On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 9:09 AM Simon Josefsson via Development of GNU
Guix and the GNU System distribution. <[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
> I think that is balanced and well written. There is one use-case for
> genAI that may be thrown out with everything else: use of genAI for
> translation communications in e-mails or bug reports.
>
> People speaking some non-English language sometimes write in their own
> language and click 'Translate'. Sometimes this is supported in the
> browser or e-mail client and works transparently.
>
> I think the following paragraph makes this use in scope:
>
> The project members (defined as maintainers, team members, and
> anyone with write access to a Guix repository or to Guix resources
> such as the build farm) will not use genAI to author code or
> packages, to interact with other participants (e.g., to explain code
> changes or to review code), to produce artwork, or any other
> artifact.
>
> Is preventing this kind of usage intended to be banned?
>
> Does this imply use of English is a requirement to be a project member?
The prohibition is reiterated in:
2. **Interaction.** Contributors and project members MUST NOT use
genAI for direct
interaction with other participants. Examples of prohibited uses
include: letting
an agent comment in pull requests, issues, or mailing list threads;
copying text provided by genAI as answers or explanations in a
discussion; more generally, removing the human from the loop.
No one should be expected to speak a given language to participate in
the project. With LLMs, we can all speak in our native tongues and the
hearer can translate when necessary, as permitted by the subsequent
policy:
3. **Exploratory analysis.** Contributors and project members are
free to use genAI
as part of their exploratory process as long their final contribution
respects the above rules. For instance, use of genAI to identify
the cause of a bug or the reason for a package build failure is
permitted.
