Stop advertising in your commits! | AksDev

AksDev

I'm Akseli,
also known as Aks from Finland!
KDE dev by day and a hobbyist gamedev/FOSS-dev by night.
Loves video games and metal/EBM music.

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Stop advertising in your commits!

Posted on 2026-05-26 by Akseli Lahtinen
Co-authored-by: ur mom

Co-authored-by: ur mom

I don't get why people just gleefully add these ads for companies to their open-source projects that do not pay them a penny (but actively take money from them in subscription fees).
"Assisted by blabot", "co-authored-by: slopgpt", "sent from my fartphone"
Why? It's a fucking ad. I bet you use ad blockers, yet you add ads to your commits.
Stop that.
Disclose your "AI" tools in a merge request if needed but leave them out of the damn commits, those are for technical information and not for advertising.
Or just add "generated by an LLM" but do not give those companies free advertising space. Or just.. Do not use these tools, which is fairly easy.
Any tool that adds advertising to my commits or emails or whatever messages is a really bad one.
Fuck ads.

Also before someone gets their nipples in a twist about something, here is my "AI" stance: https://akselmo.dev/posts/why-i-will-likely-never-use-ai-programming-tools/

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2026 © Akseli Lahtinen

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Akseli Lahtinen expresses strong dissatisfaction regarding the practice of including advertisements within software commits, particularly in open-source projects. The author questions the motivation behind adding such advertisements for companies to repositories that do not compensate them for the use of the software, suggesting that these practices are fundamentally exploitative. Lahtinen argues that this behavior is inherently promotional, questioning why users would willingly contribute advertising material to code repositories, especially when many users employ ad blockers.

The author categorizes specific examples of advertising embedded in commits, such as notations like "Assisted by blabot" or "co-authored-by: slopgpt," as advertisements. Lahtinen asserts that this practice is unacceptable, equating it to adding unwanted advertisements within technical documentation. A central demand is for contributors to cease this behavior, emphasizing that commits should serve as repositories for technical information rather than promotional space.

Regarding the use of artificial intelligence tools in development, Lahtinen proposes a nuanced approach. While acknowledging the use of tools, the author suggests that developers should disclose the use of AI, perhaps in a merge request, to provide necessary technical context. However, this disclosure should be separate from the commit messages themselves, which should be reserved strictly for technical details. Alternatively, if AI generation is noted, the reference should simply state that the content was generated by a large language model without providing free advertising space to the corporations that provide these tools. The author concludes by stating a general aversion to any tool or practice that introduces advertising into communications such as commits or emails.