Existing apps are grandfathered in and there are other exceptions, but in general LLM generated code is not permitted on the Linux app store anymore.
Good.
Can’t blame them but this does blocks a lot of developers out. I guess time we’ll tell if this will be the right decision. Worst case flathub stagnates or another replace it.
Thank goodness. I was sick of finding promising looking apps only to discover they were broken vibe-coded garbage
The rule change doesn’t target vibe coded apps. It targets anything that has AI assisted code, documentation or otherwise. Essentially anyone using a jet brains or microsoft development environment is using text completion which is ml based.
Let’s not even talk about one of the few things llms are actually good at, keeping documentation up to date. The one thing developers and engineers have always been terrible at and always will be terrible at.
Does AI assisted also mean that anything where AI has viewed the code and provided feedback is also banned such as AI code review? Which is another area where models provide good value, while increasing the quality of software.
Does AI assisted also mean using monitoring environments that use models for bug diagnosis? Such as Sentry and many others?
That’s a lot of engineers, and projects, some of which have been around for a long time that are rejected from now on. If they stick to the letter of the rule.
If flat hub can enforce that and I don’t know how then they’re essentially dead. Without actually making a difference in regards to rejecting vibe coded applications.
Ok, I’ll take the bait.
This is not longer about whether they’re capable of not, they’re just a mere tool, it’s about supporting an unsustainable industry that’s destroying the environment, economy, society and already working technologies for… well, nothing, it’s not even profitable yet, they’re slowly getting into the find out stage.
Not to say that, even if they are capable of “keeping documentation up to date”, they’re unable to do software engineering, most software projects fail because bad design decisions. And btw, documentation is not limited to code comments, API endpoints or whatever a JavaDoc is in your target programming language (methods and attributes comments, if OO, on how they work / what they do / how to use them).
Professional grade documentation goes beyond that, begins with the problem you’re trying to solve and goes all the way to the end of life of your system. Yes, it’s hard to maintain it up to date and will slowly become outdated, but it’s bound to happen, it’s almost as if you wanted to have 100% of testing coverage, it’s economically impossible.
Good.
Applications containing AI-generated or AI-assisted code, documentation, or assets are not allowed
This is an asinine standpoint. This isn’t targeting vibe-coded apps like most of you think, which is something I would agree with otherwise. We don’t need more vibe coded apps. I think we are all in agreement there.
Before you knee jerk, read the rest of this message.
First:
“AI Assisted” is everywhere, and it has been before LLMs hit the scene. ML models used for predictive text completion have been around for a long time now and have been integrated into IDEs for nearly a decade.
Anyone using any sort of tab completion in their IDE or editor, which most editors have already by default, is affected by this.
The effect is that the rule applies to everyone, which means it applies to no one. The rule is pointless because it’s overly broad. (Obviously not to everyone. If you’re still coding in Notepad++, then props to you)
Secondly:
One of the few areas that AI is incredibly useful without actually damaging the quality of the software, but in fact improving it, is in documentation. One thing humans have always sucked at is keeping documentation up to date. One thing AI is really good at is keeping your documentation up to date.
Excluding documentation that has not necessarily been written by AI but has been assisted by AI is effectively just encouraging out-of-date shitty documentation.
Thirdly:
What does AI assistant mean?
- intelligent text completion (ie. What most extended tab/text completion ends up being for most IDEs these days)
- AI code review?
- Platforms that use AI bug hunting? (ie. Sentry)
- Automated security scanning? (Ie. GitHub advanced security features)
- Any ml model usage?
This feels like a poorly thought out knee-jerk as opposed to a calculated decision.
Personally, I don’t think that LLMs are useful for documentation. I feel that it only helps you have documentation and won’t help with actual useful documentation. Just a single hallucinated aspect of a documentation renders it almost useless.
In my experience it only generates adequate documentation when the software is simple and already self explanatory. It does not however help with actual use cases that might need to be documented because they are somehow difficult.
Software developers that are not interested in providing documentation will probably also not be interested in checking whether the documentation slopped out by an LLM is actually correct.
I’m not convinced this is a good idea, flathub isn’t that much better than the others to start turning away content. People will download terrible software wherever it is. Maybe just require a tag instead? An “are you really sure” prompt?
Wow. A genuine, bona fide “the other kids are doing it” argument live and in the wild.
ahem
mother’s voice mode
“If the other kids ran to jump off a cliff, would you join them too?”
Yes. That’s how I got into base jumping. But we aren’t here to talk about my poor life choices.
I’m not saying they should welcome LLM slop; I’m saying they might be better off containing it and marking it. Not all of it is bad, but just outright refusing it is maybe a bit naïve and short-sighted.
Nah, I think they’re right.
Did you read the pr?
It rejects anything that’s AI assisted code, documentation or otherwise. Not just vibe coded apps. If flat hub can enforce that, which they won’t be able to, because that rejects an entire section of the software industry who uses modern professional tools (do they just ban everyone that uses jetbrain IDEs or visual Studio or visual Studio code with any form of text completion? Which are all ML (AI) based have been long before llms were a thing)?
If they manage to actually enforce that and do that then flat hub is essentially dead.
“All the kids are running off the cliff. There’s no point resisting. We should all just run off the cliff.”
There’s going to be a lot of painful readjustment in coding geek circles when the bubble collapses next year.
Did you reply to the wrong comment? If not, I suggest you re-read the comment and re-check your reading comprehension.
Nowhere did I state anything similar to what you are saying.
I know you’re baiting me, and I know I’m taking the bait, but I expect better on Lemmy as opposed to Reddit.
This is like banning everything that is related to AI and then being surprised that your MRI results no longer are interpreted well because the ML models that have been used to do that for the last decade are no longer available.
Because you don’t know the difference between an LLM and other ML models, which, honestly, seems to be true for the majority of this thread.
Because you don’t know the difference between an LLM and other ML models, which, honestly, seems to be true for the majority of this thread.
<refrain>
Context in communication is king. Nobody today, in a conversational, non-practitioner context, will use the term “AI” to mean anything other than the stuff that’s being crammed repeatedly and at length into every orifice of the body politic without asking for consent in advance: LLMbeciles (and other forms of degenerative AI).
People who babble that there’s lots of AI technologies that yadda yadda yadda are being wilfully obtuse and obfuscatory simply for the sake of being obtuse and obfuscatory. (It’s basically a sea lion tactic, understand. (For context, since context is king, when someone uses “sea lion” in this sort of message they do not mean the literal animal and are not talking about how sea lions hunt. They are referring to a famous comic that has a lot of sea lions up in arms as it revealed their tactic to the masses for edification and derision.))
Yes the term “AI” covers a whole bunch of technology. But nobody today in this group talking about “AI” is talking about fucking genetic algorithms or fucking anthill optimizations or vision recognition systems or any of the other crap you’re going to try to spring on us with your slop-gobbling “A-ha!” moments.
We mean LLMbeciles and other forms of degenerative AI, not fucking MRI analysis.
Go find a slop-gobbling channel to masturbate in or something. You clearly have nothing to contribute here.
</refrain>
