alt Hacker NewsWhile I understand the caution, the current policy seems too draconian.
It states in part:
> Until that policy is in place, the Governing Board has approved this interim policy:
> Contributions in the OpenJDK Community must not include content generated, in part or in full, by large language models...
Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based. That said, they do soften this with the addition:
> Q: Is it okay to continue using the spell-checking, grammar-checking, auto-completion, and refactoring features in my editor or IDE?
> A: Yes, so long as they are not based on large language models or similar deep-learning systems.
This addition will likely not help as most spell checkers are OS/IDE services and their implementation details are opaque to users.
Replies
> this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based
Who is using an LLM as a spell checker?
I think it's pretty clear how this was meant, not sure why you feel the need to split hairs here. I'm certain the intention is this:
- spell checkers: ok
- '.getC' autocompleting to '.getColor()': ok
- 'getC' autocompleting to 'getColor()' + five more lines based on preceding code and documentation: NO.
Why is it draconian? If we take Dec-2025 as the point where the models became good for real work (agreed by many), not even a year has passed since then. The world hasn't changed, and there are still many open legal questions.
> Note, this would exclude most spell checkers, as they often are LLM based
?
Like, what? What are you even talking about? Most spell checkers used by programmers are certainly not LLM based. Spell-checking has always been instant for like two decades. It's such a solved problem.
Is anyone using even a tiny on-device language model for spelling? For grammar, I could almost imagine it.
But this also bans "simple" AI-powered auto-complete, like Zed's Zeta2 model. This is a very conservative model that rarely tries to propose more than a few obvious lines (at least in my use cases). If a developer accepts a three-line autocomplete that introduces a bug, that's kind of on them. Honestly, about the only thing that Zeta2 is good for is reducing the risk of RSI.
To be fair, it's also their project, and I completely support their right to set whatever policies they want.