Hi all, So, I guess for normal coding tasks it should be ok, however then new stuff is developed caution needs to be applied. Because as far as I have seen, AI is also trained on stuff licensed with proprietary licenses or for example copy-left licenses such as GPL. AI doesn’t really care about licenses when it comes up with solutions. However, if it mainly got its information from a GPL licensed codebase, technically the code it produces based on that, is also GPL licensed.
I have seen this with experimenting with AI for PLC4X. Here obviously some information I found with AI I could only find in GPL repositories. So it’s really quite a gray area. That’s also the main concern of Apache. Because if something turns out to be technically GPL, we’d have to surgically remove the related code later on. So I would say: The person committing is going to be the one on the hook primarily, but not being careful here can harm the ASF. Chris Von: Yuan Tian <[email protected]> Datum: Montag, 2. März 2026 um 00:45 An: [email protected] <[email protected]> Betreff: Re: Adding Documentation for AI Coding Agents and Project Standards Hi Chris, I really appreciate you taking the time to reach out privately and providing the link to the official Apache policy. It's helpful to know it's "generally not forbidden." I'll read through the documentation immediately. Best, Yuan On Sun, Mar 1, 2026 at 17:42 Christofer Dutz <[email protected]> wrote: > I took the liberty to reach out privately. > So it’s generally not forbidden. There’s some information available: > https://www.apache.org/legal/generative-tooling.html > > I’ll read through it aswell 😉 > > Chris > > > Von: Yuan Tian <[email protected]> > Datum: Sonntag, 1. März 2026 um 01:18 > An: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Betreff: Re: Adding Documentation for AI Coding Agents and Project > Standards > > Hi Chris, > > Thanks for the feedback and for raising the point about the status of AI at > Apache. I agree that it’s best to consult with the foundation on this. > > Could you please advise on the best channel or process for consulting with > Apache about this documentation? > > I'll also take a look at speckit—it sounds like a very useful framework for > spec-driven development. > > Best regards, > > Yuan Tian > > > On Sun, Mar 1, 2026 at 00:59 Christofer Dutz <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Hi Yuan, > > > > Please consult with Apache about this … AI is currently still a gray > space > > at Apache. Not sure we should formally embrace this just yet. > > > > If really embracing agentic coding, I have become a really big fan of > > speckit. That’s a framework for spec driven development. With human > > readable documentation of architectural decisions. This was initially > > intended for documenting decisions for humans. However, it’s become a > super > > useful tool for agentic coding and is supported by any agentic framework > > that I know. > > > > Chris > > > > Von: Yuan Tian <[email protected]> > > Datum: Samstag, 28. Februar 2026 um 05:17 > > An: dev <[email protected]> > > Betreff: Adding Documentation for AI Coding Agents and Project Standards > > > > Hi all, > > > > I wanted to share a PR that introduces some helpful documentation to > guide > > our AI coding models. > > > > The goal here is to make sure each model has clear access to our project > > guidelines, coding standards, and build procedures. This should help > reduce > > friction when contributing and ensure consistency in the codebase. > > > > Specifically, we've added `AGENTS.md`, which covers everything from Java > > code style and naming conventions to code structure requirements. It also > > includes templates for license headers and the necessary commands for > > verification, building, and running tests. Additionally, `CLAUDE.md` has > > been added to include the standard license header and direct readers to > the > > comprehensive rules in `AGENTS.md`. > > > > You can review the changes here: > > https://github.com/apache/iotdb/pull/17229 > > > > Best regards, > > -------------------- > > Yuan Tian > > >
