Dear fellow DDs, dear project, On Mo 26 Okt 2026 14:42:40 CET, Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues wrote:
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 freesoftware like Lintian better. If the LLM has a bug, I cannot fix it. The modelis a binary blob. The LLM cannot be 100% correct and neither can Lintian. ButLintian will give me an answer *reproducibly* and I can then either fix Lintianor 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 softwareproject means that we make our DFSG-free tools better instead of increasing ourreliance on tools and workflows involving proprietary software with non-deterministic output.
After having read most of all the mails in this thread, I have really been waiting for a few days to let my reaction mature or subside.
It does not subside, so I share my position: I am really discouraged and concerned that my work and private time spent on Debian is still well-spent time, at all.
In my professional life at Fre(i)e Software GmbH, I regularly consult organisations, companies, people from all regions of Europe / the world and from all contexts of life on how to become more independent from big tech and increase digital sovereignty.
One huge key corner stone of this consulting process used to be that there has been a GNU/Linux distro (a) where people and orgs can have an impact by contributing, i.e. can make a difference, and (b) that is operated mostly independent from big tech, esp. regarding its core workflows.
This distro used to be Debian. I must rethink what to say to our customers in the future.
Ethically, personally and as entrepreneur, I don't want to be part of this LLM-tech embracement and the implicit embracement of its creators and political supporters. I fail to become fascinated by the potential of LLM technology due to the political and economic origins and implications. From my perspective, the employment of LLMs is in fact employing military technology; AI has not been developed to make OSS development easier or to get packages faster into Debian. It has neither been developed to make our lifes easier or more convenient. In our political world, the AI hype is an arms race (Wettrüsten in German), and if using this technology in spare time or for work or for a project like Debian, I fail to see it differently but that people being deliberately ignoring this, silently accepting it, simply resignating about it, or maybe just being too blind to see it (or too fascinated).
As a private person and also strategically as company CEO of Fre(i)e Software GmbH, I am thinking about starting to leave this Debian ship, whether it'd be sinking or not.
Designing Debian's package submission process in a way that it makes it depend so strongly on LLM technology creates a massive dependency on companies and politics I would never want to work with or work for. Ethically, this is a total no go. From digital sovereignty perspective it is just sad.
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.
Similarly here. As a company we have contracts and promises we made to our customers and those relate to providing software in Debian, maintaining software in Debian, etc. Also, I love Debian Edu. So, due to that, I will stay around for the time being. But my heart will start moving on...
If people are interested in joining my journey, or if you have already found a new distro home where - at least for now - the situation is more critical towards LLM usage, please get in touch.
If your opinion differs from mine, please try not to convince me of yours. Better remain silent. Thanks, much appreciated.
light+love Mike -- mike gabriel aka sunweaver (Debian Developer) mobile: +49 (1520) 1976 148 landline: +49 (4351) 486 14 27 GnuPG Fingerprint: 9BFB AEE8 6C0A A5FF BF22 0782 9AF4 6B30 2577 1B31 mail: [email protected], http://sunweavers.net
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