New AI/LLM Policy

The use of AI/LLM tools in software development has become an increasingly debated topic, and people have pretty strong opinions, one way, or the other. A question that people have been asking us lately is, “does the Solus Project have a policy about AI/LLM contributions?” Today, we are here to give you an answer.

Much of our policy is inspired by the Budgie Desktop AI policy, which itself takes inspiration from the Linux kernel and Fedora policies, and others.

Throughout this post, and as you read the document, please keep a couple of things in mind:

1. We are a small team of volunteers.
2. The policy reflects the situation as we currently see it. It may change over time as circumstances evolve.

Rationale

Solus is used by people around the world as their daily computing environment. Every change has the potential to affect the experience of countless users. We take that responsibility seriously, and contributors, whether using AI tools or not, must do the same.

As a curated operating system, the Solus team takes pride in its work. Writing software and maintaining an Operating System is pragmatic by nature. It has to work, be maintainable, and be easy to reason about. But, we also treat this all as a craft. We would rather move deliberately than move fast and break things. That care and intentionality is something we want to preserve in every contribution.

What is acceptable

Contributions to Solus that were made with AI/LLM tools are allowed, as long as they follow our policy. Please read the policy for more information, but generally speaking, all contributions must:

1. Be tested before submission by the person authoring the work.
2. Add an Assisted-by LLM trailer to the commit when AI/LLM have assisted with code changes.
3. Be submitted by the person authoring the work.

What is not acceptable

There are a few things that we consider unacceptable for contributions.

1. Changes to packages or code that have not been tested by the developer.
2. All contributions must be submitted by the developer, not an AI bot.

Additionally, content that is generated by AI tooling, even partially, is never acceptable for our blog or official communications.

Enforcement

Intentional obfuscation of AI tooling usage is grounds for rejection and may result in being blocked from future contributions.

We are not interested in policing every keystroke. The goal is honest, transparent collaboration. If you used AI to help write code, say so. It’s that simple.

Final thoughts

Everyone is encouraged to read the policy here. It is also linked on this website in our About section.

We recognize that you might have strong opinions on AI/LLM usage. We are people, too. Please keep that in mind when discussing this topic in our spaces. Discussion, sharing your viewpoint, and voicing your opinion is always welcome. Attacking others for theirs is not.