Re: GR: Ban LLM contributions from Debian

Pierre-Elliott Bécue <[email protected]> Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:30:23 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hello,

I'd like to offer a ballot option for this GR. It's inspired by the
Linux AI assistant policy. I'm very open to comments and rewrites.

I'm not sure I want this GR to be implemented in a founding document, so
for now, unlike Matthias's proposal, I'd like my ballot option to stand
on its own rather than modifying a document whose future updates would
require a 3:1 majority.

DRAFT BALLOT OPTION

Proposal
========

Debian as a project does not endorse or recommend the use of generative
AI assistants for software development, as it raises multiple concerns
about ethics, legality, copyright, etc.

Nevertheless, Debian acknowledges that these practices are already in
use and here to stay. Rather than banning their use, which seems
counter-productive and unenforceable, the project chooses to place
responsibility on contributors and therefore defines the following
guidelines.

These apply exclusively to code and work done specifically for the
Debian project (Debian websites, applications, resources, packages,
etc.). They do not apply to any upstream work. In what follows, "work"
refers to work covered by these guidelines.

 - All code and work assisted by a generative AI agent or tool must
   comply with the DFSG.
 - The submitter is solely responsible for the submitted work and, by
   submitting it, certifies that:
   + any generated code has been reviewed and audited;
   + all licensing-compliance duties have been fulfilled;
   + all Signed-off-by tags and GPG signatures on anything submitted to
     Debian infrastructure (package, commit, mail, …) have been produced
     by the submitter, not by an AI assistant;
   + commits have been pushed and packages uploaded by the submitter,
     not by an AI assistant.
 - Work assisted by a generative AI agent or tool must be marked as such
   with an "Assisted-by: AGENT:MODEL:VERSION[:TOOL]" trailer in the
   appropriate place (commit message, changelog, …). Some lightweight
   generative tools, such as tab-completion in Copilot, may be used
   without the contributor realising they rely on generative AI models;
   we therefore trust submitters to assess when this rule applies. When
   in doubt, add the trailer.

END BALLOT OPTION

Matthias Geiger <[email protected]> wrote on 22/07/2026 at 17:35:37+0200:

> Hi all,
>
> What follows is a GR proposal to ban LLM contributions.
>
> It is time for Debian to make a statement regarding generative AI and LLM usage.
> Since this has been discussed in exhaustive detail on -private and -project,
> the proposal follows below without any further discussion.
>
>
> BEGIN PROPOSAL
>
>
> Preamble
> ===========
>
> This proposal aims to expressly forbid any contributions to Debian written with
> the use or assistance of large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI tools.
>
> The scope of this GR is (non-exhaustive): - Debian source packages
> - Official Debian project software, such as lintian
> - Debian web resources - Documentation and translations added by Debian
>  contributors
> - Official communication from Debian
>
> It does not include: - Upstream projects using LLMs for development
> - AI-related software
>
>
> Rationale
> ===========
>
> Debian has a well-earned reputation for stability. This stability is crucial to
> Debian's position in the free software ecosystem. It is our belief that
> widespread LLM usage comes from the "move fast, and break things" attitude that,
> while common in many parts of this industry, is contrary to what makes Debian
> Debian, and is inappropriate for Debian contributors. In practical terms, LLM
> usage raises the following concerns: 1. Copyright      LLM output has very
> unclear legal status: it may be possible to copyright on its own merits, or not;
> it may be affected by all of the licenses and copyrights in the training data,
> or not.     Debian Policy and the DFSG require absolute clarity for licensing
> and copyright[1][2]. Software and other contributions written conventionally by
> humans with unclear copyright or license 	status are not allowed in Debian;
>    LLM output should not have a special exception to this.
>    2. Quality  LLM output has many well-known problems with
>    accuracy.[3][4][5] A LLM can never "know" if its output is correct 	since it
>    merely produces syntactically likely combinations of the 	training data.
>    In some environments this is good enough. In Debian, it is not. For instance,
>    in packaging, each Debian source package is unique. Since packaging syntax
>    and best practices have changed over time,     a LLM-produced package will
>    have a mixture of contents spanning the age of the archive, with watch files
>    that do not work, overrides out of context, imaginary copyright, 	and will
>    generally be unfit for upload.     A seasoned Debian contributor with
>    packaging expertise may find some limited usefulness here, but a new
>    contributor cannot, and would not know how to fix it.     These same quality
>   and accuracy concerns apply clearly to all of the areas listed in the scope
>   of this proposal above.
>    If Debian were a closed organization comprising only domain experts who never leave, this might not be an issue; however,
>        3. Community      Debian is a project that is more than just code: it is
>        a community built on shared interests in free software and solving
>        technical problems.     Debian intentionally grows this community through
>        many means, and new contributors are always encouraged to join. Allowing
>        LLM contributions breaks this.     New contributors submitting LLM output
>        for review places an unnecessary strain on the reviewer, which can lead
>        to burnout. Furthermore, LLM-dependent new contributors     do not
>        actually learn and understand the details of Debian packaging or
>        processes, so they cannot come to replace a former burned out DD. 4.
>        Ethics      LLM companies directly hurt the free software community as
>       whole by scraping the whole web for training data without any regard for
>       license, copyright, or even established
>    conventions such as robots.txt.[6]
>    This has had a major negative impact on Debian's public web resources, effectively a large scale and perpetual Denial of Service attack on sites that many users rely on.
>    As a consequence parts of our infrastructure were not reachable at all, and
>    JS-based checks had to be enabled. Many other projects were similarly
>    affected.     Furthermore, LLM training consumes a staggering amount of
>   resources[7], and the user verification systems that we have been forced to
>   implement as protection waste resources as well.
>    This is blatant disregard for the internet as a public resource, wastes
>    system administrator time, and although individual LLM sessions do not
>    directly use massive resources or DoS the public web,     the fact that they
>    can be used at all is a direct result of these unethical behaviours by the
>    LLM companies. Debian has a Social Contract. [8] Our priorities are our users
>   and free software.
> Debian is Stable. [9] Users and organizations choose Debian because it is reliable and secure.
>
> Debian is not here to generate as much code as possible requiring manual review
> by a shrinking number of human volunteers, or to package every piece of
> software, or to rush new features, but these are what LLMs are used for. In
> conclusion, allowing LLM contributions is contrary to the social contract and
> the common cause of creating a free operating system with a focus on quality and
> stability.
>
>
> Proposal
> ===========
>
> In the interest of not eroding Debian's reputation or further damaging the
> community, LLM-assisted contributions should be prohibited from inclusion in
> Debian. Though our position is that LLM contributions are contrary to documents
> already ratified by Debian, in order to remove all doubt, we propose the
> following addition to the Social Contract: 6. Works Created through the use of
> Large Language Models (LLMs)
>    We will not allow direct contributions to Debian written with the use or assistance
>    of large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI tools. Direct contributions are
>    defined as packaging, native Debian software like lintian, documentation and translations
>    written by Debian contributors, and official Debian web resources, etc. Other categories
>    such as upstream projects written with LLM assistance may be included at a
>    later date.     This ensures that Debian remains a stable, trusted, and
>   reliable operating
>    system, and protects the interests of the Debian volunteers who make it possible.
>    Possible Issues
> ===========
>
> Other projects exploring similar decisions have elicited a common reply: "How will you enforce a ban on LLM contributions?"
> While enforcement could be a challenge, this is a statement of intent by the
> Debian community, and we trust this community to adhere to it in good faith.
>
> END PROPOSAL
>
>
> Citations
> ===========
> [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#copyright-considerations
> [2] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
> [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20240614004123/https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/11/10/ai-chatbot-hallucinations/
> [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20250328154700/https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/biology.html#dives-cot
> [5] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/openais-sam-altman-tells-salesforces-marc-benioff-that-ai-hallucinations-are-more-feature-than-bug-1c035c52
> [6] https://lwn.net/Articles/1008897/
> [7] https://tech-insider.org/ai-data-center-power-crisis-2026/
> [8] https://www.debian.org/social_contract
> [9] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/pr01.en.html#_what_is_debian
>
>
> Disclaimers
> ===========
> - Citations are for background information only and do not reflect an endorsement of specific websites.
> - Some ideas and wording were derived from the sources below.
>
>
> Sources
> ===========
> GNOME discussion: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/loupe-no-longer-allows-generative-ai-contributions/27327 (CC0)
> Gentoo AI policy: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/AI_policy
> Codeberg AI policy:
> https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1253#issuecomment-19820434
>
> This document was written by Matthias Geiger <werdahias> and Jesse Rhodes <sney> with input from Sledge and josch, organically and without language model assistance.
>
>
>
> best,
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