Linux: AI Guidelines for Kernel Developers Under Discussion (www.heise.de)

Linus Torvalds weighed in on a proposed set of guidelines for using AI-powered developer tools in Linux kernel development, saying AI should be treated "just like any other tool" and doesn't require special rules. The draft guidelines, prepared by the Linux Technical Advisory Board after debates about AI-assisted awards and use of ML for backport selection by the stable team, recommend documenting which tools were used and how when submitting patches. Torvalds argued that even seemingly simple utilities (find/replace, sed, reformatters) should be recorded — pointing to historical commits that describe complex renames done with sed — and emphasized that copyright and provenance questions are governed by existing rules. A final decision is expected at the Kernel Maintainer Summit in Tokyo in December. The discussion matters because it will set precedent for provenance, reviewability and legal responsibility around AI-generated or AI-assisted contributions to one of the world’s most critical open-source projects. Technical nuances raised include treating AI like advanced refactoring tools (e.g., Coccinelle), distinguishing simple automated edits from substantive transformations, and insisting the submitting developer retain responsibility for code origin and licensing — Torvalds notes the kernel already contains machine-generated content (such as AMDGPU headers). How maintainers codify documentation, review standards and enforcement will influence how AI tooling is integrated into rigorous, safety- and license-conscious kernel workflows.