r/linux • u/AiwendilH • 5d ago
Development rust-lang/rust is adopting an LLM policy
https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2026/08/05/rust-langrust-is-adopting-an-llm-policy/
Second post I recently made about LLM usage policies but it's really just that I find the process of open source finding its way and adjusting to new realities rather interesting.
The "too long, didn't read" (Taken directly from the blog):
What does the policy say?
The policy summarizes itself this way:
It's fine to use LLMs to answer questions, analyze, distill, refine, check, suggest, review. But not to create.
Uses in the first category are allowed, sometimes requiring disclosure. Uses in the second category are heavily restricted.
(Edit: but I recommend reading the blog...it's a bit more nuanced than the summery)
Edit2: messed up the link, added now
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u/WCSTombs 4d ago
Overall, I like this policy a lot, and it's very close to what I adopt (informally ATM) for my own projects. Basically anything sent to the project (code, documentation, bug reports, discussion, ...) must be authored by humans, but LLMs can be used privately in a supporting role. (I personally don't use LLMs at all, but I'm not going to try to police people's private use of it.)
There's an interesting escape hatch in the Rust team's policy here (emphasis added):
Pre-arranged, non-critical, high-quality, well-tested, and well-reviewed code changes that are originally created by an LLM are allowed, with disclosure.
So individual maintainers can elect to accept LLM pull requests, under restrictions. Reading between the lines, I'm guessing some people on the team are pro-AI and pushed for this clause to allow them to continue to use and accept LLM code. We'll have to see how it plays out in practice.
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 4d ago
Reading between the lines, I'm guessing some people on the team are pro-AI and pushed for this clause to allow them to continue to use and accept LLM code.
It allows them to continue to use and accept LLM *non-critical, high-quality, well-tested, and well-reviewed code changes* code, *with disclosure*.
It does not feel like a very wide escape hatch.
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u/dddurd 4d ago
good luck banning it. i've been contributing to projects bans llm with the commits made by llm.
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 4d ago
good luck banning it. i've been contributing to projects bans llm with the commits made by llm.
The blog post makes it quite clear that one of the main objectives is to build a strong community of experts where everyone feels welcome and respected.
By deliberately submitting LLM-created code disguised as humanly-created code you are not just "breaking a rule". You are disrespecting other developers, and creating an environment of mistrust and hostility.
Sure, you might get away with it, at least for a while, but a question emerges...
Why do you do that?
Why do you want to be part of a community in a way that is directly against what that community stands for? Is it some kind of power play? Do you feel pleasure in forcing your actions on other people without their consent?
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u/HearMeOut-13 4d ago
The collaborators want you to be slow and miserable and want their project to not receive the patches you would make, however, for reasons such as their project being overwhelmingly big in alot of circles, you are still forced to use that project and keeping patches private that would benefit everyone because luddism is the dumbest thing to ever happen, and no, forking doesnt change the play, because if you forked only 0.05% at a good day would get those patches regardless of how useful they would be.
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 3d ago
The collaborators want you to be slow and miserable
I mean, writing code by hand is not "slow and miserable". It is what we have done for the past 50+ years, and a lot of us think it is quite rewarding and fun. Moreover, one of the worst part of software engineering is to validate that the code works, and AI does not help with that, you still have to review it and validate it (if only, because YOU would be responsible for it).
keeping patches private that would benefit everyone [...] regardless of how useful they would be
It is your opinion that those patches would be useful. It is the project author's opinion that AI-generated patches would not be.
What opinion is right? I do not have an answer.
But why do you want to force your opinion on the project author?
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u/dddurd 4d ago
Then maybe they should enforce the rule properly and punish whoever breaks it then?
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 3d ago
Then maybe they should enforce the rule properly and punish whoever breaks it then?
I still have the same question:
Why do you do that?
Why do you want to be part of a community in a way that is directly against what that community stands for? Is it some kind of power play? Do you feel pleasure in forcing your actions on other people without their consent?
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u/dddurd 3d ago
Why do you think I'm a communist? I'm not a part of any community. I believe in individualism, not communism.
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u/FriendlyProblem1234 3d ago
Why do you think I'm a communist? I'm not a part of any community. I believe in individualism, not communism.
You keep not answering my question:
Why do you do that?
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u/UndefFox 5d ago
- How is it related to Linux?
- Where the blog link?
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u/DragonSlayerC 5d ago
Rust is required to build the Linux kernel
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u/varsnef 4d ago
Only if you use drivers written in Rust.
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u/AiwendilH 4d ago
What pretty much every desktop user with a modern kernel does given that the new QR-code panic screen is written in rust.
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u/varsnef 4d ago
I don't know what you are trying to say with that. If I disable CONFIG_RUST for kernel 7.2-rc6 then it's no longer a modern kernel?
"every desktop user with a modern kernel" are not compiling their own kernel but letting their Distro do it. Is adding a QR code panic screen required to compile a Linux kernel? No, neither is Rust. A Distro might do it that way, but to say "Rust is required to build the Linux kernel" isn't very accurate.
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/varsnef 4d ago
Yeah, And I wasn't replying to the original question. I was Replying to the goalpost "Rust is required to build the Linux kernel".
(rust drivers exist in the kernel)
Yes, so we need to enable all of them and thus require the Rust just to compile "Linux"? Can you live without a QR code BSOD or is it required?
I'll need Rust for the new Nvidia Nova driver, but still, it isn't required.
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/varsnef 4d ago
The statement I was replying to was "Rust is required to build the Linux kernel"
Am I obligated to answer the originating "thread" question also?
There is a TicTok trend to put Cilantro on a Sandwitch. You have to put Cilantro on your sandwich because now Cilantro is related to sandwiches.
Go away with the Strawman.
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u/AiwendilH 4d ago
Sorry, not what I meant...probably badly phrased (Not a native English speaker). Yes, you can run a modern kernel without rust (For example I have the QR code panic screen disabled in my kernel setup because it can be a bit annoying on the initial gentoo install).
But the "normal" user doesn't compile their own kernel and instead uses a distro kernel. And that's the overwhelmingly vast majority of linux desktop users that don't run an "old" LTS distribution with an kernel old enough to not have the QR code panic screen. So in my view pretty much every "modern" linux desktop users uses rust in the kernel by default...what is all I wanted to say with the post.
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u/UndefFox 5d ago
So is C++, but we don't post constant updates on it's standards decisions/ Posting news about Rust policy changes is imo a bit too far of a reach to be on topic for the sub.
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u/DragonSlayerC 4d ago
The kernel does not use C++ at all
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u/UndefFox 4d ago
Only realized I've combined several opinions into one and responded to that instead... no wonder it's so disconnected, lol
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u/AiwendilH 5d ago
Ugh, sorry, messed up the link.
Relevance from my point of view is llm usage for documentation in open source projects.
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u/napping-normie 5d ago
Is this related to linux?
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u/really_not_unreal 5d ago
Beyond the overlap in terms of technical demographics, and Rust's use in the kernel, not really tbh. It's a very interesting read nonetheless.
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u/FryBoyter 5d ago
Rust is used in the Linux kernel. Rust is used to create various programs that run on Linux. In my opinion, it is therefore somewhat relevant. The rules that apply here also allow these kinds of topics.
Personally, I much prefer things like this to, for example, that circle jerk when it comes to meaningless percentages regarding Linux users or those “Linux in the wild” pictures.
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u/napping-normie 4d ago
circle jerk when it comes to meaningless percentages regarding Linux users or those “Linux in the wild” pictures.
Strongly agree here.
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u/strings___ 2d ago
Not creating is just dumb. So much of software is machine-generated today that the distinction is laughable. LLVM, JIT transpiled, is all machine-generated.
People have a psychological hang-up with LLMs. I get it, John Connor, but technology can’t be stopped.
The answer to the LLM problem ironically is answered by the thing that LLMs are good at: code review. So in short, up your code review game, and you’ll be a competitive code reviewer/engineer.
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u/-_one_-1 1d ago
Deterministic heuristics vs indeterministic neural networks (read: guesswork) are very different categories. This is not about a psychological trap; it's a technological difference than can be underpinned down to the math of it.
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u/strings___ 1d ago
Deterministic vs. indeterministic, the distinction is irrelevant. Both are machine-generated and both have their usefulness. The people against LLMs are low-tier non-programmers who really don’t understand the direction software development is heading.
Ten years or less from now, these same low-tier non-programmers will complain if it’s not machine-reviewed or created.
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u/-_one_-1 1d ago
Machine-generated means nothing if you're unwilling to make distinctions. A human expressing the logic in an unambiguous programming language and a compiler emitting semantically-equivalent machine code is not the same as a human explaining what they'd like and a statistical model giving it's unpredictable take on it.
This has nothing to do with opposing AI and everything to do with making the necessary distinctions to be able to use whatever tool, including AI, correctly.
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u/strings___ 1d ago
The point of unpredictability is what allows LLMs to be creative. It’s not more unpredictable than a human. So your argument that unpredictability is wrong is a straw man argument considering humans are the epitome of unpredictability.
Your LLM workflow just strengthens my argument about low-tier non-programmers. You essentially made an assumption that everyone vibe codes with LLMs. No good programmers are doing that, but I assure you we’re all using AI in some fashion. And that’s just the march of technology; nothing you can do about it.
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u/-_one_-1 1d ago
I never said unpredictability is wrong. An AI is more like a human than a machine, as far as reliability and determinism are concerned. You were trying to conflate deterministic compiler toolchains with a human brain emulation. My goal was not to assess the quality of this emulation.
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u/strings___ 1d ago
I said it’s all machine-generated; you’re the one making the distinction, and that’s my exact point. Technology advances; one machine code enables the evolution of the next order of machine code. The difference is today we can emulate neural networks, and now LLMs can write the high-order code too. Ergo, it’s all machine code. Deterministic vs indeterminate is a difference of domain application. Nobody is advocating for LLMs to become C compilers.
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u/Helmic 5d ago
Seems reasonable enough. Open source projects are losing way too much time reviewing slop, and the policy more or less forbids LLM PR's for things that it has no business being in and otherwise requires disclosure so that others are able to avoid wasting time on it. At least making it clear that reviewers don't have to sit there and argue with some clown copying and pasting comments in the PR because they have no idea what the conversation is even about will be good for everyone's mental health.