---updated proposal---
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.
LLMs have made a huge leap in language translations, but at the same time depending on big tech companies to provide this service is not a good idea. When it comes to generating code, we also need to consider how it weakens the idea of copyleft.
1. Public AI is AI as public infrastructure like highways, water, or electricity. An example of Public AI is https://publicai.co, which is funded by Mozilla, the Future of Life Institute, and the Center for Cultural Innovation. It also complies with Open Source AI definition by OSI (https://opensource.org/ai). For AI to be accessible to people, it has to be available easily to people and not for profit collaborations between multiple organizations and public funding is essential to keep it sustainable.
2. Public AI must use Free Software models.3. At this point, we don't want to insist on training data being freely available, similar to how we don't insist on Free Hardware Designs. The challenges to practically being able to use the available data should be factored in. Similar to how costly it would be to produce hardware from Free Hardware Designs, even when training data is available, huge computing power is required to use it practically.
4. Translations generated by Public AI can be accepted.5. Code / documentation generated by Public AI can also be accepted if it preserves share alike / copyleft conditions of original code used in training.
---updated proposal---I'd need seconds if people feel we need an option for allowing Public AI/Open Source AI. This would be closer to proposal A in practice, but could become more useful when the Free Software models mature and produce better results than currently.
I could also get some help in making the draft better. On 7/30/26 3:02 PM, Aigars Mahinovs wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2026 at 08:53, Marc Haber <[email protected]
<mailto:mh%[email protected]>> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 12:43:21PM -0300, Pirate Praveen wrote:
>----draft proposal ----
>
>LLMs have made a huge leap in language translations, but at the same
>time depending on big tech companies to provide this service is not a
>good idea.
>
>1. Public AI is AI as public infrastructure like highways, water, or
>electricity.
>
>2. Public AI must use Free Software models.
Please consider not using "public AI" in your ballot name, many people
will consider ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Mistral etc "public" because it is
publicly accessible on the Internet, and you're redefining that term in
your ballot.
I agree. If a definition is to be used, the one currently available
definition is from https://opensource.org/ai <https://opensource.org/
ai> , Inventing something else with the limited scope for clarification
only introduces confusion.
Ok I can change it to Open Source AI as defined by OSI.
That being said, your proposal basically forbids using AI made
available
by the big global players, where the music is currently playing. While
it is legitimate to do that, this privileges rich DDs who can afford
big
hardware to run local models or DDs with a corporate sponsor.
Is "public AI" as you define already available today, and what would be
the approximate costs to make use of that? How good is the code
produced
by public AI today, compared to what for example claude produces?
What I had in mind is https://publicai.co which I had mentioned in my original email.
While it may not match Claude or other "frontier" models right now, I think it can evolve over time to be better at it. I have used it for Spanish translation of visa application letters to Argentina and it was pretty good (other native speakers reviewed and confirmed it was good).
The crucial thing is, it is available to the public, much like Wikipedia, free of cost and the funded by Mozilla, the Future of Life Institute, and the Center for Cultural Innovation. https://publicai.co/about
So we are talking about communities coming together and hosting Open Weight Model for general public.
Asking itself, is publicai.co open source ai compliant? Yes. publicai.co is fully open‑source AI‑compliant: Aspect DetailsModel The service runs the Apertus language model, which is released under the Apache 2.0 license.
Platform The chat and API infrastructure is built on OpenWebUI, an open‑source AI‑front‑end that is also available on GitHub. Training Data The data used to train Apertus was legally‑compliant, multilingual (including Swiss languages), and processed through rigorous filtering.
License & Governance The whole stack (models, code, documentation) is published under permissive open‑source licenses; the Public AI Inference Utility operates as a nonprofit, community‑driven project.
Compliance All components meet open‑source licensing requirements and are maintained with transparency, allowing users to inspect, modify, and redistribute the software and models.
In short, publicai.co uses open‑source models and runs on open‑source software, making it fully open‑source AI‑compliant.
Any PC with a video card like AMD XTX 7900 or similar could run quite a few local AI payloads with decent speed. Finding a few of those for Debian infra should not be a blocking problem. Additionally there are many hosting providers all over the world offering AI-capable hardware to be rented on hourly basis for as low as 0.37€/hour in a fully green datacenter https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-gpu/ <https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-gpu/> (as example only, no endorsement intended). And Debian has also not asked for any hardware or time donations from any providers yet. Historically Debian has been able to acquire needed compute power with little or no cost, when needs were clearly articulated and expressed.Fronteer models will always be more capable, but in restricted contexts (like translation or coding) it is possible to find good-enough solutions.Providers of fronteer models would also likely jump at the opportunity of providing complimentary pro access to Debian Developers for project work, if we ever actually asked for that.-- Best regards, Aigars Mahinovs
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