Re: ballot option: LLM usage accellerates the destruction of our ecosystem (planet earth) and that is a deal-breaker
Hi!
Besides the typos already mentioned, I found some issues below:
On Wed, 2026-08-12 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.
This feels to me like it contradicts a paragraph down below, which I'll
reorder [0] here only for juxtaposition purposes:
> 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.
> 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.
The way this is being conveyed feels a bit odd. It does not include
"anyone that does not agree that LLM usage accelerates such effect". And
it also seems to contradict a paragraph below [1] about not condemning
people?
Perhaps better to state this in a positive way. Something along the
lines of "We consider <thing> has <effect> to be 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?
This feels more like text that would appear in a mail reply as part of
an argument, than in a project statement. Perhaps reword to avoid the
questions?
> 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.
[…0 moved from here…]
> That said, we would like to emphasize that we condemn LLM (resource) usage but
> not LLM users. Fight the game, but not the players.
[1]
> 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 ----
Thanks,
Guillem
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