Linux kernel to drop Assisted-by tag requiring disclosure of AI tool use
Linux kernel maintainers reached consensus at the Maintainers Summit to deprecate the “Assisted-by” tag, which since January had asked contributors using “any sort of advanced coding tool” to declare it in commit messages, and to remove the documentation requiring it. The patch was proposed on 9 October by kernel developer and Nvidia engineer Sasha Levin and drew more than 50 replies; Red Hat's Jeff Layton argued the tag is unevenly followed and “basically serves as free advertising for proprietary LLM companies.” Laurent Pinchart objected to removing it without a replacement disclosure mechanism, while Linus Torvalds called such mandatory rules “utterly stupid” in a 13 October mailing-list reply, saying what matters is whether submitters understand their own code. The change is not yet in effect, and developers are still expected to review their code, follow licensing rules and sign off the DCO.
It marks a shift in how a major open-source project governs AI-assisted contributions, trading mandatory disclosure for human accountability, which other communities may follow.