Re: GR: Ban LLM contributions from Debian

Amin Bandali <[email protected]> Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:48:49 -0400
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Matthias Geiger wrote:

> On Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:50, Kurt Roeckx <[email protected]> wrote:
>>Your message was not signed. Could you please sign it?
>>
>>
>>Kurt
>>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> What follows is a GR proposal to ban LLM contributions.

Seconded.

> 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
> - Upstream patches/security fixes etc.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> Updated, formatted and signed.
>
> best,
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