, but if you have information that shows that the “harder to contribute” policy recommendation is not related to people using AI, I’d be very interested to learn more.
“let people use ai” intentionally removes context. It implies he was good with ai slop in the kernel which he obviously never was and he never implied he was.
Then “damn them for using AI” isn’t accurate in the least either. Taking steps to limit an issue isn’t punitive or damning. Your image was a complete exaggeration in every way.
An accurate but non cartoonish version would be “hey let’s not freak out about ai everyone, we don’t need to overreact”. Then later “we see a problem here so let’s abate it”. Your reaction to this seems to imply that if you ever make a statement that isn’t a negative, then it’s a positive. Then later if you ever present a stance that counters that perceived positive, then you’re contradicting yourself. In reality even if the first stance was his, this “new” stance would represent learning and growing. You’re discouraging that…
You pushed both statements in opposite directions in order to be mad, or something? I don’t know, I don’t get it, but it’s hard to believe a person could honestly just even skim these articles and take away what you have.
I just addressed this in the other thread, but I didn’t notice the ambiguity of “damn” in my original phrasing. I meant it in the sense of “those damn people using AI”, not “damn those people using AI”. It seemed obvious to me in my head, but tone doesn’t really carry across text that well.
Anyway, the point is not that he endorsed slop, but that he adopted a policy which people warned him would ensure slop arrived at his door on a regular basis.
Taking steps now that the problem has become unignorable is perfectly sensible. The silly part is that the problem was easy to predict from months away. He had a chance to get ahead of it. Instead, he chastised the people doing the warning.
Yeah. You may have a good point that I know what you meant. I dunno all the details, I just got from the articles I mostly read that he’d discouraged freaking out about the issue and banning all LLM use. In any case I think the latest stance is a reasonable adjustment to reality. Maybe he should’ve had it earlier but I won’t hold it against him too much