Hi Aaron, On Sun, 2026-02-08 at 19:43 -0500, Aaron Merey wrote: > In December we discussed whether elfutils should permit LLM-generated > contributions [1]. The conclusion of this discussion was that elfutils > should not permit this. Reasons for this decision include uncertainty > around the copyright status of LLM-generated content. Below is a > revised proposal based on these discussions. > > If accepted we can include this policy in the CONTRIBUTING document in > the elfutils source directory. The text of this policy is modelled > after the Binutils [2] and QEMU [3] LLM policies.
Thanks for drafting this. It looks good to me. One small suggestion wording "tweak" below. > Policy on the Use of LLM-generated Content > > The elfutils project does not currently accept contributions > containing output generated by Large Language Models (LLMs) [4]. Use > of LLMs to research, analyze or debug a contribution is allowed as > long as no LLM-generated output is included in the contribution. > > There are two exceptions where LLM output may be included in a contribution: > > (1) The output consists solely of trivial changes such as spelling or > code formatting. > > (2) The LLM assists in writing a contribution but does not author any > of the content. This includes accessibility-related uses of LLMs > involving speech-to-text, for example. I understand what you are saying here, but might not use the words "writing" and "author" (which feel a little as if we are "personifying" the the llm). How about using the words "researching" and "generating": (2) The LLM assists in the research of an contribution but does not generate any of the content. This includes accessibility-related uses of LLMs involving speech-to-text, for example. (Note English isn't my first language, this might not be gramatically correct.) > Contributors are not required to disclose the use of LLMs for these purposes. > > This policy may be reviewed or updated when the copyright status and > Developer's Certificate of Origin (DCO) compatibility of LLM-generated > output is clarified. > > [1] > https://inbox.sourceware.org/elfutils-devel/cajdtp-r9m7uvfggoq20_4k8ooja4lvmuz3x8tzrhq-+r5aa...@mail.gmail.com/T/#m52aef56465c8bbe6d4fe0fda6487add9efb4f857 > [2] https://sourceware.org/binutils/wiki/LLM_Generated_Content > [3] > https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/devel/code-provenance.html#use-of-ai-generated-content > [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model I would be OK with you adding this to CONTRIBUTING with or without the wordsmithing above. Cheers, Mark
