Editor's take: Despite not being truly "intelligent" or reliable for building entirely new software projects, generative AI tools have become extremely popular among the "vibe coding" crowd. However, Linux developers are now facing a growing problem as AI tools are increasingly surfacing issues in long-standing networking code.
The open-source community continues to question the impact of generative AI services on software development and bug reporting. "Vibe-coded" reports are becoming a growing burden for volunteers working on major software projects, starting with Linux and its extensive collection of legacy device drivers. One developer is now proposing to remove thousands of lines of code entirely to avoid spending time on AI-generated reports.
Linux developer Andrew Lunn recently submitted a series of patches to remove drivers for ancient networking devices from the open-source kernel. The drivers support ISA and PCMCIA Ethernet hardware, most of which was released "last century." In all likelihood, no current Linux users are still relying on these devices for everyday networking.
Until recently, maintaining such legacy drivers in a modern Linux kernel had not been a major issue. However, inexperienced contributors using AI tools and fuzzing techniques are now surfacing more theoretical issues in the code, forcing maintainers to revisit long-forgotten parts of the kernel to evaluate these reports.
"Fixing these old drivers make little sense, if it is not clear they have users," said Lunn.
The programmer is proposing to remove the drivers one patch at a time, making it easier to restore them if someone still owns the original hardware and is willing to maintain the code. If accepted, Lunn's patches would modify 40 files and remove more than 27,000 lines of code from the Linux kernel. Affected devices include "classic" network cards made by 3Com, Novell, Cirrus Logic, Fujitsu, and others.
Linux has traditionally provided broad support for long obsolete hardware. Just recently, the open-source kernel removed hardware emulation code required to support the ancient Intel 486 processors.
As with many areas of modern computing, AI is now complicating Linux's backward-compatibility maintenance. AI-generated reports and "vibe-coded" submissions are often viewed skeptically by developers who do not want to spend time validating hallucinated outputs from large language models, while major corporations such as Google and Microsoft are increasingly integrating AI-generated code into their workflows. Some high-profile open-source projects are also beginning to request compensation, citing the growing burden of reviewing AI-generated bug reports.