Re: Ballot Option: Allow public AI for translations

Pirate Praveen <[email protected]> Tue, 11 Aug 2026 02:57:06 +0530
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
---updated proposal v3.0 ---

Using its power under Constitution section 4.1 (5), the project issues 
the following statement describing its current position on AI-assisted 
contributions. This statement describes the position of the project at 
the time it is adopted. That position may evolve as time passes without 
the need to resort to future general resolutions. The GR process remains 
available if the project needs a decision and cannot come to a consensus.

Preamble

LLMs and its impact on society and environment is a hugely polarizing 
debate.

In this document, we mainly look at contributions using LLMs.

LLMs have made a huge leap in language translations, but at the same 
time depending on big tech companies to provide this service is not a 
good idea. When it comes to generating code, we also need to consider 
how it weakens the idea of copyleft, unlike translations.

Enforcing copyleft requires us to depend on copyright law, if LLM 
generated code cannot be copyrighted, then LLM could be used to take out 
copyleft requirements from Free Software projects. But this is not 
something we can really control.

Basics

1. If a Free Software LLM model is run locally, we are still in full 
control of it. But the cost of hardware to run these models makes access 
to such hardware difficult. So we cannot entirely insist on running this 
locally, similar to not insisting on use of Free Hardware Designs. So we 
will need to collectively run the models to make sure everyone have 
access to Free Software models in practice.

2. Public AI is AI as public infrastructure like highways, water, or 
electricity. An example to understand what Public AI looks like in 
practice is https://publicai.co, which is funded by Mozilla, the Future 
of Life Institute, and the Center for Cultural Innovation.

Public AI must use Free Software (Open Weight) models.

Since we need a more precise definition, PublicAI.Co also complies with 
Open Source AI definition by OSI (https://opensource.org/ai).

For AI to be accessible to people, it has to be available easily to 
people, like Wikipedia or Lets Encrypt. Not for profit collaborations 
between multiple organizations and public funding is essential to keep 
it sustainable, though public funding is not a requirement. How we are 
going to fund such Public AI will evolve in the future.

So to evaluate an AI web service, we will use the definition of Open 
Source AI by OSI, but some requirements may be relaxed.

3. Public AI or Open Source AI or Free Software AI model running locally 
will be referred as Debian Free AI (DFAI).

4. At this point, we don't want to insist on training data being freely 
available, similar to how we don't insist on Free Hardware Designs. The 
challenges to practically being able to use the available data should be 
factored in. Similar to how costly it would be to produce hardware from 
Free Hardware Designs, even when training data is available, huge 
computing power is required to use it practically.

This point is a specific relaxation from the Open Source AI definition.

Guidelines

1. Translations generated by DFAI can be accepted.

2. Code / documentation generated by DFAI can also be accepted. Ideally 
it should preserve share alike / copyleft conditions of original code 
used in training, but how copyright law evolves is not in our control.

3. Contributions (code/bug reports/patches/documentation etc) assisted 
by DFAI should be accepted.

4. Any such contributions should also follow the generally accepted 
norms for contributions like ownership and quality.

The person submitting any such contributions generated or assisted by 
DFAI should take full responsibility for its quality.

---updated proposal v 3.0 ---

On 8/10/26 11:01 AM, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 05:35:33AM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:
>> ---updated proposal---
>>
>> Using its power under Constitution section 4.1 (5), the project issues 
>> the following statement describing its current position on AI-assisted 
>> contributions. This statement describes the position of the project at 
>> the time it is adopted. That position may evolve as time passes 
>> without the need to resort to future general resolutions. The GR 
>> process remains available if the project needs a decision and cannot 
>> come to a consensus.
>>
>> LLMs have made a huge leap in language translations, but at the same 
>> time depending on big tech companies to provide this service is not a 
>> good idea. When it comes to generating code, we also need to consider 
>> how it weakens the idea of copyleft.
>>
>> 1. Public AI is AI as public infrastructure like highways, water, or 
>> electricity. An example of Public AI is https://publicai.co, which is 
>> funded by Mozilla, the Future of Life Institute, and the Center for 
>> Cultural Innovation. It also complies with Open Source AI definition 
>> by OSI (https://opensource.org/ai). For AI to be accessible to people, 
>> it has to be available easily to people and not for profit 
>> collaborations between multiple organizations and public funding is 
>> essential to keep it sustainable.
>>
>> 2. Public AI must use Free Software models.
>>
>> 3. At this point, we don't want to insist on training data being 
>> freely available, similar to how we don't insist on Free Hardware 
>> Designs. The challenges to practically being able to use the available 
>> data should be factored in. Similar to how costly it would be to 
>> produce hardware from Free Hardware Designs, even when training data 
>> is available, huge computing power is required to use it practically.
>>
>> 4. Translations generated by Public AI can be accepted.
>>
>> 5. Code / documentation generated by Public AI can also be accepted if 
>> it preserves share alike / copyleft conditions of original code used 
>> in training.
>>
>> ---updated proposal---
>>
>> I'd need seconds if people feel we need an option for allowing Public 
>> AI/Open Source AI. This would be closer to proposal A in practice, but 
>> could become more useful when the Free Software models mature and 
>> produce better results than currently.
>>
>> I could also get some help in making the draft better.
> 
> I have been away from the discussion for a few days, but is it on 
> purpose that this proposal does not shed a single word on AI assisted 
> coding or bugfinding/fixing?
> 
> Will that mean that AI assisted work on the actual code is freely 
> allowed or fully forbidden?
> 
> Greetings
> Marc
> 
>
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