Re: Ballot option: Allow AI-Assisted Contributions

Hi Lucas,

Thanks for drafting this proposal. I had a couple of queries, see below-

On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 09:31:10PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> The Debian project allows AI-assisted contributions (partially or fully
> generated by an LLM), provided the following conditions are met:
> 
> 1. **Legal Compatibility:** Contributors should ensure that the terms and
>    conditions of the generative AI tool do not impose contractual
>    restrictions that conflict with the distribution, modification, or use of
>    the output in the context of Debian.

I am not sure how one fully could ascertain that. Is code generated by
ChatGPT/claude/codex/cursor/gemini (which most of the LLM users make use
of these days) satisfy this criteria?

Similar to https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses would it be possible to
have a list of such LLMs which are acceptable?

> 4. **Explicit Disclosure:** When a significant portion of the contribution
>    is taken from a tool without manual modification, contributors should
>    disclose the tool's use. This may be recorded using Git trailers, such as
>    `Generated-By:` or `Assisted-By:`.

This is a good point, but honestly, I really doubt if a new contributor
is going to read in detail all of this proposal. In many cases,
contributors may deliberately not disclose AI usage. Is there a way to
enforce this policy? The same goes for the "Accountability" point.

Also, could the wording be changed to "contributors *must* disclose
tool's usage"?

> 5. **Prior Discussion of Bulk or Automated Changes:** Similarly to the
>    mass-bug filing process (Developers Reference section 7.1.1),
>    contributors should discuss their intention before submitting bulk or
>    autonomously generated contributions. Any such automated process should
>    be overseen by a human who remains accountable for its behavior and
>    output.

I wanted to discuss a little bit on the lines of this point. I'm not
sure if a proposal could help with this situation - but I will ask you
anyway.

A problem that I have heard about from other open source maintainers is
that they are seeing a wave of large amount of PRs completely written by
AI which have no utility and are really just "slop". I also got to know
this is more common when the said projects participate in outreach
programs like GSoC for instance, and a wave of slop happens to come from
potential applicants which is further increasing because of easy
accessibility to LLMs.

This is especially quite bad for Debian as we already have very limited
volunteer time. Do you think it is possible to have a point and/or edit
existing points which could stop us from getting in that situation?

PS: If someone wants to say that Debian should stop participating in
outreach programs, this particular discussion is _not_ for that topic.
Please do not respond to this mail if that is your solution.

> 6. **Community Courtesy:** To respect the preferences of project members who
>    wish to avoid AI-generated content, contributors should clearly label
>    such content in mailing list and bug discussions (e.g., by identifying
>    such content with a clear disclaimer or a machine-readable tag like
>    `[AI-Generated]`).

Could this be changed to "contributors *must* label such content"?

Best,
Nilesh