I have been using Linux for over 8 months now, and my primary distribution of choice was Debian.
Debian recently conducted a community vote on allowing AI contributions, and it ended up allowing responsible AI contributions.
What is this responsible? How can AI commits be responsible? There are thousands of reasons to not use AI, and the primary reason is AI is a thief.
How did you react to Debian’s decision? Did you switch distros? Which one was your option, and why?
Also, when the Linux kernel itself allows AI commits, is there any practicality in a Linux distribution strictly limiting or restricting AI commits?
I have no serious usability issue with Debian now but am concerned about the use of AI even in my Linux distribution. Should I keep going with Debian or consider any other distribution, as I only have 8+ months of experience as a daily Linux user? I tried almost all Linux distros and am comfortable with everything except Void Linux and highly complex ones like Gentoo.
thief
If you advocate for further expansion of “copyright” oppression, you deserve microsoft windows.
AI companies and AI users either do not care or don’t know/understand the value of software freedom. I only used Debian from Mint [Mint being based on Ubuntu, Ubuntu based on Debian] but they used to appear as a champion of software freedom. It was somewhat understandable when they choose to no longer ~seperate proprietary drivers/codec/software but, whoever runs Debian now, I think their true colors are showing with AI.
I avoided using Debian as I thought it would be too hard to get up to date drivers! Gentoo has binaries for most of what I need and compiles the rest for me. It may not be as difficult to use as you think. However, trying to install Gentoo would definitely be… an experience 🫣
I’ve been using Debian for a long time and honestly, I’m not going to worry about this too much as of today. We got that decision, yes. But I don’t think I’ve seen any consequences, yet. And I always try to judge people by what they actually do. Less so by what they say.
I say that the last word hasn’t been said yet. On this whole AI thing. We still got many Linux people who don’t really appreciate AI. The entire community isn’t really fond of it. We got people who say there isn’t a way to make use of it responsibly. I have a hunch there’s more to this story. But only time will tell. Until then I’m going to continue using Debian, just like I have for the past 10-15 years. I trust the community distributions, they faced other challenges before. And usually they’re not half bad at facing challenges and ultimately doing the right thing.
Doesn’t have to be easy. Sometimes we’re headed the wrong direction for a while. But what matters IMO is the result. And I’m positive they’ll find some way to deal with this. I don’t think AI fits Debian’s identity at all. Would be a big surprise to me if they don’t realize it as well.
What is this responsible? How can AI commits be responsible? There are thousands of reasons to not use AI, and the primary reason is AI is a thief.
I feel like you aren’t actually asking a legitimate question and are just trying to soapbox, but this is covered by Debian here: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2026/08/msg00005.html
As far as what the consequences of failing to follow that policy is, it would be covered under the Debian code of conduct: https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct_interpretation.html
NOTE: I am not a Debian user. I just performed a basic search to find the answer to that question.
There will never be an AI free Linux distro again since it’s allowed in the kernel. I would certainly prefer to use a distro that doesn’t allow vibe coded programs though. That junk is unmaintainable and will be abandoned when the creator can no longer afford the tokens.
Most slopcode projects are abandoned and deleted within months of release – “Of the 120 unique repos, 32 were maintained and 88 were abandoned.”
AI is a tool. You already trust the developers to build an operating system with the tools available.
From the Debian announcement
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.
It’s quite clear they don’t allow vibe coding. As you say, the kernal itself allows AI contributions in a similar way.
If you’re worried about the ethical aspects of AI then you’ll probably have to move to NetBSD. If you’re only worried about quality this is a non issue.
“How did you react to Debian’s decision?”
I deleted it, debian was thankfully not my main, just a backup/something of interest.
The ‘vote’ itself seemed dodgy, every option was going to ai in some form, or another.
https://www.debian.org/vote/2026/vote_002#texte
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 enourage [sic] our contributors to disclose whether a contribution was made with AI assitance[sic], but do not require them to do so.
Most of it comes down to personally mitigating the damages:
- start with ElementaryOS and Pantheon/Gnome, then decide which path you want to follow
- if you’re hardcore, go for NetBSD or MirBSD or 9front/Plan9 instead of Linux
- on the Linux side: ElementaryOS, Gentoo, Chimera Linux, AerynOS, and Nura/PostmarketOS all have strong LLM policies
- along those lines: Gnome and Cosmic haven’t gone soft on AI the way KDE has
- Starlight Network No-AI List is one jumping off point, but there are several other lists including repo-slopscore and Weird Little Guys
Weird little guys is an interesting read, I was surprised to find Jeff Geerling there, I always thought he was just a really crappy youtuber, with really stupid fans. I was half expecting to find Linus SebastiDouche on the list afterwards.
I liked him a lot. I first learned about Jellyfin from his video just a few years ago. I would’ve bet money that Linus TT would be on such a list before Jeff Geerling. I don’t have a parasocial relationship or idolize YouTubers, but I’m definitely still disappointed. (Maybe I was a stupid fan, but now I’m just stupid 💀)
I do like Jeff’s videos, he comes across as a true engineering nerd. I find his SBC reviews to be pretty thorough and some of his other videos make for an interesting side quest on stuff he’s interested in.
I certainly don’t view DeVaults purity list as the authority on if I should watch someone’s videos or not.
Jeff never made sense to me, his videos seemed dodgy, the first one I saw he was jumping on the linus screwdriver silly hype train, but his fans just adored him, to the point I assumed some of them were drooling. I didn’t see much more of him over the years, so my view is definitely limited.
I recommend everybody read the 9front manual.
I haven’t managed to get past their home page yet, it just looks like an inside joke.
After glancing at the manual, I now know I was previously correct stopping at the home page
It’s OK, 9 front isn’t right for everybody.
For instance, it is not for me.
I enjoyed the manual though.
8 butt is probably more my style
The manual, section 1:
Why don’t kde? Are they also into AI slop? I didn’t used elementaryOS yet. Is elementaryOS a good daily driver? Also what about Arch?
Sure but why?
the primary reason is AI is a thief.
That’s the least important reason to not use AI. All property is theft, especially copyright!
There is a difference between people using AI to help write/maintain code that they understand, and slopcoding unmaintainable vibe projects.
I think it’s a bit the other way around. GNU, Linux and the Free Software community are very much about this copyright thing. We know it’s not right to do it like the other big companies so we try to make an effort here to make it not weigh down on the users or have the people steal, or abuse their power?!
No, you miss the point. GPL is not a feelgood license. It is a license that tries to make the licensed piece of work better by exploiting the fact that the more it is used, the more it is likely that someone can improve it for everybody. So large corporations will contribute back their tweaks and everyone profits.
It is not some kind of utopic hack
