Re: GR: Ban LLM contributions from Debian

On Wed, 22 Jul 2026 23:06, gregor herrmann <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:35:37 +0200, Matthias Geiger wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>
>Hi!
>
>>What follows is a GR proposal to ban LLM contributions.
>
>This text looks quite garbled, both in my MUA and on 
><https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/07/msg00000.html>.
>Could you please post it again in a readable way?

Hi,

right, sorry.

Wrapped at 80 chars below :)


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 ahere 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,