Re: GR: Ban LLM contributions from Debian

Jonathan Carter <[email protected]> Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:34:01 -0300
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Organization	Debian
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hi peb

On 2026/07/23 19:40, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote:
> BEGIN BALLOT OPTION
> 
> Accept AI contributions for Debian specific work
> ================================================
> 
> 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 the contributions done specifically for the Debian project.
> 
>   - 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:
>     + they sufficiently evaluated and properly understand the work they
>       intend to submit, and are able to explain and defend it;
>     + they put any potential Signed-off-by tag and GPG signatures on the
>       contributions they send to the Debian infrastructure (package,
>       commit, mail, …) themselves;
>     + any content uploaded that would end up in production on Debian
>       infrastructure (main git branch, package upload) has been submitted
>       by them explicitely.
>   - Work assisted by a generative AI agent or tool should be marked as
>     such in the adapted 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 such marking;
>   - No cloud-based AI shall be used when the data transmitted could
>     either be sensitive to the project (personal data, information under
>     embargo, …) or not public (debian-private discussions, …).
> 
> END BALLOT OPTION

Seconded.

This proposal is by far the most sane option so far. It reflects the 
reality of the day, and provides some safeguards that maintainers can 
use as a guideline, which also makes it a lot more practical without 
self-imposing unnecessary constraints on our community.

-Jonathan
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