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General Resolution: LLM usage in Debian

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2026

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In DiscussionGeneral Resolution: LLM usage in Debian

General Resolution: LLM usage in Debian

General Resolution: LLM usage in Debian

DecidedDebian Project Leader Elections 2026

Debian Project Leader Elections 2025

Debian Project Leader Elections 2024

General Resolution: Statement about the EU Legislation "Cyber Resilience Act and Product Liability Directive"

Debian Project Leader Elections 2023

General Resolution: non-free firmware

Debian Project Leader Elections 2022

General Resolution: Voting secrecy

General Resolution: Change the resolution process

General Resolution: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board

Debian Project Leader Elections 2021

Debian Project Leader Elections 2020

General Resolution: Init systems and systemd

Debian Project Leader Elections 2019

Debian Project Leader Elections 2018

Debian Project Leader Elections 2017

General Resolution: Declassifying debian-private

General Resolution: Replace "Chairman" with "Chair" throughout the Debian Constitution

General Resolution: Declassifying debian-private

Debian Project Leader Elections 2016

General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution Procedure

Debian Project Leader Elections 2015

General Resolution: Limiting the term of the technical committee members

General Resolution: init system coupling

General Resolution: code of conduct

Debian Project Leader Elections 2014

Debian Project Leader Elections 2013

General Resolution: Diversity statement

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012

Debian Project Leader Elections 2011

General Resolution: Debian project members

Debian Project Leader Elections 2010

Debian Project Leader Elections 2009

General Resolution: Lenny and resolving DFSG violations

General Resolution: Project membership procedures

Debian Project Leader Elections 2008

Constitutional amendment: reduce the length of DPL election process

General Resolution: Endorse the concept of Debian Maintainers

General Resolution: Altering package upload rules

Debian Project Leader Elections 2007

General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel

General Resolution: Re-affirm support to the Debian Project Leader

General Resolution: Recall the project leader

General Resolution: Position statement clarifying DFSG #2

Constitutional Amendment General Resolution: Handling assets for the project

Debian Project Leader Elections 2006

General Resolution: Why the GNU Free Documentation License is not suitable for Debian main

General Resolution: Declassification of debian-private list archives

Debian Project Leader Elections 2005

General Resolution: Sarge Release Schedule in view of GR 2004-003

General Resolution: Editorial amendments to the social contract

General Resolution: Status of the non-free section

Debian Project Leader Elections 2004

Constitutional Amendment: Disambiguation of Section 4.1.5

Constitutional Amendment: Condorcet/Clone Proof SSD Voting Method

Debian Project Leader Elections 2003

Debian Project Leader Elections 2002

Leader Elections 2001

Leader Elections 2000

Swap Logos

New Logo

Logo License

Leader Elections 1999

Constitution

Debian Project Leader Elections 2026

Debian Project Leader Elections 2026

Debian Project Leader Elections 2025

Debian Project Leader Elections 2025

Debian Project Leader Elections 2024

Debian Project Leader Elections 2024

General Resolution: Statement about the EU Legislation "Cyber Resilience Act and Product Liability Directive"

General Resolution: Statement about the EU Legislation "Cyber Resilience Act and Product Liability Directive"

Debian Project Leader Elections 2023

Debian Project Leader Elections 2023

General Resolution: non-free firmware

General Resolution: non-free firmware

Debian Project Leader Elections 2022

Debian Project Leader Elections 2022

General Resolution: Voting secrecy

General Resolution: Voting secrecy

General Resolution: Change the resolution process

General Resolution: Change the resolution process

General Resolution: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board

General Resolution: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board

Debian Project Leader Elections 2021

Debian Project Leader Elections 2021

Debian Project Leader Elections 2020

Debian Project Leader Elections 2020

General Resolution: Init systems and systemd

General Resolution: Init systems and systemd

Debian Project Leader Elections 2019

Debian Project Leader Elections 2019

Debian Project Leader Elections 2018

Debian Project Leader Elections 2018

Debian Project Leader Elections 2017

Debian Project Leader Elections 2017

General Resolution: Declassifying debian-private

General Resolution: Declassifying debian-private

General Resolution: Replace "Chairman" with "Chair" throughout the Debian Constitution

General Resolution: Replace "Chairman" with "Chair" throughout the Debian Constitution

General Resolution: Declassifying debian-private

General Resolution: Declassifying debian-private

Debian Project Leader Elections 2016

Debian Project Leader Elections 2016

General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution Procedure

General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution Procedure

Debian Project Leader Elections 2015

Debian Project Leader Elections 2015

General Resolution: Limiting the term of the technical committee members

General Resolution: Limiting the term of the technical committee members

General Resolution: init system coupling

General Resolution: init system coupling

General Resolution: code of conduct

General Resolution: code of conduct

Debian Project Leader Elections 2014

Debian Project Leader Elections 2014

Debian Project Leader Elections 2013

Debian Project Leader Elections 2013

General Resolution: Diversity statement

General Resolution: Diversity statement

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012

Debian Project Leader Elections 2012

Debian Project Leader Elections 2011

Debian Project Leader Elections 2011

General Resolution: Debian project members

General Resolution: Debian project members

Debian Project Leader Elections 2010

Debian Project Leader Elections 2010

Debian Project Leader Elections 2009

Debian Project Leader Elections 2009

General Resolution: Lenny and resolving DFSG violations

General Resolution: Lenny and resolving DFSG violations

General Resolution: Project membership procedures

General Resolution: Project membership procedures

Debian Project Leader Elections 2008

Debian Project Leader Elections 2008

Constitutional amendment: reduce the length of DPL election process

Constitutional amendment: reduce the length of DPL election process

General Resolution: Endorse the concept of Debian Maintainers

General Resolution: Endorse the concept of Debian Maintainers

General Resolution: Altering package upload rules

General Resolution: Altering package upload rules

Debian Project Leader Elections 2007

Debian Project Leader Elections 2007

General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel

General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel

General Resolution: Re-affirm support to the Debian Project Leader

General Resolution: Re-affirm support to the Debian Project Leader

General Resolution: Recall the project leader

General Resolution: Recall the project leader

General Resolution: Position statement clarifying DFSG #2

General Resolution: Position statement clarifying DFSG #2

Constitutional Amendment General Resolution: Handling assets for the project

Constitutional Amendment General Resolution: Handling assets for the project

Debian Project Leader Elections 2006

Debian Project Leader Elections 2006

General Resolution: Why the GNU Free Documentation License is not suitable for Debian main

General Resolution: Why the GNU Free Documentation License is not suitable for Debian main

General Resolution: Declassification of debian-private list archives

General Resolution: Declassification of debian-private list archives

Debian Project Leader Elections 2005

Debian Project Leader Elections 2005

General Resolution: Sarge Release Schedule in view of GR 2004-003

General Resolution: Sarge Release Schedule in view of GR 2004-003

General Resolution: Editorial amendments to the social contract

General Resolution: Editorial amendments to the social contract

General Resolution: Status of the non-free section

General Resolution: Status of the non-free section

Debian Project Leader Elections 2004

Debian Project Leader Elections 2004

Constitutional Amendment: Disambiguation of Section 4.1.5

Constitutional Amendment: Disambiguation of Section 4.1.5

Constitutional Amendment: Condorcet/Clone Proof SSD Voting Method

Constitutional Amendment: Condorcet/Clone Proof SSD Voting Method

Debian Project Leader Elections 2003

Debian Project Leader Elections 2003

Debian Project Leader Elections 2002

Debian Project Leader Elections 2002

Leader Elections 2001

Leader Elections 2001

Leader Elections 2000

Leader Elections 2000

Swap Logos

Swap Logos

New Logo

New Logo

Logo License

Logo License

Leader Elections 1999

Leader Elections 1999

Constitution

Constitution

WithdrawnGeneral Resolution: Interpretation of DFSG on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models

General Resolution: tag2upload

General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution Procedure

General Resolution: Sponsorship requirements for General Resolutions

General Resolution: Force AMD64 architecture into Sarge

IRC as a Debian communication channel

General Resolution: Interpretation of DFSG on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models

General Resolution: Interpretation of DFSG on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models

General Resolution: tag2upload

General Resolution: tag2upload

General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution Procedure

General Resolution: Update Standard Resolution Procedure

General Resolution: Sponsorship requirements for General Resolutions

General Resolution: Sponsorship requirements for General Resolutions

General Resolution: Force AMD64 architecture into Sarge

General Resolution: Force AMD64 architecture into Sarge

IRC as a Debian communication channel

IRC as a Debian communication channel

OtherSuperseded: Constitutional amendment: Smith/Condorcet vote tallying

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: alternate disambiguation of 4.1.5

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: disambiguation of 4.1.5

Superseded: Non-free Archive Removal

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: Smith/Condorcet vote tallying

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: Smith/Condorcet vote tallying

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: alternate disambiguation of 4.1.5

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: alternate disambiguation of 4.1.5

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: disambiguation of 4.1.5

Superseded: Constitutional amendment: disambiguation of 4.1.5

Superseded: Non-free Archive Removal

Superseded: Non-free Archive Removal

General Resolution: LLM usage in Debian

Time Line

Time Line

Proposal A Proposer

Proposal A Proposer

Proposal A Seconds

Proposal A Seconds

Proposal A

Proposal A

Proposal B Proposer

Proposal B Proposer

Proposal B Seconds

Proposal B Seconds

Proposal B

Proposal B

Proposal C Proposer

Proposal C Proposer

Proposal C Seconds

Proposal C Seconds

Proposal C

Proposal C

Proposal D Proposer

Proposal D Proposer

Proposal D Seconds

Proposal D Seconds

Proposal D

Proposal D

Time Line

[Time Line]()

Proposal A Proposer

[Proposal A Proposer]()

Matthias Geiger [werdahias@debian.org]

[text of proposal]

werdahias@debian.org

text of proposal

Proposal A Seconds

[Proposal A Seconds]()

Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues [josch@debian.org] [mail]

josch@debian.org

mail

Antoine Le Gonidec [vv221@debian.org] [mail]

vv221@debian.org

mail

Simon Richter [sjr@debian.org] [mail]

sjr@debian.org

mail

David Bremner [bremner@debian.org] [mail]

bremner@debian.org

mail

Pierre-Elliott Bécue [peb@debian.org] [mail]

peb@debian.org

mail

Ian Jackson [iwj@debian.org] [mail]

iwj@debian.org

mail

Amin Bandali [bandali@debian.org] [mail]

bandali@debian.org

mail

Thorsten Glaser [tg@debian.org] [mail]

tg@debian.org

mail

Proposal A

[Proposal A]()

Choice 1

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

Upstream patches/security fixes etc.

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:

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.

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,

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.

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:

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.

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 and Jesse Rhodes

with input from Sledge and josch, organically and without language model

assistance.

Proposal B Proposer

[Proposal B Proposer]()

Lucas Nussbaum [lucas@debian.org]

[text of proposal]

[text of amendment]

[text of amendment]

lucas@debian.org

text of proposal

text of amendment

text of amendment

Proposal B Seconds

[Proposal B Seconds]()

Andrey Rahmatullin [wrar@debian.org] [mail]

wrar@debian.org

mail

Christian Kastner [ckk@debian.org] [mail]

ckk@debian.org

mail

Anton Gladky [gladk@debian.org] [mail]

gladk@debian.org

mail

Stefano Zacchiroli [zack@debian.org] [mail]

zack@debian.org

mail

Simon Quigley [tsimonq2@debian.org] [mail]

tsimonq2@debian.org

mail

Soren Stoutner [soren@debian.org] [mail]

soren@debian.org

mail

Julian Andres Klode [jak@debian.org] [mail]

jak@debian.org

mail

Andreas Tille [tille@debian.org] [mail]

tille@debian.org

mail

Philipp Kern pkern@debian.org] [mail]

pkern@debian.org

mail

Proposal B

[Proposal B]()

Choice 2

Allow AI-Assisted Contributions

Using its power under Constitution section 4.1 (5), the project issues the

following statement describing its current position on AI-assisted

contributions. This statement describes the position of the project at the

time it is adopted. That position may evolve as time passes without the need

to resort to future general resolutions. The GR process remains available if

the project needs a decision and cannot come to a consensus.

The Debian project recognizes that AI-assisted contributions raise many

concerns, e.g. about the technical quality and maintainability of such

contributions, and their legal status. AI itself also raises additional

concerns, about its impact on society at large, on the IT industry and on

Free Software; about its environmental impact; and the aggressive or

non-compliant practices of AI scrapers.

Nevertheless, many Debian contributors find AI tools helpful when

contributing to Debian, and ultimately for improving Debian.

Given both the benefits and risks of AI assistance, and the controversial

discussions within the community, the Debian project finds it necessary to

clarify its position on AI-assisted contributions and establish clear

guidelines.

The Debian project allows AI-assisted contributions (partially or fully

generated by an LLM), provided the following conditions are met:

Tooling Legal Compatibility: Contributors should ensure that the terms and

conditions of the generative AI tool do not impose contractual

restrictions that conflict with the distribution, modification, or use of

the output in the context of Debian.

Licensing and Attribution: If any pre-existing copyrighted materials

(including pre-existing code licensed as free software) authored or owned

by third parties are included in the AI tool’s output, prior to

contributing such output to the project, the contributor should verify

they have the right to submit it under the relevant open source license.

Accountability: Contributors assume full responsibility for their

contributions, including vouching for the technical merit, security,

license compliance, and utility of their submissions. The contributor

remains solely accountable for the entirety of these contributions.

Contributors should fully understand the proposed changes and be prepared

to justify them.

Disclosure: When a significant portion of a contribution

is generated or substantially assisted by a tool, contributors should

disclose the use of the tool, making it clearly visible to the

intended audience. This covers all forms of contribution, including code,

mailing list posts, and bug discussions. The form of the disclosure is

left to the contributor; one convenient option for commits is a Git

trailer such as Generated-By: or Assisted-By:.

Prior Discussion of Bulk or Automated Changes: Similarly to the

mass-bug filing process (Developers Reference section 7.1.1),

contributors should discuss their intention before submitting bulk or

autonomously generated contributions. Any such automated process should

be overseen by a human who remains accountable for its behavior and

output.

Confidentiality and Privacy: Contributors must not use generative AI

tools that transmit data to untrusted providers with non-public or

sensitive project information (such as embargoed security reports or

private communication), as this may lead to the unintended disclosure of

confidential data.

Proposal C Proposer

[Proposal C Proposer]()

Ian Jackson [iwj@debian.org] [text of proposal]

iwj@debian.org

text of proposal

Proposal C Seconds

[Proposal C Seconds]()

Matthias Geiger [werdahias@debian.org] [mail]

werdahias@debian.org

mail

Andrea Pappacoda [tachi@debian.org] [mail]

tachi@debian.org

mail

Simon Richter [sjr@debian.org] [mail]

sjr@debian.org

mail

Antoine Le Gonidec [vv221@debian.org] [mail]

vv221@debian.org

mail

Amin Bandali [bandali@debian.org] [mail]

bandali@debian.org

mail

Bill Blough [bblough@debian.org] [mail]

bblough@debian.org

mail

Enrico Zini [enrico@debian.org] [mail]

enrico@debian.org

mail

Sean Whitton [spwhitton@debian.org] [mail]

spwhitton@debian.org

mail

Proposal C

[Proposal C]()

Choice 3

Summary: Reject LLMs (generative "AI") as far as practical

LLMs have many serious problems, including: undermining the mechanisms

of free software community building; environmental damage;

exploitation of authors; disruption to open web hosting by

aggressive scraping; generation and promulgation of bullshit;

polluting the information commons; hazards to users' mental health;

economic bubbles; distortion of the computer hardware market;

fraud; ownership by horrible people and companies; and so on.

Ethical and safe use of this technology is almost impossible.

Ideally, LLM output should not form any part of software that we rely

on, nor should LLM output ever take the place of human-written prose.

Unfortunately some of the wider software world, including many of our

upstreams, take a different view. Therefore a complete ban on LLM

output as part of Debian is currently impractical.

  1. We request that all contributors to Debian avoid the use of LLMs in

their Debian work.

  1. We request that all decisionmakers within Debian discourage LLM use

as much as practical. Practicality is a judgement call and we

recognise that it will involve uncomfortable compromises.

  1. We request that everyone, even outside Debian, should refrain from

using this technology. In particular, the Free Software and Open

Source communities should reject LLMs. We recognise that not

everyone will heed this call.

  1. Within Debian, messages to humans (including for example bug

reports, mailing list messages, discussions on Salsa, and blog

posts on Planet Debian) must be drafted solely by humans without

LLM assistance.

  1. Any use of LLMs for Debian work must be disclosed.
  1. Individual projects and maintainers may ban LLM contributions

completely. Such bans (including by upstream projects) must be

respected.

  1. Violations of these requirements should be treated as violations of

the Code of Conduct and should result in swift but proportionate

disciplinary action.

  1. Any contributor who feels they cannot write in English without

assistance, may write in their native language, and expect readers

to use translation tools of their choice. In that case a

human-written English summary would be very welcome but is not

required. In any case we promise not to shame anyone for any

linguistic mistakes.

Proposal D Proposer

[Proposal D Proposer]()

Pierre-Elliott Bécue [peb@debian.org] [text of proposal]

peb@debian.org

text of proposal

Proposal D Seconds

[Proposal D Seconds]()

Russ Allbery [rra@debian.org] [mail]

rra@debian.org

mail

Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues [josch@debian.org] [mail]

josch@debian.org

mail

Jonathan Carter [jcc@debian.org] [mail]

jcc@debian.org

mail

Gunnar Wolf [gwolf@debian.org] [mail]

gwolf@debian.org

mail

Tiago Bortoletto Vaz [tiago@debian.org] [mail]

tiago@debian.org

mail

Jeremy Sowden [azazel@debian.org] [mail]

azazel@debian.org

mail

Proposal D

[Proposal D]()

Choice 4

Accept AI contributions for Debian specific work

Debian as a project does not endorse or recommend the use of generative

AI assistants for software development, as it raises multiple concerns

about ethics, legality, copyright, etc.

Nevertheless, Debian acknowledges that these practices are already in

use and here to stay. Rather than banning their use, which seems

counter-productive and unenforceable, the project chooses to place

responsibility on contributors and therefore defines the following

guidelines.

These apply exclusively to code and work done specifically for the

Debian project (Debian websites, applications, resources, packages,

etc.). They do not apply to any upstream work. In what follows, "work"

refers to the contributions done specifically for the Debian project.

All code and work assisted by a generative AI agent or tool must

comply with the DFSG.

The submitter is solely responsible for the submitted work and:

they sufficiently evaluated and properly understand the work they

intend to submit, and are able to explain and defend it;

they put any potential Signed-off-by tag and GPG signatures on the

contributions they send to the Debian infrastructure (package,

commit, mail, …) themselves;

any content uploaded that would end up in production on Debian

infrastructure (main git branch, package upload) has been submitted

by them explicitely.

they sufficiently evaluated and properly understand the work they

intend to submit, and are able to explain and defend it;

they put any potential Signed-off-by tag and GPG signatures on the

contributions they send to the Debian infrastructure (package,

commit, mail, …) themselves;

any content uploaded that would end up in production on Debian

infrastructure (main git branch, package upload) has been submitted

by them explicitely.

Work assisted by a generative AI agent or tool should be marked as

such in the adapted place (commit message, changelog, …). Some

lightweight generative tools, such as tab-completion in Copilot, may

be used without the contributor realising they rely on generative AI

models; we therefore trust submitters to assess when this rule

applies. When in doubt, add such marking;

No cloud-based AI shall be used when the data transmitted could

either be sensitive to the project (personal data, information under

embargo, …) or not public (debian-private discussions, …).

Debian Project Secretary

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