Re: LLM based rewrites

[H. Peter Anvin]

On March 9, 2026 6:57:05 AM PDT, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On Sat,  7 Mar 2026 21:49:20 +0100
>Christian Brauner <brauner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Hey,
>
>Hi Christian,
>
>> 
>> I believe it is a rite of passage to at least once cause a shouting
>> match with a non-technical topic.
>> 
>> It seems increasingly viable to rewrite an entire codebase using an LLM
>> and it currently looks like there's at least some examples as in [1]
>> where people try to use an LLM based rewrite as a clean-room
>> implementation to relicense the project. I think the FOSDEM talk at [2]
>> is related to this as well.
>> 
>> Maybe this is a "let's worry about it later" situation but I wonder
>> whether this is something that the LF or TAB is actively following.
>> 
>> I'm not asking for a legal analysis. I'm mostly looking for reassurance
>> that we as the kernel community and our representatives have an eye on
>> this. I find this quite worrisome.
>> 
>> Fwiw, I was made aware that there's a tangentially related discussion on
>> the distribution mailing list at [3].
>
>Thanks for bringing this up. I'll bring this up as a topic for our next
>meeting. Although it may not be much we can do about it except be aware of
>what is happening.
>
>-- Steve
>
>
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> Christian
>> 
>> Link: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327 [1]
>> Link: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/releases/tag/7.0.0 [1]
>> Link: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/SUVS7G-lets_end_open_source_together_with_this_one_simple_trick [2]
>> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/a3f792e918674e208492a077679ae6ffc88ce0c9.camel@xxxxxxxxxx [3]
>
>

It is somewhat hard to see how that would constitute a "clean-room" rewrite. A clean-room rewrite entails two teams, one (the "clean" room) which must be certified to have never seen the code in question, and all communications between the two teams must be auditable.