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.