Debian Declines to Ban AI Code

Category: Case Study | Date: May 2024 - May 2025 | Sector: Open Source Operating System

The Decision: No Ban

In May 2024, following Gentoo's AI ban and NetBSD's "tainted code" classification, a Debian developer proposed that the project adopt similar restrictions on AI-generated contributions. After substantive debate on the debian-project mailing list, Debian reached a different conclusion: no project-wide policy.

This wasn't apathy or indecision. It was the outcome of a genuine deliberative process where multiple perspectives were heard, arguments were weighed, and the community concluded that a ban wasn't warranted. In a landscape of reactive, fear-driven policies, Debian's approach stands out as an example of measured governance.

The Proposal: Claims Without Evidence

On May 2, 2024, Tiago Bortoletto Vaz — a Debian developer and application manager — initiated a discussion requesting that Debian "discuss and decide on the usage of AI-generated content within the project."

Vaz expressed concern that Debian was "already facing negative consequences in some areas... as a result of its use" and referenced Gentoo's recently adopted policy as a potential model. His rationale centered on three concerns:

Copyright issues — potential IP complications with AI-generated material
Quality concerns — unreliable or inaccurate contributions
Ethical considerations — broader questions about AI in collaborative projects

Vaz hoped that if consensus emerged, the matter could escalate to a formal General Resolution vote.

The Evidence Problem

Critically, Vaz's proposal followed a pattern familiar from Gentoo: alarming claims without supporting evidence. He asserted "negative consequences" but provided no specific examples of AI-generated contributions that had actually caused problems in Debian.

When pressed on this, Vaz made a revealing admission:

"There's no point of going into details here because so far we can't proof [sic] anything."

This is a striking admission: claiming problems exist while acknowledging inability to demonstrate them. The proposal asked Debian to act on faith rather than facts.

Jose-Luis Rivas challenged this vagueness directly, noting that without clear evidence: "It seems you have more context than the rest which provides a sense of urgency for you, where others do not have this same information."

As LWN observed: "If Debian is experiencing real problems from AI-generated content, they are not yet painful or widespread enough to motivate support for a ban."

The proposal's structure — borrowed concerns from Gentoo, vague claims of harm, no concrete examples, appeal to act preemptively — mirrors the pattern of AI denialism: treating AI as inherently problematic without demonstrating actual problems. To Debian's credit, the community recognized this and responded accordingly.

The Debate: Substantive Pushback

Unlike Gentoo's RFC — which was proposed by a council member and passed unanimously with minimal recorded dissent — Debian's discussion featured genuine intellectual engagement. Senior developers raised substantive objections that shaped the outcome.

Russ Allbery: "Plan to Be Reactive"

Russ Allbery, a longtime Debian developer, provided the most detailed counterargument. His key points:

"We don't make policies against what tools people use locally for developing software."

Allbery argued that Debian's role is to ensure outputs meet standards, not to police development methods. He was skeptical of Gentoo's approach since "it is (as they admit) unenforceable."

On copyright concerns, he noted that even a ban wouldn't solve the problem:

"We're going to be facing that problem with upstreams as well, so the scope of that problem goes far beyond direct contributions to Debian."

His recommendation: "This is a place where it's better to plan on being reactive than to attempt to be proactive."

On Quality Concerns

Allbery acknowledged the practical problem of AI-generated noise:

"Most of the output is low-quality garbage and, because it's now automated, the volume of that low-quality garbage can be quite high."

But he added a pointed observation:

"I am repeatedly assured by AI advocates that this will improve rapidly. I suppose we will see. So far, the evidence that I've seen has just led me to question the standards and taste of AI advocates."

Despite this skepticism, Allbery concluded that existing community mechanisms were sufficient: "We have adequate mechanisms to complain and ask that it stop without making new policy."

Sam Hartman: "AI Is Just Another Tool"

Sam Hartman, a former Debian Project Leader, offered a pragmatic perspective:

"AI is just another tool, and I trust DDs [Debian developers] to use it appropriately."

Hartman added that he personally avoided AI for large code blocks because "auditing the quality of AI generated code is harder than just writing the code in most cases" — a practical judgment rather than an ideological prohibition.

Ansgar Burchardt: Tool Neutrality

Ansgar Burchardt questioned why AI should be singled out, comparing it to other tools Debian doesn't regulate. The project doesn't ban Tor despite its potential for misuse — why treat AI differently?

The Proposer's Response

Vaz acknowledged the pushback and clarified his position. He wasn't seeking a punitive ban but rather educational guidelines:

"I don't expect every Debian contributor to have a sufficiently good understanding of the matter, or maturity, at the moment they start contributing."

He drew an analogy to Debian's Code of Conduct and Diversity Statement — documents that state community expectations without strict enforcement mechanisms.

The Outcome: No Consensus, No Policy

The discussion concluded without consensus. As LWN reported, there was "a distinct lack of love for those kinds of tools, though it would also seem few contributors support banning them outright."

Debian Project Leader Andreas Tille later summarized the situation: the matter would be left to individual teams to decide rather than imposing a project-wide directive.

Vaz gracefully accepted the outcome, acknowledging "we are far from a consensus" and suggesting the topic could be revisited if problems intensified.

The 2025 Sequel: Another Proposal, Another Withdrawal

The AI question returned in 2025 when developer Mo Zhou proposed a General Resolution addressing AI models and the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Zhou's proposal would have declared that AI models released without original training data cannot be DFSG-compliant.

This sparked another substantive debate. Participants raised concerns about practical implications: existing software like spam filters and OCR tools already in Debian could be reclassified as non-compliant. The discussion revealed the complexity of defining what "source" means for AI models.

On May 8, 2025, Zhou withdrew the proposal, stating "the community was unprepared to vote." Russ Allbery remarked:

"I don't think anyone is saying that we shouldn't have this conversation and a vote, only that we... hadn't actually thought this through as thoroughly as we had thought."

Zhou indicated he would need several months before revisiting the issue — a mature acknowledgment that complex questions deserve careful consideration.

Comparison: Debian vs. Gentoo vs. NetBSD

Aspect	Debian	Gentoo	NetBSD
Outcome	No ban	Full ban	Effective ban
Process	Open mailing list debate	RFC + council vote	No public debate
Dissent Recorded	Yes, extensively	Minimal	None visible
Expert Input	N/A (no policy made)	Ignored (ML engineer)	None sought
Proposer's Response to Pushback	Accepted, withdrew	Proceeded anyway	N/A
Tone	Deliberative	Ideological	Bureaucratic

Editorial: What Good Governance Looks Like

Debian's handling of the AI question demonstrates what thoughtful open source governance looks like — and throws the Gentoo and NetBSD approaches into sharp relief.

Real Debate, Not Rubber-Stamping

When Vaz proposed restrictions, senior developers didn't simply defer to the proposal's framing. They interrogated its assumptions. Is enforcement possible? Does Debian regulate tools or outputs? Are existing mechanisms sufficient? Would a ban actually solve the stated problems?

These are the questions Gentoo's council should have asked but apparently didn't. These are the questions NetBSD's core team never publicly considered.

Skepticism Without Prohibition

Notably, Debian's discussants weren't AI enthusiasts. Allbery called most AI output "low-quality garbage" and questioned "the standards and taste of AI advocates." Hartman said he avoided AI for substantial coding because auditing it is harder than writing code himself.

But personal skepticism didn't translate into project-wide prohibition. The participants distinguished between their own tool preferences and what should be mandated for all contributors. This is the mark of mature governance: recognizing that your preferences aren't universal laws.

Graceful Acceptance of Outcomes

When Vaz's proposal didn't gain traction, he accepted it gracefully. When Zhou's 2025 GR revealed unexpected complexity, he withdrew it to allow more deliberation. Neither treated opposition as obstruction or pushed for votes they might lose.

Compare this to Gentoo, where the proposal's author was also a council member who voted on his own RFC, and where the vote was 6 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain, with one absent. The absence of recorded dissent doesn't indicate consensus — it may indicate a process that didn't invite it.

Acknowledging Uncertainty

Allbery's advice to "plan on being reactive rather than attempt to be proactive" reflects epistemic humility. We don't yet know how AI will affect open source development. We don't know what the legal landscape will look like. We don't know which concerns are material and which are theoretical.

Given this uncertainty, waiting for evidence before making policy is reasonable. Preemptive bans based on speculation are not.

The Irony of Scale

Debian is the largest project in this comparison — over 1.3 billion lines of code, thousands of packages, hundreds of active developers. If any project had reason to fear AI-generated chaos, it would be Debian. Instead, the largest project showed the most restraint.

Perhaps scale breeds wisdom. Managing a project of Debian's size requires accepting that you can't control everything and that attempting to do so creates more problems than it solves. Gentoo and NetBSD, smaller projects with tighter communities, may have fallen into the trap of thinking control was possible.

The Lesson

Debian's experience suggests that the rush to ban AI-generated code isn't inevitable or necessary. A project can acknowledge concerns, debate them seriously, and conclude that existing mechanisms are sufficient — without being accused of being "soft" on AI or negligent about quality.

The key ingredients:

Open discussion where dissent is welcomed, not suppressed
Senior voices willing to challenge proposals rather than defer to them
Epistemic humility about what we don't yet know
Separation of personal preference from project policy
Willingness to wait rather than act on fear

Not every project will reach Debian's conclusion. But every project should aspire to Debian's process.

🌀 Debian Declines to Ban AI Code