Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech.
Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics.
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Summary
- Flathub bans AI-generated code for submissions and apps.
- The maintainer cites rude, entitled submitters as the reason for the strict policy.
- Existing AI-tainted apps stay; new LLM-generated submissions will be rejected.
There's no question about AI's effect on coding. It has huge ramifications on how people create apps and systems, and curators of software have had to consider whether or not they allow AI-generated code in their projects. Linus Torvalds has already given the green light to AI-generated code (although it still has to be good code), but a maintainer at Flathub has gone the opposite way and banned it, because people just can't behave.
Flathub no longer accepts AI-generated code
People just weren't being polite about it
Over on Mastodon, Flathub maintainer Bart Piotrowski announced a new update to Flathub's LLM policy. The new policy "explicitly disallows AI usage for both the submission process and applications being submitted." While Piotrowski had reservations about banning AI code, and he understands that coding will become less and less human-driven as time goes on, people were just not being very polite about it:
I believe it can be a useful tool in and outside FOSS; I hoped we will see a larger number of apps where authors made some effort beyond prompting an agent. Meanwhile, the number of unpleasant interactions I've had with entitled submitters acting as if they were bestowing their brilliant software upon us idiots who are rejecting it went through the roof in the last month. I'm tired.
The rules are not being applied retroactively, so if anyone has already submitted an app that used AI-generated code, it gets to stay. However, people attempting to submit code made by an LLM aren't going to have a good time, especially if they're rude about it. In fact, it reminds me of how the secure bug report channels for the Linux kernel release candidates are being bombarded with trivial reports because people are using AI to find them and overstating their importance.
