KDE and GNOME Developers Ponder How to Handle AI-Generated Contributions (gnome.org)
- Reference: 0185853609
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/09/24/1928229/kde-and-gnome-developers-ponder-how-to-handle-ai-generated-contributions
- Source link: https://blogs.gnome.org/alatiera/2026/09/23/the-gnome-llm-policy-that-i-want/
But as Graham [4]writes on his blog , "A bunch of people mostly outside of KDE who disapprove of LLM usage derailed KDE's attempt to add restrictions to LLM usage."
> Two people unknown to any KDE contributors appeared and began fighting with one another about the broader topic of the morality of AI, not the proposed guidelines... Someone else outside of KDE set up [5]kdeforpeople.com in an attempt to... pressure KDE into banning LLMs. A bunch of people signed onto it, almost none of whom are known KDE contributors. The topic was picked up on social media and the press with... varying levels of accuracy. The draft proposal was removed and the whole topic hidden... Yep, that's where we're at in the state of online discourse around AI...
>
> The "lovable, sovereign, AI-native KDE" idea was presented by two people important to KDE in decades past, but who had not made any contributions recently besides this Akademy talk. Their idea does not reflect the overall direction of KDE or Plasma, and I don't think it ever will. If "a lovable, sovereign, AI-native KDE" freaks you out, I believe it is completely reasonable and safe to ignore...
>
> I completely understand why a lot of people have problems with LLMs. I have these concerns as well.
He concluded by asking people not to derail any future process to set usage guidelines, fighting over "the broader topic of AI in general."
"The discussion is gone, but the argument continues," [6]adds The Register :
> GNOME developer Jordan Petridis has also published [7]The GNOME LLM Policy That I Want , proposing that LLMs be barred from creating or modifying anything submitted to GNOME or hosted on its infrastructure.
"You might be asked to prove your code meets this requirement," Petridis writes, arguing for proposals that target the norms around developer behavior. His rationale? "The GNOME Project prioritizes the social and human aspects of collective software creation,"
[1] https://conf.kde.org/event/11/contributions/314/attachments/198/262/loveable_ainative_souvereign_desktop.pdf
[2] https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/09/18/kde-turns-30-and-someones-brought-an-ai-native-desktop-proposal/5297282
[3] https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/09/24/talk-of-ai-in-kde-sets-the-community-ablaze/5298854
[4] https://pointieststick.com/2026/09/23/kde-and-ai-and-you-and-me/
[5] https://kdeforpeople.com/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/09/24/talk-of-ai-in-kde-sets-the-community-ablaze/5298854
[7] https://blogs.gnome.org/alatiera/2026/09/23/the-gnome-llm-policy-that-i-want/
Simple answer: "No." (Score:2)
The answer is a simple "No.". Don't allow them. The vast majority will fail to meet reasonable criteria for acceptance, which is enough of a reason to reject them. For the rest, even if they're acceptable in terms of quality, the sheer cost of reviewing every pull request in detail and sorting the minority of acceptable requests from the swamp of slop will itself damage the project, diverting maintainer time away from feature work and fixing bugs, badly enough that it's not worth it. I think this sums it up
Re: Simple answer: "No." (Score:2)
Can pretty much say exactly the same as any other random PR from the community.
They should not allow them for copyright reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
AI code should have to meet the same standards as any other code so that's not the problem, it's the copyright issue. If using AI doesn't wash away copyrights, and there's no reason it should, then accepting AI code should be a non-starter.
People... (Score:1)
"A bunch of people mostly outside of KDE "
Yes, these people are called your users and it's important to listen to them.
The last time you yeeted a bunch of crap over the fence without listening to your users was the absolute disaster that was KDE 4, and it resulted in a decade where people lost their confidence in KDE to develop a functioning desktop. It also resulted in throwing out working code for what was fashionable at the time, resulting in a desktop that wouldn't meet corporate and government accessib
Modest proposal (Score:2)
> KDE and GNOME Developers Ponder How to Handle AI-Generated Contributions
The KDE devs create configuration settings to toggle each one for review separately, while the GNOME devs put them all into one full-screen window that randomly may or may not be scroll-able? :-)
There is always the boring bits ... (Score:1)
Some open source projects have problems finding volunteers to do the boring bits. Perhaps AI Coding Assistants could be helpful there? Then again, it will probably be even harder to find volunteers to review and fix the AI generated code.
Can AI (Score:2)
Get rid of that annoying kde-wallet thing? I'm logged into my user account with a password and this piece of shit wants to ask me another password to run a web browser?
Sounds like Bob (Score:2)
> If "a lovable, sovereign, AI-native KDE" freaks you out,
Sounds like Microsoft Bob. I hope it can help me with my recipes.
I have no problem with AI being integrated into KDE. One of the core benefits of KDE is its modularity and adaptability. Adding or removing AI, or different AIs, should be reasonably possible.
It also needs to be considered that AI today will not look the same as AI tomorrow, so integrating AI into KDE in a way that is not modular (or easily removeable/changeable) would be a rookie software engineering mistake.
Re: (Score:2)
> I have no problem with AI being integrated into KDE.
The summary led me to believe that the discussion was about using AI to develop KDE. Not so much about hooking KDE tools and apps into some sort of AI.
Re: (Score:2)
Then what on earth is a "lovable" KDE?
Or, should I say, What in the cyberspace is a lovable KDE?
Re: (Score:2)
Your comment is almost entirely off-topic. This is not about the users using AI, just the developers .
Several other big open source projects have already decided to allow this. I just don't understand how they can get past the copyright problems.
Copyright is based on provenance. But where is any of this code coming from?
How can anyone assert the right to publish code spit out by a black box, let alone require someone else to adhere to the terms of their license on it?
Re: (Score:2)
> Your comment is almost entirely off-topic. This is not about the users using AI, just the developers.
Wow! It looks like you are trying to write an on-topic comment. Would you like me to generate an on-topic comment for you to modify?
I can suggest several different topics for you to select from, and then generate a sample-comment. Let me know what you would like me to do.
The interesting part in light of your previous comment is that off topic comments are in style now. You don't want to be out of style, do you?