QEMU: Define policy forbidding use of AI code generators

@@ -282,4 +282,57 @@ boilerplate code template which is then filled in to produce the final patch.

The output of such a tool would still be considered the "preferred format",

since it is intended to be a foundation for further human authored changes.

Such tools are acceptable to use, provided there is clearly defined copyright

and licensing for their output.

and licensing for their output. Note in particular the caveats applying to AI

content generators below.

Use of AI content generators

TL;DR:

**Current QEMU project policy is to DECLINE any contributions which are

ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Llama and similar tools.**

The increasing prevalence of AI-assisted software development results in a

number of difficult legal questions and risks for software projects, including

QEMU. Of particular concern is content generated by `Large Language Models

`__ (LLMs).

The QEMU community requires that contributors certify their patch submissions

are made in accordance with the rules of the `Developer's Certificate of

Origin (DCO) `.

To satisfy the DCO, the patch contributor has to fully understand the

copyright and license status of content they are contributing to QEMU. With AI

content generators, the copyright and license status of the output is

ill-defined with no generally accepted, settled legal foundation.

Where the training material is known, it is common for it to include large

volumes of material under restrictive licensing/copyright terms. Even where

the training material is all known to be under open source licenses, it is

likely to be under a variety of terms, not all of which will be compatible

with QEMU's licensing requirements.

How contributors could comply with DCO terms (b) or (c) for the output of AI

content generators commonly available today is unclear. The QEMU project is

not willing or able to accept the legal risks of non-compliance.

The QEMU project thus requires that contributors refrain from using AI content

generators on patches intended to be submitted to the project, and will

decline any contribution if use of AI is either known or suspected.

This policy does not apply to other uses of AI, such as researching APIs or

algorithms, static analysis, or debugging, provided their output is not to be

included in contributions.

Examples of tools impacted by this policy includes GitHub's CoPilot, OpenAI's

ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Meta's Code Llama, and code/content

generation agents which are built on top of such tools.

This policy may evolve as AI tools mature and the legal situation is

clarifed. In the meanwhile, requests for exceptions to this policy will be

evaluated by the QEMU project on a case by case basis. To be granted an

exception, a contributor will need to demonstrate clarity of the license and

copyright status for the tool's output in relation to its training model and

code, to the satisfaction of the project maintainers.