Open source projects create rules to manage AI contributions
You can contribute if you... An Empirical Framework of AI Contribution Policies in OSS
Software Engineering
Summary
AI is making it easier for more people to contribute to open source software by helping write code and documentation. This changes how project maintainers check the quality and trustworthiness of contributions. The authors studied new rules projects are making to handle AI contributions, focusing on concerns like fairness, legal issues, and learning for newcomers. They developed a framework to help projects organize these rules and to better understand how AI is affecting software collaboration.
open source softwareartificial intelligencesoftware contributioncode reviewsoftware maintainerscollaborative software developmentcontribution guidelinessoftware governance
Authors
Gregorio Robles, Daniel M. German
Abstract
Artificial intelligence is reshaping open source software (OSS) contribution by lowering the cost of producing code, documentation, issue reports, and review interactions. This creates opportunities for broader participation, but also disrupts how maintainers assess contributor effort, competence, and accountability. In response, OSS projects are beginning to regulate AI-mediated contribution through contribution guidelines and other project documentation. This paper presents an empirical study of these emerging policies. We analyze project policies on AI-mediated contributions by evaluating their underlying rationales, rules, and expectations. Our analysis shows that these policies seek to protect scarce maintainer attention, preserve accountability, sustain meaningful review interactions, address legal and quality concerns, and maintain pathways for newcomer learning. Based on these findings, we introduce the AI Contribution Governance Framework, which organizes recurring concerns and governance mechanisms across projects. The framework helps OSS communities develop AI contribution policies and provides researchers with a vocabulary for studying how AI is changing collaborative software production.