Open Source GZDoom Community Splinters After Creator Inserts AI-Generated Code

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you've even idly checked in on the robust world of Doom fan development in recent years, you've probably encountered one of the hundreds of gameplay mods, WAD files, or entire commercial games based on GZDoom. The open source Doom port -- which can trace its lineage back to the original launch of ZDoom back in 1998 -- adds modern graphics rendering, quality-of-life additions, and incredibly deep modding features to the original Doom source code that John Carmack released in 1997. Now, though, the community behind GZDoom is publicly fracturing, with a large contingent of developers uniting behind a new fork called UZDoom. The move is in apparent protest of the leadership of GZDoom creator and maintainer Cristoph Oelckers (aka Graf Zahl), who recently admitted to inserting untested AI-generated code into the GZDoom codebase.

"Due to some disagreements -- some recent; some tolerated for close to 2 decades -- with how collaboration should work, we've decided that the best course of action was to fork the project," developer Nash Muhandes wrote on the DoomWorld forums Wednesday. "I don't want to see the GZDoom legacy die, as do most all of us, hence why I think the best thing to do is to continue development through a fork, while introducing a different development model that highly favors transparent collaboration between multiple people." [...] Zahl defended the use of AI-generated snippets for "boilerplate code" that isn't key to underlying game features. "I surely have my reservations about using AI for project specific code," he wrote, "but this here is just superficial checks of system configuration settings that can be found on various websites -- just with 10x the effort required."

But others in the community were adamant that there's no place for AI tools in the workflow of an open source project like this. "If using code slop generated from ChatGPT or any other GenAI/AI chatbots is the future of this project, I'm sorry to say but I'm out," GitHub user Cacodemon345 wrote, summarizing the feelings of many other developers. In a GitHub bug report posted Tuesday, user the-phinet laid out the disagreements over AI-generated code alongside other alleged issues with Zahl's top-down approach to pushing out GZDoom updates.

standing in the way of progress

[OrangeTide]

I like to stand in the way of regress. I expect some rationale and supporting evidence before jumping onto any new technology. Simply going to each new tech, on basis of the promises it makes alone, is not my idea of leadership or of sound engineering.

Re:Fork off

[thecombatwombat]

Follow the links and you'll see that wasn't the issue. It was that it wasn't clear the code was GPL compatible, untested, and then the maintainer tried to remove all history of it by force pushing to git.

It's not like being mad some coder used VS Code instead of vim, "if someone provides free work for you, they decide what tools they use" just really isn't the story.

Sooo many AI code issues are really just the same old issues of cut and paste code but we discuss them like they're new because AI. Those things are clearly problems regardless of AI.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Ya, bullshit.

Follow the links and you'll see some people making very fucking political stands in a coding environment, and they can frankly go get fucked.
Particular shout-out to the-phinet for being an absolute piece of shit.

"Why are you lying to me it doesn't even compile!"
"Yes... it passed CI... so it surely compiles."
"Ya, AFTER YOU FIXED IT!!!!"

That's seriously a discussion that actually happened. It's incredible. I'd fire that fucker in 0.3 seconds.

Re:hmm

[nightflameauto]

Calling AI code "slop" is disingenuous. Yes, if the code is shit, it is slop. But modern AI can generate clean functioning code in large segments. If it runs, it runs.

If it runs, it runs? You must be in management.

I have yet to see an AI code a "large segment" without flaw. Small snippets, sometimes, but even there it's a 50/50 shot. The larger the ask, the easier it is to get back complete garbage that may run, but won't actually do what was in the spec / prompt.

Re:hmm

[neilo_1701D]

I have yet to see an AI code a "large segment" without flaw. Small snippets, sometimes, but even there it's a 50/50 shot. The larger the ask, the easier it is to get back complete garbage that may run, but won't actually do what was in the spec / prompt.

I do Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP systems. As a test, I've been asking Copilot to generate code for me. I am yet to see a piece of code that runs correctly - and I'm talking about something that the AI system should know, since it has feasted on Microsoft documentation. Even the smallest piece of code - generating an event handler for a table insert event - is wrong. It might be 90% correct, but that 10% kills it.

Re: hmm

[liqu1d]

This is the bit that concerns me. We see it making clear mistakes in areas we have knowledge. If we canâ(TM)t trust it then how on earth can we trust it in areas we are not so knowledgable. Too many people are quite happy to and itâ(TM)s scary.

Re: hmm

[liqu1d]

Perhaps the slashdot site developers can use AI to support Unicode because they dont seem to do it on their ownâ¦

Re:

[Strangelover]

...these "site developers". Are they in the room with us now? O.o

Re: hmm

[liqu1d]

If they are they should be ashamed

Re:

[nightflameauto]

This is the bit that concerns me. We see it making clear mistakes in areas we have knowledge. If we canâ(TM)t trust it then how on earth can we trust it in areas we are not so knowledgable. Too many people are quite happy to and itâ(TM)s scary.

I've got a half theory, half conspiracy lunatic fringe whatever, that there's been some human conditioning going on making computers out to be superior to humans for at least the last two generations, perhaps longer. There are a lot of folks that see computers as some form of deity, or perhaps demigod, and so far above humanity already, rather than seeing them as the tools they currently are and look to remain to be for some time now. Basically, as people have escaped traditional religions, they've been rep

Re:

[Pascoea]

I do Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP systems.

Nice! I'm mostly in the 2012 world, but we've been (slowly) migrating to 365. I'm not a dev, but have dabbled.

I wonder if LLM's ability (or lack thereof) to generate proper code for AX is just how close X++ is to other languages, and how relatively niche it is. If I'm playing around with PHP, JS, or futzing in the Arduino world, I've had pretty good luck getting ChatGPT or Copilot spit out small snippets of code for a very specific task.

Re:

[fafalone]

My favorite is when AI tells me thing x is impossible in language y when code to do x has been on a major site for years if not over a decade. When you try to push through it generates actual gibberish, like not a single line remotely related to the task.

Re: hmm

[Anamon]

Hah, I had a similar experience recently with a library which had changed its API a while back

Claude suggested doing something with the old methods, which no longer compiled. I told it as much, to which it confidently replied that they do and I must be missing an import. I googled the new way on my own and asked Claude to do what I was asking using that new method. Just as confidently, it claimed that I was wrong, this function doesn't exist in the library, but it could help me implement one that does what

Re: hmm

[SuperDre]

And you're exactly describing my experience with human written untested code.. Most humans aren't capable of writing large pieces of code without any flaws. As long as you expect it to contain flaws and review the code (of AI) there isn't a problem. I see AI write large pieces of code in merely a second while a human coders takes about a day or even a week, and that code also has to be reviewed and fixed. PS. I'm still an old coder who just hasn't used AI himself a lot due to it not being in my daily patter

Re:

[nightflameauto]

And you're exactly describing my experience with human written untested code.. Most humans aren't capable of writing large pieces of code without any flaws. As long as you expect it to contain flaws and review the code (of AI) there isn't a problem. I see AI write large pieces of code in merely a second while a human coders takes about a day or even a week, and that code also has to be reviewed and fixed. PS. I'm still an old coder who just hasn't used AI himself a lot due to it not being in my daily pattern yet, so I write all my code by myself, (also because it's having to write in a legacy language).

The biggest issue I have with AI written code, rather than writing it myself, is when it comes to bug fixes, you have to take far more time trying to figure out what the AI did. And it's almost guaranteed, if it's long-form code, to find issues that a human coder wouldn't put there. If they ever get an AI up to snuff on self-checking/reviewing code, then maybe use old coders will be in trouble. Until then, it's either code it ourselves and have a chance at cleaning it up at the test stage, or have the AI co

Modern AI?

[RitchCraft]

"modern AI" - what the hell is modern AI?

Re:

[sabbede]

AI that is a cultural and artistic response to the rapid changes in society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterized by a break from tradition and an emphasis on experimentation across various art forms?

Re:

[thegarbz]

If it runs, it runs.

I take it you were the coder behind the Apple calculator app? https://developers.slashdot.or... [slashdot.org]

Re:

[Sigma 7]

More like a coder for a previous version of the Apple calculator app:

https://thedailywtf.com/articl... [thedailywtf.com]

Note how it drops button presses, meaning 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 75.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

It's not shit, the problem is:

stolen scraped code that we have no way of verifying is compatible with the GPL

So it's an argument over whether the code is sufficiently ideologically pleasing, the AI bit is just a red herring.

Always there to remind me.

[Zuck Enabler]

Why does every AI related article have an AC posting innocuous but pro-AI content?

I see a similar divide at work

[ffkom]

The divide between rapidly brain-atrophied LLM abusers and old men yelling at clouds (because they want high-quality, hand-optimized software development back) seems all too familiar to me, and I don't see a resolution anytime soon. One might argue it should be possible to use LLMs just as yet another tool to help with some things, without being abused for other things. But it seems between vibe-coders and experienced programmers there is no significant middle ground to speak of.

Re:

[Local ID10T]

IDEs are the middle ground. A properly configured IDE does a ton of automation already. An IDE that integrates a purpose built LLM/AI is just "a smarter IDE".

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Journeyman programmers are the middle ground. Those who've programmed for less than 10 years but have put in enough hours of boilerplate code and cosmetic script changes to have absorbed the lessons.

The problem isnnt AI

[MerlynEmrys67]

recently admitted to inserting untested AI-generated code into the GZDoom codebase.

Wait we are putting untested code into the codebase? I dont care where untested code is coming from - it is never Ok. If AI code passes tests, then I don't care. If Linus Torvalds develops code himself and puts untested code into Linux... FORK immediately

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, whatever... sounds like a simple mistake [github.com] easily fixed by reverting the commit and pushing to a proper branch. They should probably change the repo settings so main can't be pushed to directly like that, etc. It's not like they intentionally pushed it untested to main while yelling YOLO.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Bingo.

And the fucksticks accusing them of malfeasance knew that, and decided to construct a soapbox with which to yell at clouds, while the poor fucker who made the commit is like "wtf is wrong with you people- your ranting doesn't add up." And they were right.

Re: The problem isnnt AI

[SuperDre]

The point is, no matter if the code was written by a human of AI, pushing untested code is just a no no. This whole story about AI generated code bullshit is just because some older coders just don't want to admit that AI is gonna replace their job/passion (this coming from an old coder who still doesn't use AI in his daily coding job). Humans are perfectly capable of writing worse code as AI does, and that's why you should always review and test code, in normal conditions, before putting it in production.

Sounds like "work around me" leadership

[Gravis Zero]

introducing a different development model that highly favors transparent collaboration between multiple people.

Given that this is a change, I've seen this kind of bullshit "leadership". It basically amounts to, "I'm doing what I'm doing and fuck you if you get in the way of that." This means their own shitty view of how to do things (like insisting on git merge instead of rebasing) and are dismissive of rational arguments to change in favor of, "well this is how I do it." Did you have a large patch that fixes stuff that's ready to be merged in? Well, the leader had a bit of inspiration and merged in something he's b

Re:

[Zuck Enabler]

Yep they'll alternate between "you're and engineer you figure it out" and "I have some arbitrary suggestions about your code that will make me feel like a mentor. just suggestions. just personal preference. but also i won't approve merging your PR until its done the way I imagined"

Had a boss who was bad about this and despite his strong opinions he never bothered to write more than 4 sentences of requirements for any story. Had to start every task with "what would my dipshit boss think is a good way to do

Is this about code or politics?

[Waccoon]

I dunno. There may be more going on here than reported. I find it a bit odd that a bunch of people immediately decide to fork the project rather than take the time to cool off and work out their differences.

I've done my share of working on FOSS projects and there's often even more infighting and politics than in commercial products.

Kinda sad, as I've been a huge fan of ZDoom and GZDoom for well over a decade.

Re:

[GameboyRMH]

It sounds like "Graf Zahl" was a not-so-benevolent OSS project dictator and this was the last straw.

Re:

[MikeS2k]

The GZDoom team have wanted to implement features and change some other things for years, perhaps decades now, but Graf Zahl being the lead has denied them, on personal whims. For example the default texture filtering in GZDoom is almost uniformly percieved to be ugly and trash, and should not be on by default - but Graf likes it, so it is on by default, period. - meaning the 100's of playthroughs you see on Youtube have this ugly texture smoothing (totally unlike the original game) because most people won

Re:

[Zuck Enabler]

Is this like the old NES emulator smoothing where different constellations of pixels translated into different blobby shapes?

Re:

[GameboyRMH]

So this is basically a "last straw" thing, TBH I think the AI thing is more an excuse (with of course some true anti AI zealotry thrown in, you can tell whenever somebody uses the word "slop" they are likely a hysterical zealot - not saying AI is good, far from it, but some people are irrational).

Slop is a totally fair term for any low-quality AI-generated material, and not an unreasonable one for AI-generated content in general due to average output quality.

I don't care if it is AI generated !!!

[martiniturbide]

For example: I want an open source OS/2 kernel alternative that requires to have back level compatibility with OS/2 Warp. If parts of it are AI generated I don't care, because I don't have the people to do that and it is something that developers does not want to do for fun or free. But when you have the people, willing to work for fun and free in a project they like, it seems they feel alienated that machine is doing their job. Life is a contradiction.

Re:

[martiniturbide]

Or maybe it is a thing like "A Machine should not take away my fun".

Re: I don't care if it is AI generated !!!

[SuperDre]

And that's what it's really about, as humans write just as much crappy code and should also never be pushed untested into a project like this. But it's AI so now it would be a problem? Think again.