Re: AI contributions

James Turner <[email protected]> Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:10:00 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.games.flightgear.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
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> On 30 Jul 2026, at 12:54, Philips Nguyen <[email protected]> =
wrote:
>=20
> To answer this. Flightgear doesn't fully ban AI contributions, =
however, you must legally own the code and responsibilities around it, =
and you should be able to understand and explain what the code does.

In =E2=80=98detail=E2=80=99:

	=
https://docs.flightgear.org/contributors-guide/guidelines/generative-AI.ht=
ml

How you produce the code is your choice: (just as you can turn on/off =
auto-complete in your IDE), but you need to read / understand / review =
**every** line you=E2=80=99re submitting, *before* you make it someone =
else=E2=80=99s problem in an MR. And in the code-review process, if we =
get the feeling the submitter is just using the chat-bots but doesn=E2=80=99=
t actually understand either the existing code or their =E2=80=98own=E2=80=
=99 changes, we=E2=80=99ll just close the MR and get on with our lives.

(And, this was/is true before genAI was a thing, again it=E2=80=99s the =
code quality and ownership and understanding that matters, we=E2=80=99ve =
also rejected entirely human-authored MRs because the quality was =E2=80=A6=
. insufficient)

That said, because FlightGear is crusty old C++, and the models were =
trained extensively on crusty C++, they=E2=80=99re very good at =
reasoning about it, so I tend to use the tools as =E2=80=98extremely =
smart search and replace=E2=80=99 - this works with eg Ollama models =
running locally (admittedly, on a 48Gb MacBookPro, so I can run a 35B =
model locally).

Kind regards,
James






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<html aria-label=3D"message body"><head><meta http-equiv=3D"content-type" =
content=3D"text/html; charset=3Dutf-8"></head><body =
style=3D"overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; =
line-break: after-white-space;"><br =
id=3D"lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div><br><blockquote =
type=3D"cite"><div>On 30 Jul 2026, at 12:54, Philips Nguyen =
&lt;[email protected]&gt; wrote:</div><br =
class=3D"Apple-interchange-newline"><div><span style=3D"caret-color: =
rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: =
normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: =
normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: =
none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; =
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; =
display: inline !important;">To answer this. Flightgear doesn't fully =
ban AI contributions, however, you must legally own the code and =
responsibilities around it, and you should be able to understand and =
explain what the code does.</span><br =
class=3D"Apple-interchange-newline"></div></blockquote></div><br><div>In =
=E2=80=98detail=E2=80=99:</div><div><br></div><div><span =
class=3D"Apple-tab-span" style=3D"white-space:pre">	</span><a =
href=3D"https://docs.flightgear.org/contributors-guide/guidelines/generati=
ve-AI.html">https://docs.flightgear.org/contributors-guide/guidelines/gene=
rative-AI.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>How you produce the code is =
your choice: (just as you can turn on/off auto-complete in your IDE), =
but you need to read / understand / review **every** line you=E2=80=99re =
submitting, *before* you make it someone else=E2=80=99s problem in an =
MR. And in the code-review process, if we get the feeling the submitter =
is just using the chat-bots but doesn=E2=80=99t actually understand =
either the existing code or their =E2=80=98own=E2=80=99 changes, we=E2=80=99=
ll just close the MR and get on with our =
lives.</div><div><br></div><div>(And, this was/is true before genAI was =
a thing, again it=E2=80=99s the code quality and ownership and =
understanding that matters, we=E2=80=99ve also rejected entirely =
human-authored MRs because the quality was =E2=80=A6. =
insufficient)</div><div><br></div><div>That said, because FlightGear is =
crusty old C++, and the models were trained extensively on crusty C++, =
they=E2=80=99re very good at reasoning about it, so I tend to use the =
tools as =E2=80=98extremely smart search and replace=E2=80=99 - this =
works with eg Ollama models running locally (admittedly, on a 48Gb =
MacBookPro, so I can run a 35B model =
locally).</div><div><br></div><div>Kind =
regards,</div><div>James</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div=
><div><br></div><div><br></div></body></html>=

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