GR: Ban LLM contributions from Debian

8 min read Original article ↗ 
Hi all,

What follows is a GR proposal to ban LLM contributions.

It is time for Debian to make a statement regarding generative AI and LLM usage.
Since this has been discussed in exhaustive detail on -private and -project,
the proposal follows below without any further discussion.


BEGIN PROPOSAL


Preamble
===========

This proposal aims to expressly forbid any contributions to Debian written with
the use or assistance of large language models (LLMs) or other generative AI tools.
The scope of this GR is (non-exhaustive): - Debian source packages 
- Official Debian project software, such as lintian
- Debian web resources - Documentation and translations added by Debian contributors 
- Official communication from Debian
It does not include: - Upstream projects using LLMs for development 
- AI-related software


Rationale
===========
Debian has a well-earned reputation for stability. This stability is crucial to Debian's position in the free software ecosystem. It is our belief that widespread LLM usage comes from the "move fast, and break things" attitude that, while common in many parts of this industry, is contrary to what makes Debian Debian, and is inappropriate for Debian contributors. In practical terms, LLM usage raises the following concerns: 1. Copyright LLM output has very unclear legal status: it may be possible to copyright on its own merits, or not; it may be affected by all of the licenses and copyrights in the training data, or not. Debian Policy and the DFSG require absolute clarity for licensing and copyright[1][2]. Software and other contributions written conventionally by humans with unclear copyright or license status are not allowed in Debian; 
   LLM output should not have a special exception to this.
2. Quality LLM output has many well-known problems with accuracy.[3][4][5] A LLM can never "know" if its output is correct since it merely produces syntactically likely combinations of the training data. In some environments this is good enough. In Debian, it is not. For instance, in packaging, each Debian source package is unique. Since packaging syntax and best practices have changed over time, a LLM-produced package will have a mixture of contents spanning the age of the archive, with watch files that do not work, overrides out of context, imaginary copyright, and will generally be unfit for upload. A seasoned Debian contributor with packaging expertise may find some limited usefulness here, but a new contributor cannot, and would not know how to fix it. These same quality and accuracy concerns apply clearly to all of the areas listed in the scope of this proposal above. 
   If Debian were a closed organization comprising only domain experts who never leave, this might not be an issue; however,
3. Community Debian is a project that is more than just code: it is a community built on shared interests in free software and solving technical problems. Debian intentionally grows this community through many means, and new contributors are always encouraged to join. Allowing LLM contributions breaks this. New contributors submitting LLM output for review places an unnecessary strain on the reviewer, which can lead to burnout. Furthermore, LLM-dependent new contributors do not actually learn and understand the details of Debian packaging or processes, so they cannot come to replace a former burned out DD. 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. 
END PROPOSAL


Citations
===========
[1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#copyright-considerations
[2] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20240614004123/https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/11/10/ai-chatbot-hallucinations/
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20250328154700/https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/biology.html#dives-cot
[5] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/openais-sam-altman-tells-salesforces-marc-benioff-that-ai-hallucinations-are-more-feature-than-bug-1c035c52
[6] https://lwn.net/Articles/1008897/
[7] https://tech-insider.org/ai-data-center-power-crisis-2026/
[8] https://www.debian.org/social_contract
[9] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/pr01.en.html#_what_is_debian


Disclaimers
===========
- Citations are for background information only and do not reflect an endorsement of specific websites.
- Some ideas and wording were derived from the sources below.


Sources
===========
GNOME discussion: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/loupe-no-longer-allows-generative-ai-contributions/27327 (CC0)
Gentoo AI policy: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/AI_policy Codeberg AI policy: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/pulls/1253#issuecomment-19820434 
This document was written by Matthias Geiger <werdahias> and Jesse Rhodes <sney> with input from Sledge and josch, organically and without language model assistance.



best,

--

Matthias Geiger <werdahias>

Debian Developer -- KiCad Contributor
GPG: ECBEDBB607B9B2BE

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