I disagree with your reading of the proposals. My interpretation was that only proposals (1) and (7) have severe limits on LLM use. Each of the other proposals allows LLM use with some very minor concessions or no concessions at all. It felt to me as though they were all worded very sneakily to try to attract votes from anti-AI developers while actually being very permissive, by waffling about the harms of AI in the preface before completely dropping the ball in the requirements section.
Removing all of the waffle, the proposals can be boiled down to:
Completely outlaws all use of LLMs in Debian contributions, whether code or documentation or communication etc.
Allows any and all LLM use provided that:
the tools are not legally problematic
the LLM output does not violate another copyright
the contributor assumes full responsibility
they're not used for bulk operations without prior discussion
private data is not sent to cloud services
Allows LLM use for everything except for human-to-human communication. Also permits individual maintainers to ban LLM contributions to the project that they maintain (implying that maintainers may also permit LLM contributions to the project they maintain).
This one is particularly pernicious since it also "requests" (as in, a non-binding encouragement) that nobody uses LLMs, whilst acknowledging that for decision makers this "will involve uncomfortable compromises."
Allows any and all LLM use provided that the contributor takes full responsibility, tags the contribution as LLM-assisted, and doesn't use cloud services for private data.
Says absolutely nothing of substance. 8 paragraphs of waffle to place no restrictions on anything but to say that contributors are already bound by the Debian Social Contract and existing rules, and that they should be held responsible for their contributions accordingly.
Exactly as (5), but this time 9 paragraphs of waffle to say nothing of substance.
"In order to safeguard the project's mutual understanding, trust and respect, we disallow the output of generative AI as direct contributions to Debian."
12 paragraphs of hand wringing about the climate boils down to: "this text is just a position statement. This said however, we appreciate the disclosure of LLM usage."
So by my reading, that makes:
Bans AI: (1), (7)
Allows AI: (2), (4), (5), (6), (8)
Allows AI with a restriction: (3)
Now read the titles of these proposals and their introductory preamble and ask yourself whether they are representative of the actual rules they will put into effect.
Debian neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI tools in the development, maintenance, or documentation of software, packaging, documentation
You joke, but they have built experimental Debian builds on at least one non-Linux kernel. I don't know how far an AI split in the FOSS community will go, but there are more options than you would think. And when the bubble pops, it's more likely the people that still have money after will be the ones not in the AI camp.
FOSS has had a funding problem forever, and AI has made it exponentially worse by increasing the review and maintenance burden on volunteer maintainers and the infrastructure burden with scraping and agentic build workflows. The projects that are surviving best are the ones that have a funding source, which is typically businesses that financially benefit from the software (there are of course exceptions).
When the AI bubble pops, companies are going to be pulling back on all spending, so I expect donations to FOSS projects/foundations to get tight. The ones that will still be spending are the ones that will still have money to spend, and I don't expect diverse views on AI to be distributed equally across those survivors.
If a distro gets filled with LLMs and those require upstream resources whether for frontier models or to maintain and update local models, that requires money. Some for that potential overhead, but also funding to support the development to implement those features.
If one distro spends resources to implement LLMs and another doesn't, when that bubble pops, the group that invested will likely have less money having spent more.
22 Comments
kbal@fedia.io · 42 pts · 18d
That's a month old. The voting period for Debian ends tonight, so check back tomorrow to see the news.
Jhex@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 18d
True; however, even the proposals that could allow inclusion of AI have severe limits to them (which is awesome IMO)
https://www.debian.org/vote/2026/vote_002
eleijeep@piefed.social · 13 pts · 18d
I disagree with your reading of the proposals. My interpretation was that only proposals (1) and (7) have severe limits on LLM use. Each of the other proposals allows LLM use with some very minor concessions or no concessions at all. It felt to me as though they were all worded very sneakily to try to attract votes from anti-AI developers while actually being very permissive, by waffling about the harms of AI in the preface before completely dropping the ball in the requirements section.
Removing all of the waffle, the proposals can be boiled down to:
So by my reading, that makes:
Now read the titles of these proposals and their introductory preamble and ask yourself whether they are representative of the actual rules they will put into effect.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2026/08/msg00352.html
ulterno@programming.dev · 1 pts · 17d
So, filtering out > 90% of cheap slop?
I would like something like point 3, with "for everything" replaced with option 2.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 13 pts · 18d
Good, no more slop!
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 17d
They voted to allow it :'(
OfCourseNot@fedia.io · 10 pts · 18d
Debian. Is. Love. 🌀❤️
Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 18d
One reason more to stick to debian
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 4 pts · 17d
They voted to allow it :'(
Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 17d
Uff :(
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 6 pts · 17d
RIP Debian's copy left status :(
So now it's going to just violate copyrights
GodIsNull@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 17d
jcarr@programming.dev · 5 pts · 18d
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Votes-Responsible-AI-Use
Option 5: "Responsible Use of Generative AI"
SwooshBakery624@programming.dev · 4 pts · 17d
It hasn't aged well.
motruck@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 18d
Good luck not using the kernel?
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 18d
IMHO the kernel policy is the best balance. LLMs allowed for help only; you need to understand your own code.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 1 pts · 18d
Debian is one contender I might migrate too, depending on how this all pans out and how other distros handle AI.
nicolauz@feddit.org · -7 pts · 18d
So, no more Linux Kernel? Lol?
ignirtoq@feddit.online · 8 pts · 18d
You joke, but they have built experimental Debian builds on at least one non-Linux kernel. I don't know how far an AI split in the FOSS community will go, but there are more options than you would think. And when the bubble pops, it's more likely the people that still have money after will be the ones not in the AI camp.
wander1236@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 18d
The only people that will have money are the billionaires currently inflating the bubble
nicolauz@feddit.org · 0 pts · 18d
What has money to do with this?
Anyway, I personally rather bet on the project's founder's stance.
ignirtoq@feddit.online · 1 pts · 18d
FOSS has had a funding problem forever, and AI has made it exponentially worse by increasing the review and maintenance burden on volunteer maintainers and the infrastructure burden with scraping and agentic build workflows. The projects that are surviving best are the ones that have a funding source, which is typically businesses that financially benefit from the software (there are of course exceptions).
When the AI bubble pops, companies are going to be pulling back on all spending, so I expect donations to FOSS projects/foundations to get tight. The ones that will still be spending are the ones that will still have money to spend, and I don't expect diverse views on AI to be distributed equally across those survivors.
BassTurd@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 18d
If a distro gets filled with LLMs and those require upstream resources whether for frontier models or to maintain and update local models, that requires money. Some for that potential overhead, but also funding to support the development to implement those features.
If one distro spends resources to implement LLMs and another doesn't, when that bubble pops, the group that invested will likely have less money having spent more.