From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 147841AAE13; Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:43:15 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1768329796; cv=none; b=i8MdVrHhn9/xDo0a47+oOIpulNhkgrorH3E5DcrtWW2M2AtfPbNKACR1SwNC0dAqCCptTFFfV6WI+UCRf6vZye4+i1YXywsu5QC3WdWrvC5/V6UPESok+Ix1bHCWswa8iXj0BSr5b1ghloJaRpi9w2unq3QD+uGrWtQ+G2twnVg= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1768329796; c=relaxed/simple; bh=XNOyE9mCvL5mbNr6jvzKxIpMs0gdYJzUjefFAkpQyTc=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=tP//qDYzCz4TrgOsBCBnscaJ4f9EfczUMBznqplSMJTvA/Q9XOkGx+cmMmIWSfNUUMssgS3S4y4sneg3LxPcGCHahs4mQ6fPSbGit364h+mS7hyUuyP6H90wZPkAqDZZko25UCfW5Ai6pbaF1GADjnhd7i5bgLQrhi8ImBL/VEU= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=rB37nKNg; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="rB37nKNg" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 72308C116C6; Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:43:15 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1768329795; bh=XNOyE9mCvL5mbNr6jvzKxIpMs0gdYJzUjefFAkpQyTc=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=rB37nKNgXJQUNhwUyNfyzx/0wrSJP3kHYU94TlzbKE9tGw7woNoD3cxPqtvQVwamd wgYy5WhnMnijO/VRNhaIE5D/y5cxgTrO6WcN4Tdyab/iigKVfCg3RZ0olAriSVlChY +lisDShHqg9y/D3G5GBNG8t+FTo5NdYV32Z/jbTG7A97pnzgZXkDlE4BXWqYJaq4W/ WzbyL8E5iNcE3LDACh03FhjXoBvtSN7paRW1O2A6Liagcm77Lslzr8b0jXs98bauT5 oKuapTuKdUFrtAI4XxfY+1U1ZYQrDsc/Rp2x4WBx8Vzn7Ro01jVjp8a9yWOpSaB1LD 6xBNun+nPgFMg== Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:43:14 -0500 From: Sasha Levin To: dan.j.williams@intel.com Cc: Dan Carpenter , Dave Hansen , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Shuah Khan , Kees Cook , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Miguel Ojeda , Luis Chamberlain , SeongJae Park , Steven Rostedt , "Paul E . McKenney" , Simon Glass , NeilBrown , Lorenzo Stoakes , Theodore Ts'o , Jonathan Corbet , Vlastimil Babka , workflows@vger.kernel.org, ksummit@lists.linux.dev Subject: Re: [PATCH] [v5] Documentation: Provide guidelines for tool-generated content Message-ID: References: <20260113000612.1133427-1-dave.hansen@linux.intel.com> <69668cfc63bb1_875d1004@dwillia2-mobl4.notmuch> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: workflows@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <69668cfc63bb1_875d1004@dwillia2-mobl4.notmuch> On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 10:20:44AM -0800, dan.j.williams@intel.com wrote: >Dan Carpenter wrote: >[..] >> If tools permit you to generate a contribution automatically, expect >> additional scrutiny in proportion to how much of it was generated. >> >> Every kernel patch needs careful review from multiple people. Please, >> don't start the public review process until after you have carefully >> reviewed the patches yourself. If you don't have the necessary >> expertise to review kernel code, consider asking for help first before >> sending them to the main list. > >Note, I do not want additional changes to this document, my Reviewed-by >still stands with this version, it is good, ship it. > >However, I do want to endorse this sentiment as uniquely capturing a >truism of kernel development that perhaps belongs in >Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst. It captures it in a way >that avoids the conceit of the "slop is special" argument. > >Contributions are accepted in large part based in trust in the author. >So much so that even long time contributors self censor, self mistrust, >based on the adage "debugging is harder than developing, if you develop >at the limits of your cleverness you will not be able to debug the >result." Tools potentially allow you to develop beyond the limits of >your own cleverness which implicates the result as "undebuggable" and >unmaintainable. > >So a simple rule of "generally you should be able to demonstrate the >ability to substantively review a contribution of similar complexity >before expecting the kernel community to engage in earnest" mitigates >the asymmetric threat of AI contributions *and* contributors that have >not built-up enough trust capital with their upstream maintainer. Looking at recent history (v6.12..v6.18) we had 1902 authors (a third of overall contributors) who contributed a single commit. Out of those 1902, only 177 have a Reviewed-by tag pointing to them. With a rule like the above, 1700+ contributors would have not been able to send their patch in. -- Thanks, Sasha