On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 02:29:24PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote: > Thanks for sharing; although, your message was very long.
Well, I agree, it grew a bit lengthy, so thank you for reading it. "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." The quote often attributed to Blaise Pascal seems quite fitting here. Writing concise prose is difficult even in one's native language. As a non-native English speaker, I find that participating in Debian discussions in English requires significantly more time and effort from me than participating in discussions in my native language. Perhaps I did not make that point clearly enough in my previous mail. > Speaking personally I would much rather read your own imperfect > English, My point is not primarily about imperfect English. It is about the real cost of participating in Debian discussions. Before I started using an LLM as a writing assistant, I frequently decided not to participate in longer Debian discussions at all because both understanding what others had written and expressing my own ideas in English required considerably more effort than I could afford to spend. The practical alternative was therefore often silence, not imperfect English. My concern with requirement (4) is that I think it would discourage contributors like me from participating in Debian discussions. It does not distinguish between using an LLM to replace authorship and using one as a writing assistant for ideas that are entirely one's own. Speaking personally, I would prefer to continue using tools that reduce the language barrier to participating in Debian discussions rather than returning to silence. > or a mixture of English and some other language I noticed that this option appears to have been removed in the updated version of the GR. I think that is unfortunate, because it acknowledged that language barriers are a real issue. -- tobi
