I support.
-pukkamustard Ludovic Courtès <[email protected]> writes: > Dear team members, > > This message announces the start of the deliberation period on GCD 008, > entitled: > > Commitments and policy on the use of “generative artificial intelligence” > > The final version of the document is attached and can also be viewed here: > > > https://codeberg.org/guix/guix-consensus-documents/src/commit/a24520c4147ffd67bb696c71f15ed4fb8521a791/008-genai.md > > The history of discussions is available at the following places: > > https://codeberg.org/guix/guix-consensus-documents/pulls/13 > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/ (May, June, and July) > > Excerpt from GCD 001, which specifies the process: > > Once the final version is published, team members have 14 days to send one > of the following replies on the patch-tracking entry of the GCD: > > - “I support”, meaning that one supports the proposal; > - “I accept”, meaning that one consents to the implementation of the > proposal; > - “I disapprove”, meaning that one opposes the implementation of the > proposal. A team member sending this reply should have made constructive > comments during the discussion period. > > To avoid ambiguity, replies from team members will be accepted until: > > Monday, July 27th, 2026, 23:59 AoE (anywhere on earth) > > Replies are accepted both on the Codeberg pull request given above and > on the [email protected] mailing list. > > Many thanks to everyone who participated so far! > > Ludo’. > > title: Commitments and policy on the use of “generative artificial > intelligence” > id: 008 > status: submitted > discussion: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix-consensus-documents/pulls/13 > authors: Ludovic Courtès > sponsors: Janneke Nieuwenhuizen, Noé Lopez, Sharlatan Hellseher, Cayetano > Santos, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice > date: 2026-05-17 > draft-date: 2026-05-15 > discussion-date: 2026-05-17 > deliberation-date: 2026-07-13 > SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-or-later > --- > > # Summary > > Guix is a free software project; it is made by people for people, with > knowledge sharing and empowerment as some of its core values. This > document proposes commitments and a policy to support this vision. > > # Motivation > > Since large language models (LLMs) and “generative artificial > intelligence” (thereafter “genAI”) became available for the general > public a couple of years ago, they have been having a significant impact > on software development. > > In the Guix community, genAI is viewed by some as an opportunity, in > particular as a way to help maintain and grow the package collection, at > a time where package updates are labor-intensive and often lagging > behind. People reported experience using genAI for packaging-related > tasks both with commercial services and with locally-running pre-trained > models (Apertus, Qwen). > > Others in Guix and in the broader free software community point out > immediate and longer-term risks associated with genAI that can be > broadly categorized as follows: > > - **Legal issues.** The copyright status of LLM output is unsettled > worldwide, including [in the > > EU](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2025/774095/IUST_STU(2025)774095_EN.pdf) > and [in the USA](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922). > GenAI can also [regurgitate training > data](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02671) thereby exposing their users > to a risk of copyright infringement. > - **Ethical issues.** The leading commercial genAI services run > non-free software and are to some extent “service as a software > substitute” (SaaSS). Other ethical concerns include the [unlawful > extraction of > content](https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol40/0996/2026/en/) > for training purposes for most models (also putting infrastructure > [such as that of > Guix](https://codeberg.org/guix/maintenance/issues/10) under high > stress), and the [material, water, and > > energy](https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/) > consumption of the genAI industry. > - **Social issues.** In many free software projects, genAI has led to > an influx of low-effort contributions [putting an extra toll on > maintainers and > > reviewers](https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/llvm/docs/AIToolPolicy.md#extractive-contributions), > leading those projects to regulate genAI use. Other concerns > include the risk of [growing cognitive > debt](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/15/cognitive-debt/) in > projects where genAI plays an important role in code (co-)authoring, > the risk of [weakening social ties as people look for guidance from > chatbots instead of from other users and > > contributors](https://blog.stdlib.io/ai-and-the-invisible-newcomer-in-open-source/), > the risk of [competition for financial resources between humans and > genAI vendors](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.15494), and the risk of > exclusion of people who cannot afford genAI or are prevented from > using it for geopolitical reasons. > - **Technical issues.** Reproducibility is a core property of Guix but > genAI, whose process is non-deterministic, puts the reproducibility > of development workflows at risk. Another concern is code rot: > should genAI be widely used in Guix, existing automation tools not > indispensable to LLM agents, such as `guix import`, `guix refresh`, > and `guix style`, are at risk of becoming unmaintained, resulting in > a loss of autonomy for the project and its contributors. > > This proposal aims to address some of these concerns through the > adoption of commitments and a policy as precautionary measures to > safeguard our production from a legal standpoint as well as the social > fabric built over almost 15 years around the project. > > # Detailed Design > > In a context where genAI is already widely used and is often hard to > escape, we propose the adoption of commitments and of a policy on behalf of > the project, > with the following goals: > > - Safeguarding the project’s main assets—its community and its code—by > following the *precautionary principle* considering irreversible > changes that unregulated genAI adoption may cause, socially and > technically. > - Questioning the reasons that make genAI feel necessary for people > using Guix, and finding ways to fill the gap. > - Strengthening support for craftspeople the project interacts > with—translators, artists, developers, and so on. > - Contributing to the public debate on these matters and creating ties > with like-minded organizations and grassroots movements. > > ## Project Commitments > > We propose the following project commitments: > > 1. 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. > 2. The project will keep working to **provide people of all levels of > experience with the resources to use Guix and to contribute to > Guix** without feeling the need to resort to genAI: > - by facilitating access to documentation and improving it to > better suit the needs to people with different levels of > experience—newcomers discovering free software, people with prior > exposure to GNU/Linux, developers; > - by developing and improving tools that make it easier to get > started such as [Guix > Packager](https://guix-hpc.gitlabpages.inria.fr/guix-packager/) > and `guix import`; > - by improving diagnostics to make our tools more approachable; > - by providing communication channels anyone can use to look for > help or to offer support, where all and everyone can feel safe to > participate; > - by improving tools for mechanical translation, refactoring, and > updates such as `guix import`, `guix style`, and `guix refresh`, > so that tedious packaging tasks can be automated in a way that is > transparent, deterministic, and maintains the project’s > sovereignty. > 3. We acknowledge that the project’s sustainability depends on > automation for all the mechanical, labor-intensive tasks such as > package updates. We will keep **improving hackable tools and services > to > automate some of the package collection maintenance work**. > > The Guix project will publicize these commitments, by referring to it in its > contribution guidelines, by making it easy to find, by presenting it in > blog posts, and through any other communication deemed appropriate. > > ## Policy for Contributions > > We propose that contributions to Guix be subject to the following > policy: > > 1. **GenAI use.** Contributors who are *not project members* (as > defined above) MAY use genAI to assist in their authoring process > for some contributions, subject to these restrictions: > 1. **GenAI use disclosure.** Contributors using genAI to assist them > in their authoring process MUST disclose its use and how they used > it. This includes cases where the contribution was produced by > genAI or where the contribution derives from changes produced by > genAI. > 2. **Contribution acceptance.** Changes produced by genAI or deriving > from genAI output that can be viewed as “creative”, and [could thus > fall under > copyright](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality), > MUST be rejected to avoid any risk of copyright infringement. > Conversely, when reviewers consider a genAI-produced change > “non-creative”, and thus not falling under copyright, the change > MAY be accepted. Examples of non-creative changes include > mechanical conversions of package metadata from other repositories > similar to those made by `guix import`, mechanical changes similar > to those made by `guix refresh` or `guix style`, changes that > merely follow suggestions made by `guix lint`, integration of > upstream patches, changes of a package’s `#:configure-flags`, and > similar package definition adjustments that are arguably below the > [threshold of > originality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality). > 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. > 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. > > The Guix project will make this policy visible to contributors: as a > file in the main repository, by adding it to the “Contributing” chapter > of the manual, or in any other way deemed appropriate. > > ## Related Work > > A number of free software projects have adopted a policy with respect to > genAI, revealing different sensibilities and choices. Here are some of > those we looked at: > > * Asahi Linux > https://asahilinux.org/docs/project/policies/slop/ > * Debian > https://lwn.net/Articles/1020968/ (May 2025) > https://lwn.net/Articles/1061544/ (March 2026) > * FreeBSD > https://www.freebsd.org/status/report-2025-04-2025-06/ > * Gentoo > https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Council/AI_policy > * GCC (work in progress) > https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/working-group-ai-policy > * GNOME (individual packages) > https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/merge_requests/725 > > https://discourse.gnome.org/t/loupe-no-longer-allows-generative-ai-contributions/27327 > > https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#use-of-generative-ai > * GNU Binutils > https://sourceware.org/binutils/wiki/LLM_Generated_Content > * GNU Gnulib > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2026-02/msg00064.html > * Linux > > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/process/generated-content.rst > https://lwn.net/Articles/1032612/ > https://docs.kernel.org/process/coding-assistants.html > * LLVM > https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/llvm/docs/AIToolPolicy.md > * Mastodon > https://github.com/mastodon/.github/blob/main/AI_POLICY.md > * NetBSD > https://www.netbsd.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html > * NixOS > https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/514587 > > https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#automationai-policy > * NLnet Labs > https://nlnetlabs.nl/llm-policy/ > * Pepper & Carrot (comics) > > https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/documentation/409_Code_of_Conduct.html#use-of-generative-ai > * Servo > > https://web.archive.org/web/20260311122512/https://book.servo.org/contributing/getting-started.html#ai-contributions > * Software Freedom Conservancy (recommendations) > > https://sfconservancy.org/llm-gen-ai/llm-backed-generative-ai-recommendations.html > * Zig > https://ziglang.org/code-of-conduct/#strict-no-llm-no-ai-policy > > Software package lists: > > * "No AI" list > https://noai.starlightnet.work/list.html > * software projects that accept LLM contributions > https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware > > ## Cost of Reverting > > A new GCD could propose a different set of commitments, a different > policy, or abandoning both altogether; should consensus be found on such > a proposal, it would override the decisions of this GCD. > > What would be costly to revert is the *lack* of any form of regulation > on genAI use in Guix. > > # Drawbacks and Open Issues > > This proposal has seen significant changes since the initial version > that was submitted; it is the result of discussions among people > covering a wide spectrum of opinions on the subject. As such, it might > feel “too weak” to some and “too restrictive” to others. Yet, it is > hopefully a good reflection of where we stand today as a community.
