Re: LLM usage in Debian -- ballot options comparison

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Hi,

Quoting Jonas Smedegaard (2026-07-30 03:45:52)
> Quoting Holger Levsen (2026-07-30 03:32:05)
> > On Wed, Jul 29, 2026 at 08:50:05PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> > > With the assistance of AI...
> >=20
> > I dont think I am the only one who finds this a tiny bit (cough) offens=
ive,
> > we are discussing whether using AI should be forbidden and you just smo=
ke in
> > the shared space thinking the GR will allow that.
> >=20
> > (I do appreciate your honesty and I also suspect smoking^IA will soon be
> > permitted everywhere...)
>=20
> In what way is it offensive?
>=20
> Assuming good faith, you sure don't mean to imply that some discussed
> *future* rule is in effect now, and I have a hard time understanding what
> other reasoning you mean to point at here.

we have rules to guide on how we are working together. But this doesn't mean
that things which are not in the rules are just free game. When we think ab=
out
what we do in the context of Debian, rules are a useful guardrail by which =
we
oftentimes can more easily decide on our actions in comparison to there not
being any rules. But just because something isn't in Policy or Social Contr=
act
or whatnot doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so.

Of course I cannot speak for Holger, so I speak for myself. Lucas' mail is =
okay
insofar it does not break any of the rules we agreed upon so far, sure. But=
 I
think it became clear from the other mega-thread that there are a lot of pe=
ople
with very strong feelings about this topic. In fact, their feelings are
apparently so strong that they open the big can of worms that is a GR, we s=
pend
a *lot* of our time on very difficult discussions and we risk a hard divisi=
on
of our community or even some of our members leaving. That's tough stuff.
Apparently, some in our community feel strong enough about this topic that =
they
are willing to risk all of that and put so much trouble on their fellow DD's
limited Debian time. Even if this whole LLM topic is fine for you, you prob=
ably
see that this would not've been made into a GR if some of our friends would=
 not
feel *very* strongly (as in: badly) about that topic.

So no, we do not have a document which forbids or discourages mails like the
one by Lucas. But when we judge how we interact with each other, our
established written rules are only a guideline. We can find what others do =
not
ideal even if it isn't written down. The fact that it isn't written down (y=
et)
doesn't mean that you should be doing something.

I also felt a bit sour when I read Lucas' mail.

Lucas, I'm not mad at you. I now know from your messages to the list what y=
our
position is and I respect that. And I can understand that with that position
toward AI/LLMs it felt okay for you to send this message. I still think tha=
t it
lacked a bit of empathy towards people like, for example, me who feel bad
inside every time they see this kind of thing on our MLs (for reasons which=
 are
out-of-scope of the topic about which I want to write about in this email).

Thanks!

cheers, josch
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