Re: GR -- Allow AI-Assisted Contributions (was Re: DFSG-new-queue is AI-generated)

Andrey Rakhmatullin <[email protected]> Sun, 1 Mar 2026 16:18:15 +0500

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Sun, Mar 01, 2026 at 12:13:57PM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>> The last version thereof was:
>>> https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2025/05/msg00145.html
>>
>> That includes the following section:
>>
>> +---
>> | Any work resulting from generative use of a model can at most be
>> | as free as the model itself; e.g. programming with a model from
>> | contrib/non-free assisting prevents the result from entering main.
>> +---
>>
>> which would ban projects like the Linux kernel, the Python interpreter,
>> LLVM, ... and their reverse dependencies from Debian, likely also from
>> non-free.
>>
>> What is the plan to deal with that?
>
>I don't think that is the only (or even intended) interpretation -- my
>reading of the proposal was that if a LLM is used as build dependency
>when building the Debian package, and that LLM is in contrib/non-free,
>then the package cannot be in main.  That, it is just restating what we
>already know about build dependencies.

It clearly says "Any work resulting from generative use of a model" and 
"programming with a model". It's about writing the code. 

>If some external project like the Linux kernel, Firefox, or whatever,
>turns into an entirely vibe coded project, I don't think there is
>anything in any Debian policy today that would prohibit packaging it.

Today, yes.

That's why we are still packaging them. The proposal is to change this.

>I also don't think Debian can win any fight to reject such
>contributions.  Several people already explained that critical pieces of
>the FOSS ecosystemn is already (co-)written using LLM tools.

That's what Ansgar is saying.

-- 
WBR, wRAR

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