Re: GR: Ban LLM contributions from Debian

Jeremy Sowden <[email protected]> Sat, 25 Jul 2026 11:55:24 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
On 2026-07-24, at 00:40:59 +0200, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote:
> Based on the feedback I got:
> 
> 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.

J.
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