I read through the exact message chain that article is referencing some time ago, which did not lead me to the conclusion the article would suggest. It seems that he consistently refers to AI use from the perspective of finding bugs more so than than fixing them, which he could definitely do a better job clarifying.
I think it makes the point of sashiko - helping maintainers - unachievable. If the point to not use
LLMs in general, let’s discuss this, not how to make each use case more complex.
It seems like [1] expresses a very anti-LLM position in general
Yes.
And no, that’s not the position of the Linux kernel.
I realize that some people really dislike AI, but this is an area
where I’m willing to absolutely put my foot down as the top-level
maintainer.
Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues
with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it.
[snip]
Yes, it can also be a somewhat painful tool, both for maintainer
workloads and just from a “it keeps finding embarrassing bugs”
standpoint.
[snip]
(emphasis/snips mine)
EDIT: Note: sashiko is an LLM driven code review tool someone runs on the linux kernel. This entire discussion was about a code review tool.
Linus Torvald’s position appears to be “Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects” and “AI is a tool, just like other tools we use”.
I don’t understand how you could possibly conclude from that, that it’s just used for reviews. The are so many contributors, and if there is no central policy of not contributing LLM code, it seems inevitable to me that there is a lot of LLM code going on.
Or why wouldn’t it be? Where do you get that confidence from? All I can see is that many involved people avoid admitting the seemingly rather obvious extent of it.
The KDE thing was a specific person declaring that they would hold a meeting about Gen AI in KDE, who hasn’t contributed to the project in years otherwise. Nobody is going to convince everyone to compile their own vibecoded version of KDE’s projects.
If anything Linux is also taking the bottle, it seems like: https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/08/10/linus-torvalds-says-ai-has-made-huge-linux-kernel-updates-the-new-normal/5285268 Completely self-inflicted, though, from what I can tell. Apparently they just enjoyed having a copyright time bomb as part of the code, or something - or I don’t know why else they’d do it.
AFAIK the “huge updates” are written by humans in response to LLM found bugs.
Linus Torvalds confirmed LLM use for new code is fine: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/linus-torvalds-to-critics-of-ai-coding-in-linux-fork-it-or-just-walk-away/ So I doubt it’s just human work.
I read through the exact message chain that article is referencing some time ago, which did not lead me to the conclusion the article would suggest. It seems that he consistently refers to AI use from the perspective of finding bugs more so than than fixing them, which he could definitely do a better job clarifying.
The message
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-media/CAHk-=wi4zC+Ze8e+p3tMv8TtG_80KzsZ1syL9anBtmEh5Z40vg@mail.gmail.com/
(emphasis/snips mine)
EDIT: Note: sashiko is an LLM driven code review tool someone runs on the linux kernel. This entire discussion was about a code review tool.
This is the Linux foundation generative AI policy: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/generative-ai
Linus Torvald’s position appears to be “Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects” and “AI is a tool, just like other tools we use”.
I don’t understand how you could possibly conclude from that, that it’s just used for reviews. The are so many contributors, and if there is no central policy of not contributing LLM code, it seems inevitable to me that there is a lot of LLM code going on.
Or why wouldn’t it be? Where do you get that confidence from? All I can see is that many involved people avoid admitting the seemingly rather obvious extent of it.
Sorry, I was (without realizing) also responding to the claim you made in your other comment which links that article.
Thank you for your time.
At least the kernel hasn’t (yet) gone full KDE.
The KDE thing was a specific person declaring that they would hold a meeting about Gen AI in KDE, who hasn’t contributed to the project in years otherwise. Nobody is going to convince everyone to compile their own vibecoded version of KDE’s projects.
EDIT: See https://discuss.kde.org/t/sorry-to-bring-up-a-contentious-topic-kde-ai-llm-policy/46333/187. The developers seem to be responding in an acceptable manner, although I only looked at the start and end since it’s quite a long discussion.
THe kernel seems to be full steam ahead slop: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/linus-torvalds-to-critics-of-ai-coding-in-linux-fork-it-or-just-walk-away/ (Apart from the kernel subsystems were LLM use was banned, I think I heard something like that about something graphics related but I might be misremembering.)
If you don’t believe it, check here: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/generative-ai Or can you see any ban on LLM code in there? Feel free to point me to it.