The distro’s new AI policy says it ‘neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI tools.’

The distro’s new AI policy says it ‘neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI tools.’

Debian voted to allow developers to use AI tools in their contributions to the Linux distribution’s “development, maintenance, [and] documentation.” The new policy on AI acknowledges that “responsible” use of AI can improve developers’ productivity, and goes on to say, “generative AI is neither exempt from nor subject to special rules beyond the standards already expected of Debian contributors.”

The project’s voting developers considered several other proposals on how to handle AI, including some that would have banned contributions made using AI tools. As It’s FOSS reports, some users and contributors aren’t happy with the policy, including one contributor who says he’s quitting and “no longer interested in anything coming from Debian.” Earlier this year, Ubuntu developer Canonical faced similar backlash over its own stance on AI.

While Debian won’t require contributors to disclose when they use AI, they’re still responsible for anything they submit using AI tools:

The Debian Project nevertheless expects that all contributions submitted to Debian, regardless of how and with which tools they were produced, satisfy the same standards of quality, correctness, maintainability, and legal compliance. The use of a generative AI tool does not diminish the contributor’s responsibility for the work they submit. Contributors are expected to understand, review, test, and, where appropriate, modify AI-assisted output before incorporating it into Debian. Blindly accepting or uploading AI-generated material without appropriate human review is inconsistent with Debian’s established development practices. We [encourage] our contributors to disclose whether a contribution was made with AI [assistance], but do not require them to do so.