Hi Ludovic,

Ludovic Courtès <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi Maxim,
>
> Quick comments…

Thanks, I appreciate the reactivity!

> Maxim Cournoyer <[email protected]> skribis:
>
>> About the first (1) pledge point: I disagree about blanket pledging not
>> using any of the LLM tools.  As others have found in our community, they
>> can have a use.  I'd suggest dropping this point of the pledge.
>
> This point was amended already to not be blanket: it mentions the
> specific use of authoring leaving the door open to using an LLM for
> exploration or similar activities, as Christine and others suggested.

Upon a careful re-read, I see that, but it still leave the impression,
by explicitly listing where it should not be used, that we'd rather have
contributors not use LLM tools at all.  And since point two already
covers the most important (in my opinion) part, which is to not accept
legally significant contributions including LLM outputs, I'd rather do
away with part one entirely.

Similar to others, I dislike the "we'll tell you how to run your shop,
in the sake of saving humanity, nothing less" talking point.  It comes
off as awfully lordly to my ears, which is why I'd like to narrow it
down to just the useful, bare minimum parts.

> Please double-check if you think the wording is ambiguous.
>
>> About the third (3) pledge point: it's trying to police on a basis
>> different than "is it free software?" which reminds me of the ethical
>> licenses […]
>
> Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, and I too would rather avoid this
> situation.
>
> In fact, as it stands, fully vibe-coded software like Claude’s C
> Compiler cannot be considered free software; this will probably be
> clarified one way or another in the various jurisdictions, but that’s
> where we are today.

"cannot be considered free software" is preposterous, no?  We have
doubts, but no certainty as of now.  For our own source code, it seems
wise to avoid the uncertainty creeping in, but for packages... I think
given the gray area, and the low risk of it (we can easily remove such
packages if/when it becomes clear that they aren't free software), I
think we could live with it and see how it unfolds.  This would avoid
adding some arbitrary rules about which packages are accepted in the
project and creating a precedent.  I see nothing wrong with waiting
here; Debian is doing just that.

> Perhaps making it explicit along the following lines would help?
>
>   3. Software where most of the code was authored or co-authored by
>      genAI cannot be considered free software as of this writing, and
>      thus **will not be packaged in Guix**.  Notable examples of such
>      code include [Claude’s C
>      compiler](https://github.com/anthropics/claudes-c-compiler/),
>      [EmDash](https://github.com/emdash-cms/emdash), and
>      [Neomacs](https://github.com/eval-exec/neomacs).

Which sources back such claims (that they cannot be considered free
software) ?  I'd also prefer not advertising these packages by avoiding
mentioning them by name or URL, which seems unnecessary to me.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

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