Discussion
So Debian adopted a resolution on the use of “generative AI”:
https://www.debian.org/vote/2026/vote_002#texte
Condorcet spoke: of all the options put to the vote, it must be a good compromise, an average of where the community stands.
How much of a compromise is it really, though?
🧵
Their amoral contributors have voted to deliberately ensloppify.
The message of this resolution is that it’s neither “pro” nor “anti”: it’s neutral, promoting “responsible use”.
In fact, it looks like an example of “extreme centrism”: “Debian neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI”, “Contributors are expected to exercise appropriate care”, “[t]his resolution therefore affirms that generative AI is neither exempt from nor subject to special rules”.
The narrative seems to be: “AI” is just another tool, nothing changes here—move along.
Under the guise of neutrality, what it actually does is open the gates to genAI-produced contributions. This, is political.
The “responsible use” narrative shifts responsibility from the group to the individual. It’s not unlike the tobacco industry’s strategy—or indeed that of the “AI” industry.
A funny example: the text recognizes that “the legal status of material produced by generative AI systems remains the subject of ongoing discussion in many jurisdictions” (a euphemism) and then states that Debian will “rely on the judgment and responsibility of its individual contributors”—as if individual contributors would know better than lawyers in this domain.
Disregard of legal issues is more of a detail though.
While the text states that “such tools can substantially improve the productivity of contributors” (which is a subject of debate), what’s telling is what the text doesn’t even mention: the “externalities”, the environmental and social impact of these services.
And that’s probably the crux of the split among free software people on this matter: are our development efforts made in a vacuum?
It’s not new: whether, for instance, to use BitKeeper for Linux development led to similar debates.
The difference here is that LLMs are not even “just a tool” in the sense BK was: the lock-in is going to be much deeper, in our organizations and in our brains. LLMs threaten the ideal of knowledge sharing and the social fabric we’ve built.
I’m not a Debian contributor and not a user anymore but I’ve always viewed Debian as a lighthouse for free software and for collective self-determination.
I’m afraid about the signal this vote is sending to the free software community at large; I’m afraid of it moving the Overton window further towards disregard for humans and for the climate change emergency, in a selfish and myopic way that we’ll regret.
@civodul
> I’m afraid about the signal this vote is sending to the free software community at large
As I read it, the clearest signal this sends is 'as a collective, we don't know how to think about this yet'. It suggests the pro and anti LLM factions are roughly equal, and their biggest share fear is splitting the community. So to avoid that, they've voted together to watch and wait, until consensus swings one way or the other.
Disappointing, but far from the worst outcome.
@strypey
If *any* of the other 7 options had won I might agree with you (none/wait, cautious approach, allow with conditions, etc). But the most extreme of the options (neither endorse nor prohibit for *any* type of use) is what won.
So IMO it's the worst outcome. There are many reasons to take a more cautious or wait-and-see approach even if ethical issues are disregarded. Just the copyright and quality issues should be enough to warrant that.
Before I say any more, I should be clear that @civodul's thread is the first I've heard about the Debian vote. So there may well be nuances I'm missing.
@leadore
> There are many reasons to take a more cautious or wait-and-see approach even if ethical issues are disregarded
Definitely. But as with continuing to use GritHub for Free Code forging, muddy thinking about this seems be the order of they day on this topic. It's the same in the F-Droid community;
https://forum.f-droid.org/t/does-f-droid-have-a-formal-policy-on-libre-ai/
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