frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Debian has begun voting on the future of AI/LLM contributions

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2026/08/msg00002.html
29•matheusmoreira•2h ago

Comments

penchant•1h ago
The choices are oddly and not consistently worded. "Ban LLM contributions from Debian via Social Contract", "A cautious approach to generative AI", "Debian is created by humans" and "Avoid the use of LLM: climate destruction is a deal breaker" all in one list? Sounds like several people wrote them and did not agree on the form.
Tomte•1h ago
> Sounds like several people wrote them and did not agree on the form

Of course several people wrote different position statements to vote on.

Did you expect one Debian developer to cook up half a dozen possible stances he is not even personally invested in? Are you constantly surprised that election programs of different parties are worded differently (and use different fonts)?

cromka•1h ago
Dude, chill with the strawman and the aggression. Bad day?
Tomte•44m ago
There is no aggression, and "dudeing" me makes me disregard you immediately anyway.
pm215•25m ago
This is the way general resolutions in Debian generally work. There's a lot of pre-vote discussion where different people and groups propose and draft their preferred options, to produce what they feel is the best expression of their position. If you can get enough seconders for your proposal it goes on the ballot, with the text you chose and your seconders agreed with. There isn't any requirement for the options to use consistent terminology or avoid overlap, and no overarching editorial process to impose consistency (which would be tricky anyway in cases like this where terminology choices and overall framing can be part of the disagreement between people.)
abc123abc123•1h ago
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! How difficult should it be? If someone sends you code that is well documented and easy to understand, you accept. I someone sends you code that is bad or incomprehensible, you reject it.

Who the f*ck cares who made it? A monkey could have made it for all I care. If it does what it claims to do, and I understand how, it's all good.

No, the copyright issue is nonsense. That is handled by contract where the contributor is responsible, alternatively, by code submissions of smaller size where copyright loses its meaning, or just base your project in a jurisdiction where it is a non issue.

For 99.99% of the open source projects potential copyright violations is a complete non-issue.

hashar•58m ago
Copyright IS an issue to Debian, and always has been for the last 30 years or so. They are, rightfully so, extremely picky when it comes to respecting copyright and licensing. It is the 0.01%.

> Who the f*ck cares who made it? A monkey could have made it for all I care. If it does what it claims to do, and I understand how, it's all good.

Copyright laws do care. As an example one can send a patch claiming its their own but because they had do it under their employer duty, the copyright might well be associated to their employer rather than them individually. Does the patch does what it claims to? Surely. Is that a copyright infringement? DEFINITELY SO.

The copyright rationale for the first proposition (Choice 1: Ban LLM contributions from Debian via Social Contract):

> 1. Copyright

> -------------

>

> LLM output has very unclear legal status: it may be possible to copyright on its own merits, or not; it may be affected by all of the licenses and copyrights in the training data, or not.

> Debian Policy and the DFSG require absolute clarity for licensing and copyright[1][2]. Software and other contributions written conventionally by humans with unclear copyright or license status are not allowed in Debian; LLM output should not have a special exception to this.

This rationale states if there is doubt about the copyright of the code, it not suitable for inclusion. Until I guess LLM output get a clarification regarding who is the author of its output.

acdha
aeuropean12•1h ago
How conservative.
datakan•49m ago
Tried to decipher this but seems a bit convoluted. If the Kernel now allows LLM code, then what will Debian do if they ban LLM code? Choice 7 and choice 8 seem pretty clear that the project simply can't continue under those circumstances.
pm215•31m ago
Neither choice 7 nor 8 attempt to forbid packaging of any upstream project with LLM contributions like the kernel.

Choice 7 says "The proposal does not cover indirect contributions, i.e. those originating from upstream works.". It's only making requirements on Debian work specifically.

Choice 8 says "We also acknowledge that LLM usage can be hard if not impossible to detect and that Debian as a distribution cannot really impose LLM policies on other projects we package and distribute. Therefore this text is just a position statement." It doesn't impose any requirements at all on anybody, even for debian specific work: it just says "we'd prefer it if you don't use this technology".

datakan•27m ago
Understood and thank you. I guess my next question is, then what's the point of this? Seems like saber rattling or virtue signaling.
pm215•16m ago
A lot of work and code is Debian specific, and so there's a choice to be made about LLM use for that code, as there is for any project. And there are questions about LLM use in mailing list discussions, bug reports, and other non code interactions. Most of the options take a position on that (i.e. impose some rules for those contributions) one way or another.

What other projects choose on the question is interesting and might inform the choice, but what e.g. the kernel opts for doesn't control what Debian decides for itself, any more than the kernel's choice imposes any requirements on Rust or glibc or gcc.

rho4•15m ago
> After the voting period there will be a record of all the votes without the name of the voter. It will instead contain a cryptographic hash. You will receive a secret after you have voted that can be used to calculate that hash. This allows you to verify that your vote is in the list. This secret is sent in an encrypted mail.

I've always wanted this for mail-in voting. E.g. print a random secret on the voting form I receive per mail. Afterwards publish the complete vote-count on the web, with the choice and a hash of the secret. So I can check that my vote was recorded, and only once, and correctly.

I understand there might be a lot of reasons for why it could fail in practice, but it would be a start.

•
54m ago
> No, the copyright issue is nonsense

This is wishful thinking for any project of Debian’s size. You not wanting to deal with it doesn’t mean that people won’t get sued.

rlpb•43m ago
It sounds like you would be in favour of Choice 5.
AndrewDucker•7m ago
They care about it. And want there to be an official position about it.

Auto-research with codex: How I achieved a 232x Faster Kernel

https://sankalp.bearblog.dev/autoresearch/
13•tosh•1h ago•1 comments

The other Sean Byrne doesn't exist

https://conic.al/writing/the-other-sean-byrne-doesnt-exist/
229•rdl•7h ago•111 comments

Qwen 3.8 27B

https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B-FP8
1193•erdaltoprak•21h ago•713 comments

Using GCC's Nested Functions with Wide Pointers and No Trampolines II

https://uecker.codeberg.page/2026-07-14.html
32•uecker•4h ago•9 comments

The mathematical beauty of hyperbezier curves

https://linebender.org/blog/hyperbezier/
27•raphlinus•5d ago•1 comments

Going Dark, and the era of law enforcement hacking

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/08/14/everything-is-about-to-go-dark/
363•vslira•15h ago•168 comments

In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a73358518/nazi-rocket-scientist-disappearance/
56•bookofjoe•2d ago•33 comments

Show HN: Eigendrum - Draw any shape and hear what it sounds like as a drum

https://baselashraf81.github.io/eigendrum/
31•BaselAshraf81•4d ago•7 comments

Show HN: ThoughtDAG – An editable context graph for LLM conversations

https://chenxiachan.github.io/thoughtdag/
49•chatchan•7h ago•14 comments

Understanding WCAG 2.2 as ePub and PDF

https://doeken.org/wcag-ebook
28•doekenorg•2d ago•2 comments

Google is making private AI practical with homomorphic encryption

https://blog.google/security/how-google-is-making-private-ai-practical-with-homomorphic-encryption/
418•u1hcw9nx•20h ago•254 comments

The Color of White Light

https://ludens.cl/photo/spectra/spectra.html
4•xk3•3d ago•1 comments

Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3212428/firefox-is-now-the-last-major-browser-that-still-supports...
1179•DemiGuru•17h ago•457 comments

Coin-sized device can hack a Boeing 737

https://www.wired.com/story/this-coin-sized-device-can-hack-a-boeing-737/
96•_tk_•2d ago•68 comments

RustDesk now supports true unattended remote access on Wayland

https://rustdesk.com/blog/unattended-remote-access-wayland/
308•rustdesk•19h ago•129 comments

Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake – 68 km NNW of Ende, Indonesia

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000tkt2/executive
205•Bender•10h ago•51 comments

Show HN: Silent Shark – tactical map-based WWII submarine sim

https://silentshark.app/
42•epaga•2d ago•15 comments

AI by Hand

https://www.byhand.ai/
321•sans_souse•20h ago•23 comments

eigendrum

https://eigendrum.com/#p=circle
178•bookofjoe•13h ago•46 comments

Maximizing the value of your Claude Code sessions

https://claude.com/blog/maximizing-the-value-of-your-claude-code-sessions
248•twapi•19h ago•134 comments

Simplifying and Refactoring Introductory Calculus (2018)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03459
101•E-Reverance•11h ago•53 comments

Unearthing a 31 year old Easter egg in Ecco the Dolphin

https://32bits.substack.com/p/under-the-microscope-ecco-the-dolphin-98c
99•bbayles•2d ago•22 comments

Debian has begun voting on the future of AI/LLM contributions

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2026/08/msg00002.html
31•matheusmoreira•2h ago•17 comments

This Hi-Fi Tape Recorder Changed Radio Forever

https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetophon-laugh-track
52•Jimmc414•3d ago•15 comments

I turned my RSS feeds into an e-ink newspaper to stop reading on my phone

https://heyjonny.dev/posts/rss-to-eink-newspaper/
198•speckx•21h ago•82 comments

Super Mario Derivations

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/05/super-mario-derivations
113•domenkozar•1w ago•16 comments

Introducing Toast 1

https://www.mixedbread.com/blog/toast-1
209•mplappert•21h ago•64 comments

Racket v9.3

https://blog.racket-lang.org/2026/08/racket-v9-3.html
105•privong•17h ago•7 comments

Suspecting court of using AI, man injected prompts in filings to try to win case

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/suspecting-court-of-using-ai-man-injected-prompts-in-...
45•jnord•4h ago•37 comments

GLM-5.3: Frontier coding with emergent cyber capabilities

https://z.ai/blog/glm-5.3
1101•pella•1d ago•543 comments