Hi Jon, Thank you for the prompt reply and the precious feedback. I realised that I might have sounded arrogant in my previous message, and I apologise for that. It wasn't my intention. I genuinely want to help and learn in the process. I will search the tickets in the kicad-python's and find a way to be of help, and I will also try to contribute to and learn from this mailing list.
Best, Eugenio. Il giorno dom 13 lug 2025 alle ore 23:03 Jon Evans <j...@craftyjon.com> ha scritto: > Hi Eugenio, > > I can speak as the maintainer of kicad-python, but for kicad as a whole, > I'm only one of the lead developers and we have not discussed or released a > formal policy on this. > > AI code assistants may be used in many ways, ranging from fairly benign > (prompting one to explain a piece of code to you to help you understand it, > or using one as a refactoring tool to modify an existing piece of code in > straightforward ways) to potentially questionable (generating large chunks > of code or even entire projects, which may have questionable > authorship/licensing implications) and definitely unacceptable (wasting > people's time by posting the incorrect output of an LLM without disclosing > that it is from an LLM, and not having the knowledge yourself to > double-check the output). > > I would recommend using the following guiding principles when considering > using LLMs as part of a contribution to KiCad or any open-source project: > > 1) Do not make any technical contribution that you do not fully understand > yourself. Bug reports, code submissions, or discussion in the form of > comments are all contributions to an open-source project. One of the best > ways to burn goodwill by using AI tools that I have seen is to attempt to > make contributions that one does not understand, resulting in either being > dismissed as nonsense or (worse) wasting the time of actual human > maintainers to try to understand something that ends up being the > fabrication of an LLM. > > 2) Always disclose the use of an LLM in any work you submit, whether > saying "I translated this comment to English using ChatGPT" or "I used > Claude to try to fix this bug, and this is the solution it suggested". LLM > outputs can be very useful as a shortcut to getting work done, but they > have serious limitations: they are not true intelligence, and they will > easily invent solutions that do not work or have subtle problems. The > output of an LLM needs to be scrutinized at least as much as that from an > unaided human, because it is more likely that the human who prompted the > LLM either doesn't fully understand the output, or did not check it > carefully. > > As to whether or not the KiCad project will accept code contributions that > were primarily or substantially generated by LLMs, I cannot answer that on > behalf of the team, it's a complicated question. > > Separate from the AI question, I will also note that it is best practice > for KiCad (and most open-source projects) to discuss with the development > team before taking on the development of new features. This can be in the > form of asking on the mailing list, commenting on an open issue saying > you'd like to work on it, or opening a new feature request issue and > stating that you're willing to work on the implementation if it is > accepted. Starting by forking and writing code might work, but if you do > so without discussion, you risk having your code submission rejected > because it is not compatible with other future plans that you didn't know > about. > > Best, > -Jon > > On Sun, Jul 13, 2025 at 3:19 PM Eugenio La Cava <fuzzywol...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I recently forked both the kicad and the kicad-python repos to work on >> feature that are missing. >> I have a question regarding the use of AI code assistant in the >> development of new features and in the fixing of existing bugs: is the use >> of such tools permitted, tolerated or frowned upon? >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "KiCad Developers" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to devlist+unsubscr...@kicad.org. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/a/kicad.org/d/msgid/devlist/0b635111-4421-4c6a-aeea-7d7d515810fbn%40kicad.org >> <https://groups.google.com/a/kicad.org/d/msgid/devlist/0b635111-4421-4c6a-aeea-7d7d515810fbn%40kicad.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "KiCad Developers" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/a/kicad.org/d/topic/devlist/2-mAIjt971c/unsubscribe > . > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > devlist+unsubscr...@kicad.org. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/a/kicad.org/d/msgid/devlist/CA%2BqGbCAgXpM6xVigUoWQDwsjOOxzOXOb_s%3Dx1hLSKczsZ0ebKg%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/a/kicad.org/d/msgid/devlist/CA%2BqGbCAgXpM6xVigUoWQDwsjOOxzOXOb_s%3Dx1hLSKczsZ0ebKg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Dr. Eugenio La Cava Dottore di Ricerca in Scienze Agrarie ed Ambientali - Dr. Eugenio La Cava Philosopher Doctor in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "KiCad Developers" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to devlist+unsubscr...@kicad.org. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/kicad.org/d/msgid/devlist/CAP-G1zsmXSBmWtoyaucQLc5-TEUTXd1_xNvePgW0KxBAL4DhcA%40mail.gmail.com.
