Re: ballot option: LLM usage accellerates the destruction of our ecosystem (planet earth) and that is a deal-breaker

Hello there,

Le mercredi, 12 août 2026, 17.12:43 h heure d’été d’Europe centrale Holger 
Levsen a écrit :
> ---- start ballot proposal ----
> 
> title: LLM usage accellerates the destruction of our ecosystem (planet
> earth) and that is a deal-breaker
> 
> 
> 
> Using its power under Constitution section 4.1(5), the Project issues the
> following statement describing its current position regarding the use of LLM
> (Large Language Models) within Debian.
> 
> We don't have a concern with the LLM _technology_ as such: it's just maths
> and enough training material, which outputs a very large set of numbers
> that we can use to infer new material from existing material. But we cannot
> talk about the LLM technology without talking about who is pushing for its
> usage, who is doing the training and how, what effect those have on our
> limited resources, and what are the economical and political motives of
> these.
> 
> Foremost we don't understand how anyone can agree that global LLM usage
> accellerates the destruction of our ecosystem, planet earth, and not feel
> like that is a deal-breaker.
> 
> To often the only response we've seen to this point was that other
> activities are also bad (some even worse) for the climate. How is this even
> an argument? The planet is burning, we should try to stop that as much and
> as fast as we can! If others aren't stopping, isn't that even more reason
> to compensate for their irresponsible actions?
> 
> And while we're on that point: All of our users live on this planet, so
> protecting this planet is a matter of life and death for all of us. In other
> words, caring about something as big as climate change during our Debian
> work is self evident.
> 
> Debian recognizes that LLM *also* raise significant ethical, legal,
> technical, and social concerns. These include questions relating to
> copyright and licensing, privacy, the provenance and quality of generated
> material, the health of Free Software communities, and the long-term
> consequences of widespread reliance on LLM-generated content.
> 
> That said, we would like to emphasize that we condemn LLM (resource) usage
> but not LLM users. Fight the game, but not the players.
> 
> We also acknowledge that LLM usage can be hard if not impossible to detect
> and that Debian as a distribution cannot really impose LLM policies on
> other projects we package and distribute. Therefore this text is just a
> position statement. This said however, we appreciate the disclosure of LLM
> usage.
> 
> Accordingly, Debian encourages contributors to avoid the use of LLM where
> practical and to prefer human authorship, collaboration, and technical
> understanding over LLM-generated output.
> 
> At the same time, Debian has long relied on the judgment and responsibility
> of its contributors rather than prescribing individual workflows.
> Contributors remain responsible for everything they submit, irrespective of
> the tools used in preparing a contribution. Existing Debian standards
> regarding quality, correctness, licensing, and legal compliance continue to
> apply.
> 
> The Debian project has always recognized the commitment and professionalism
> of its members. All contributions are under the responsibility of the
> Debian Contributor making it, no matter the technology they have behind. We
> trust all Debian Developers, Maintainers and Contributors will continue to
> uphold the high quality values that have distinguished our project from its
> onset.
> 
> Please keep being excellent to each other and the only planet we have.
> 
> 
> 
> ---- end ballot proposal ----

Seconded.

> with thanks to Didier 'OdyX' Raboud for
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/08/msg00101.html and Bas Wijnen
> for https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/08/msg00118.html and Tobias
> Frost for https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/07/msg00343.html

Eh, I'm glad it helped someone draft a new ballot option!

Best,

    OdyX

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