What do you think it’ll happen and what do you want to happen?

Debian developers have been considering a general resolution over LLM usage within the project. After collecting a variety of proposals, voting has now commenced for Debian developers to decide how comfortable they are with AI / Large Language Model contributions in the project or not.

The choices being considered for this Debian general resolution (GR) include:

[ ] Choice 1: Ban LLM contributions from Debian via Social Contract

[ ] Choice 2: Allow AI-Assisted Contributions with conditions

[ ] Choice 3: Reject LLMs as far as practical, update Code of Conduct

[ ] Choice 4: Accept AI contributions for Debian specific work

[ ] Choice 5: Responsible Use of Generative AI

[ ] Choice 6: A cautious approach to generative AI

[ ] Choice 7: Debian is created by humans

[ ] Choice 8: Avoid the use of LLM: climate destruction is a deal breaker

[ ] Choice 9: None of the above

All the details on each of those choices can be found via the Debian.org vote page.

Additional details in this mailing list post with the voting details on the general resolution. The voting period began at midnight and is set to run through end of day 28 August.

  • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
    336·
    6 days ago

    What is this, a Monty Python skit? How the fuck are they gonna come with a consensus with all these choices?

    There’s really just choices 1 & 2. The rest are just elaboration. And what the fuck is even ‘none of the above’?

    Really, there’s just ‘yes’ and ‘no’. If it’s a ‘yes’, there would certainly be condition, which can come later. If it’s a ‘no’, who give a shit why; it’s a vote, not a fucking book club. They can definitely put the reason in the comment, but do they really need to put the reasons as the choice?

        • TrollAccount69@lemmy.ml
          10·
          6 days ago

          Long time Debian user and governance appreciator. Welcome. If you want some schizophrenia inducing reading material you should go back and check the long and well documented history of Debian voting.

          • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
            9·
            6 days ago

            especially the adoption of systemd that was decided by only 4 people back around 2014. lol

            • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
              5·
              6 days ago

              Where did you pull that number from? https://vote.debian.org/~secretary/gr_initsystems/results.txt

              The smallest difference between a systemd option and a “not-only-systemd option” I see is

              Option 2 defeats Option 4 by ( 211 - 177) = 34 votes.

              And bear in mind that condorcet selects the most agreeable option, not just the majority option.

              And it makes sense: the most likely contender at the time was upstart, which didn’t stand the test of time AFAIK (I don’t think the systemd hater crowd still uses that)

              So it ended up the right decision. Would they have decided differently if other good init systems had existed already? Maybe, but they didn’t.

    • vandsjov@feddit.dk
      3·
      6 days ago

      I would say it’s okay with more than yes/no. You could say yes, but only if code review by human. The difference is that if you can only say yes or no, you would have to say yes, but then don’t know if the details of the final rules of AI in the project would actually be a dealbreaker for you. However, these options are a little too much.

    • eremophila@lemmy.zip
      2·
      6 days ago

      The 1st round should be yes, or no.

      Choice A in the developer poll still allows for ai

      "It does not include:

      Upstream projects using LLMs for development
AI-related software
Upstream patches/security fixes etc."
    • Vogi@piefed.socialEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      These are just the headlines. If you click on the link there are the choices written out. Apparently it was open for submissions so there could be some options that feel duplicated.

        • eremophila@lemmy.zip
          1·
          5 days ago

          I read 1, 7, and 8, as they appeared to be the options not just saying ‘ai yay’. I stopped reading each of those options when they appeared to turn into contrary bullshit. I very briefly scanned some of the other options.

          None of them appeared to prohibit the inclusion of ai. The verbosity comes across as deliberate, rather than informative to me, knowing how much people scan these days.

          I have debian installed on my 2 pc’s, but do not actively use it, and this would be my first insight/interaction with the people behind it, and the ‘community’. If this poll is the 1st step in the process, I have to question why the 1st step was not simply ai: yes, or no. With a result of yes = empty partitions where I used to have debian.

          • SocialistVibes01@lemmy.mlOP
            4·
            6 days ago

            Do you want me being more direct? I’m asking whether you read the linked texts. I’m not making any judgement. I do have a judgement on the explanations given tho: too short. The ballot text is too vague.

    • SocialistVibes01@lemmy.mlOP
      11·
      6 days ago
      4. Ethics
---------

LLM companies directly hurt the free software community as whole by
scraping the whole web for training data without any regard for
license, copyright, or even established conventions such as
robots.txt.[6] This has had a major negative impact on Debian's public
web resources, effectively a large scale and perpetual Denial of
Service attack on sites that many users rely on. As a consequence
parts of our infrastructure were not reachable at all, and JS-based
checks had to be enabled. Many other projects were similarly affected.
Furthermore, LLM training consumes a staggering amount of
resources[7], and the user verification systems that we have been
forced to implement as protection waste resources as well. This is
blatant disregard for the internet as a public resource, wastes system
administrator time, and although individual LLM sessions do not
directly use massive resources or DoS the public web, the fact that
they can be used at all is a direct result of these unethical
behaviours by the LLM companies.

Debian has a Social Contract. [8] Our priorities are our users and
free software. Debian is Stable. [9] Users and organizations choose
Debian because it is reliable and secure.

Debian is not here to generate as much code as possible requiring
manual review by a shrinking number of human volunteers, or to package
every piece of software, or to rush new features, but these are what
LLMs are used for.

In conclusion, allowing LLM contributions is contrary to the social
contract and the common cause of creating a free operating system with
a focus on quality and stability.

Proposal
--------

In the interest of not eroding Debian's reputation or further damaging
the community, LLM-assisted contributions should be prohibited from
inclusion in Debian.

Though our position is that LLM contributions are contrary to
documents already ratified by Debian, in order to remove all doubt, we
propose the following addition to the Social Contract:

6. Works Created through the use of Large Language Models (LLMs)

We will not allow direct contributions to Debian written with the use
or assistance of large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI
tools. Direct contributions are defined as packaging, native Debian
software like lintian, documentation and translations written by
Debian contributors, and official Debian web resources, etc. Other
categories such as upstream projects written with LLM assistance may
be included at a later date. This ensures that Debian remains a
stable, trusted, and reliable operating system, and protects the
interests of the Debian volunteers who make it possible.

Possible Issues
---------------

Other projects exploring similar decisions have elicited a common
reply: "How will you enforce a ban on LLM contributions?" While
enforcement could be a challenge, this is a statement of intent by the
Debian community, and we trust this community to adhere to it in good
faith.