There has been an explosion of interest in so called AI code
generators. Thus far though, this is has not been matched by a broadly
accepted legal interpretation of the licensing implications for code
generator outputs. While the vendors may claim there is no problem and
a free choice of license is possible, they have an inherent conflict
of interest in promoting this interpretation. More broadly there is,
as yet, no broad consensus on the licensing implications of code
generators trained on inputs under a wide variety of licenses
The DCO requires contributors to assert they have the right to
contribute under the designated project license. Given the lack of
consensus on the licensing of AI code generator output, it is not
considered credible to assert compliance with the DCO clause (b) or (c)
where a patch includes such generated code.
This patch thus defines a policy that the QEMU project will currently
not accept contributions where use of AI code generators is either
known, or suspected.
These are early days of AI-assisted software development. The legal
questions will be resolved eventually. The tools will mature, and we
can expect some to become safely usable in free software projects.
The policy we set now must be for today, and be open to revision. It's
best to start strict and safe, then relax.
Meanwhile requests for exceptions can also be considered on a case by
case basis.
Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>
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