From the comments I was expecting a less well reasoned post. However, while I don't agree with some of his rationale, generally they seem reasonable.
The author isn't even condemning all AI generated MRs. Only ones meeting a few conditions.
cschep · 55m ago
Low effort contributions have always, and will ways be, unhelpful. We just now have a tool that generates them EVEN FASTER. :)
That must be frustrating for OSS maintainers, especially when contributing them can meaningfully move the needle on getting jobs, clients, etc.
Definitely makes sense to have rules in place to help dissuade it, but this brave new world isn't going away.
fennec-posix · 15m ago
On the flip-side of this, have had friends have their MRs against projects get "reviewed" by CoPilot which does a lot of unnecessary nit-picking and can often be incorrect at it. I get it helps project maintainers save time, but it just feels very dismissive to have your code be thrown to a robot to critique and comment on.
IshKebab · 54m ago
As far as I can tell this is entirely hypothetical and he hasn't actually received an AI generated MRs.
LtWorf · 53m ago
I have. Now what?
flyingspaceship · 51m ago
Reject anything made in bad faith and humor anything in good faith, as is everything
esafak · 46m ago
Prepare a test suite and lint file to ensure some quality control.
ath3nd · 3m ago
I have, and I have declined them all.
As a matter of fact I have yet to see an OSS maintainer that accepts AI generated slop MRs.
Mitchell Hashimoto did the same thing with Ghostty and I respect the decision. AI assistance is okay but writing slop with little to no effort to understand it simply to get a badge that you've contributed to OSS is a waste of time for everyone.
serf · 31m ago
>How can my feedback improve you as a software developer if you don't understand your own code?
Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
I don't want a moral referendum about how my code shall be the mana by which all future reviewers and practitioners of the art shall sup and become enlightened. Group education isn't my job as someone submitting a PR to fix some trivial shit. Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart, sometimes it doesn't need to be a learning experience by which we all grow.
Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project. Be happy that someone wants to help.
collinmcnulty · 8m ago
If you don’t care about the reason for rejection, you don’t have to read it. Many people will ask for a reason and take even more of a maintainer’s time, so writing once and linking helps.
righthand · 19m ago
If it’s a low risk site (marketing page), I’ve been blindly approving them so that the engineer can go and fix it when prod breaks. Submit unreviewed garbage, get unreviewed garbage. I am not your quality gate keeper.
lawlessone · 32m ago
sorry if it's wrong to ask here, I've never joined an OSS project but kinda want to are there many out there that could use the help?
This is a repo of good beginner OSS projects to contribute to
esafak · 23m ago
Look up the bug tracker of any library you like. If your pull request gets merged you've joined.
thekevan · 1h ago
We get it, some changes to a project are a bad idea. I feel like the overemphasis on AI generated ones is kind of posturing.
tonymet · 37m ago
sounds like the equivalent of people posting on social media that they are getting way too many DMS and dating requests. The coder "humble brag".
Just give feedback or decline the PR
dbalatero · 11m ago
no, it sounds like the author has encountered this enough that giving the same feedback over and over manually is a waste of their time. hence the post: "please read this, read your own pr, and get back to me when it's in a better state."
The author isn't even condemning all AI generated MRs. Only ones meeting a few conditions.
That must be frustrating for OSS maintainers, especially when contributing them can meaningfully move the needle on getting jobs, clients, etc.
Definitely makes sense to have rules in place to help dissuade it, but this brave new world isn't going away.
As a matter of fact I have yet to see an OSS maintainer that accepts AI generated slop MRs.
https://news.itsfoss.com/curl-ai-slop/
https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/10/ai_slop_bug_reports/
Just say that you don't want my code, better yet just silently reject it.
I don't want a moral referendum about how my code shall be the mana by which all future reviewers and practitioners of the art shall sup and become enlightened. Group education isn't my job as someone submitting a PR to fix some trivial shit. Sometimes it doesn't need to be smart, sometimes it doesn't need to be a learning experience by which we all grow.
Throw out the garbage, keep the good stuff, and appreciate the attention to the project. Be happy that someone wants to help.
This is a repo of good beginner OSS projects to contribute to
Just give feedback or decline the PR