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1. Embed this notice
   NetBSD Foundation ? (netbsd@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Thursday, 16-May-2024 04:03:26 JST NetBSD Foundation ?

   New development policy: code generated by a large language model or similar technology (e.g. ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) is presumed to be tainted (i.e. of unclear copyright, not fitting NetBSD's licensing goals) and cannot be committed to NetBSD.

   https://www.NetBSD.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
   • Embed this notice
     NetBSD Foundation ? (netbsd@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:31:03 JST NetBSD Foundation ?

     in reply to

     • Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven
     • Daniel Collin

     @daniel_collin @asmodai This is one of the sets of rules that every person with commit access has to follow. Becoming a committer is not easy, it requires joining the Foundation and signing various contracts that place the burden of responsibility on the member. It's a fairly reasonable assumption that we should be able to trust our members, and if not they shouldn't be members.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:31:03 JST 翠星石

     in reply to
     @netbsd >and signing various contracts
     >Contributing to NetBSD requires agreeing to what appears to be proprietary contract terms
     Hmm.
   • Embed this notice
     Daniel Collin (daniel_collin@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:31:09 JST Daniel Collin

     in reply to

     • Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven

     @asmodai Still think it would be hard. Sure if you can "backwards" prove that some specific input generates exactly some code that someone commits without any changes then maybe, but usually you don't write code that way.

     You implement something and then you change stuff to what you want it to do. In general using LLMs to do algorithms is a bad idea.

     But using it for generating boilerplate (i.e repeating code patterns) and test code is very useful and doesn't affect the "real" code.

   • Embed this notice
     Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven (asmodai@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:31:10 JST Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven

     in reply to

     • Daniel Collin

     @daniel_collin True, but at least having a policy is something that can be fallen back on in dubious cases?

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Daniel Collin (daniel_collin@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:31:11 JST Daniel Collin

     in reply to

     • Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven

     @asmodai There is no way they can verify that tho

   • Embed this notice
     Mark T. Tomczak (mark@mastodon.fixermark.com)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:32:15 JST Mark T. Tomczak

     in reply to

     @netbsd Figuring out code is tainted by use of copyrighted code from another source is as straightforward as string-matching, maybe some fuzzy matching.

     How would one identify code generated with the assistance of an LLM if the contributor doesn't admit to doing that?

   • Embed this notice
     NetBSD Foundation ? (netbsd@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:32:15 JST NetBSD Foundation ?

     in reply to

     • Mark T. Tomczak

     @mark This is one of the sets of rules that every person with commit access has to follow. Becoming a committer is not easy, it requires joining the Foundation and signing various contracts that place the burden of responsibility on the member. It's a fairly reasonable assumption that we should be able to trust our members, and if not they shouldn't be members.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     NetBSD Foundation ? (netbsd@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:32:21 JST NetBSD Foundation ?

     in reply to

     • iwein

     @iwein This is a hiring policy - it's part of the developer contract that all new members of the Foundation are required to sign. Foundation membership is required for commit access.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     iwein (iwein@mas.to)'s status on Friday, 17-May-2024 19:32:22 JST iwein

     in reply to

     @netbsd not sure if a specific policy is needed here.

     1. The committing member is already responsible for copyright issues.
     2. Whether code is generated by a technical system, or a natural neural net, doesn't make much difference on it's own in the suspicion of the code.
     3. There are more tainted sources like stack overflow that would beg for a specific policy as well. Clarity and conciseness would suffer.

     I think it should be a hiring policy instead.