On Wed, 12 Aug 2026 at 15:12:43 +0000, Holger Levsen wrote: > ---- 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 or without aforementioned typo fixes. Thanks Holger for writing this. -- Guilhem.
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