Hello fellow DDs, I have been shown by others that, without an announcement, NEW queue processing now seems to throw my upload at an LLM. From the review results:
> This is an LLM based review using a Debian Inference based workflow. It was > not written by a member of the DFSG team and has not been checked by one. It > is not a decision on the package: it may be wrong, and it may have missed > things. Right, so I have two options: a) spend my valuable developer time (this is my free time) on reading machine output which indeed might be completely wrong and get angry and upset for reasons which have been listed in great detail by those opposed to LLM-use in Debian on debian-vote b) not read the machine-generate review and have the resources that were required to generate it not only be wasted, but let my upload become another item in a statistic which shows how many tokens Debian is using up because the more tokens we use the better our software, right? I'm not going to read the machine-generated output. I argue that this waste of resources is not "responsible use" as by what was decided with the last GR. The GR text also says: > Debian neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI If a team as central as the DFSG team now uses an LLM to process *all* uploads to NEW, how is this not "Debian endorses the use of generative AI"? The GR text also says: > The use of generative AI does not alter Debian's established expectations > regarding large-scale or automated project actions. Contributors intending to > perform actions with broad project impact, such as mass bug filing or patch > submission, large-scale code modifications, or other automated changes or > requests affecting many packages or contributors, should seek prior > discussion and consensus through the appropriate project channels before > proceeding The DFSG team using an LLM to process all uploads to NEW is what I consider "large-scale or automated project actions". The GR text recommends to seek "prior discussion and consensus" before this is done. Where was this done? I *am* grateful for the (mostly thankless) work done by the DFSG team but I rather wait a year before my package makes it through NEW (yes, that happened) than have my strong opposition to LLMs be ignored and all my uploads being automatically screened without my consent. I think seeking prior discussion for this is especially warranted because (I hope) we learned in the GR discussion on debian-vote that there are developers with strong opinions in either direction. Why not talk about it first? I will not upload anything to NEW unless there is a way for me to opt out of this. I would prefer if the default was "no LLM review" and that developers have to explicitly opt-in to receive an auto-generated review. I would also prefer if the time that was spent on integrating proprietary software into our core-workflows was instead spent in making actually free software like Lintian better. If the LLM has a bug, I cannot fix it. The model is a binary blob. The LLM cannot be 100% correct and neither can Lintian. But Lintian will give me an answer *reproducibly* and I can then either fix Lintian or add an override to my source package. I cannot tell anybody where to spend their free-time but I would hope that working together on a free software project means that we make our DFSG-free tools better instead of increasing our reliance on tools and workflows involving proprietary software with non-deterministic output. I'm not leaving the project but if one of my packages needs NEW processing, then I will leave it to somebody else who is fine with the consequences to do the upload. I'll not be a part of this. Thanks! I'm now offline doing something fun. Good luck with discussing this topic in case that's what you end up doing. cheers, josch
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