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<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I
am not sure what to make of the lack of votes though. Is it a
silent acceptance or do we have community members that are
against the policy but don't feel like disturbing the peace? </div>
</blockquote>
</p>
<p>While I've contributed some code and reviews to PROJ, I'm not
clear on who gets to cast these votes -- is it only PSC members,
or anyone on this list?</p>
<p>If I get to vote, it would be a -1 from me to adopt the GDAL AI
policy, for those two reasons I described in the GitHub issues (
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912#issuecomment-6198785065">https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912#issuecomment-6198785065</a> ):<br>
<br>
- The definition of "vibe-coded" is ambiguous<br>
- This wording of the policy puts using AI as a tool by
knowledgeable developers who carefully review what they are
contributing and take responsibility for it, and whose
modifications / integration of any AI-generated content within a
larger contribution I believe may in fact be copyrightable, in the
same bag as the unwanted automated pull requests with zero human
involvement.<br>
<br>
Something like what Felix proposed for deck.gl ( see
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912#issuecomment-6211867588">https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912#issuecomment-6211867588</a> )
and definition suggested by Luis (
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912#issuecomment-6214208175">https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912#issuecomment-6214208175</a>
"contributions lacking significant human creation/input") I
believe would achieve most of the intended goals while remaining
receptive to otherwise suitable use of AI-assisted contributions.</p>
<p>That being said I do not wish agony on any of the maintainers,
and there needs to be a clear way to avoid this overwhelm...<br>
I really think the best way to guarantee this is ensuring that
there is a human behind that PR who spent at least as much effort
as it will take to review the PR, and who is willing to engage
with the maintainers/reviewers, and adjust the PR as necessary.</p>
<p>Thank you for considering this alternate point of view :)</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>-Jerome</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/20/26 9:20 AM, Howard Butler via
PROJ wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:18880800-BCAE-4EAE-BBD8-2B3CCAE787B6@hobu.co">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
-0 from me for the reason that it doesn't do anything to change
the major complaint. We have a constant onslaught of LLM-generated
content in the project that we must react to that is impeding
maintainer's ability to manage the project effectively without
feeling as if they're existing to satisfy the machine. The policy
doesn't change that, but if it gives maintainers permission to
close stuff without remorse, I would argue they've always had it.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Much of the recent projection formula PR churn is clearly
LLM-originated. It was either found by LLMs exercising lightly
tested code paths, or found by someone prompting an LLM to look
for obvious formula bugs. We're adapting and merging them
because they are specific enough, small enough to reason about,
and valuable because they fix real issues. A "No AI" policy is
incongruent with this kind of contribution which from a
practical standpoint is already happening in PROJ.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I think we should invest more to harden the project against
slop, protect our CI allocation by gatekeeping PRs to only run
the simple linux test runner before workflowing a more
substantial, maintainer-initiated CI loop, and be ruthless about
closing anything we don't like for whatever reason. The old
model of open source was to be accommodating in the face of
contributors. It must now be the other way – contributors must
be accommodating in the face of maintainers. Maybe that means
they'll have to rework or recreate a PR two or three times to
get enough attention on the topic to get it merged.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The alternative is "Which PROJ?", which is going to happen
regardless because a fork is now so easy to make, but it is not
so easy to build up 43 years of trust. PROJ and its code is
what's trusted. We should not be in a hurry to break that trust.
Not fixing obvious bugs because an LLM found them instead of a
person weakens that trust, but we don't need to be accommodating
of contribution that makes convenient distribution of capability
for the contributor at the cost of diligence, review, agony of
the maintainers.</div>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Oct 20, 2026, at 7:23 AM, Kristian Evers via
PROJ <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:proj@lists.osgeo.org"><proj@lists.osgeo.org></a> wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">It's a +0 from
me.</div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I think the
current GDAL policy is okay but I am not sure it
will change much without further changes to how we
handle new contributors and what expections we set
to contributions. My feeling is that we will still
get unwanted contributions no matter what policy we
put in place. </div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I am not sure
what to make of the lack of votes though. Is it a
silent acceptance or do we have community members
that are against the policy but don't feel like
disturbing the peace? </div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"
class="protonmail_signature_block protonmail_signature_block-empty">
<div
class="protonmail_signature_block-user protonmail_signature_block-empty">
</div>
<div
class="protonmail_signature_block-proton protonmail_signature_block-empty">
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<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br>
</div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">/Kristian</div>
<div class="protonmail_quote"> On Sunday, October
18th, 2026 at 20:16, Javier Jimenez Shaw
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:j1@jimenezshaw.com"><j1@jimenezshaw.com></a> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="protonmail_quote" type="cite">
<div dir="auto">
<div>Hi Kurt
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Sorry, it could not be clear
enough. </div>
<div dir="auto">This voting is about this PR</div>
<div dir="auto"><a
href="https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912" target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener"
style="word-break: break-word;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912</a></div>
<div dir="auto">to change the AI policy in
PROJ.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I found it an easy step to
start with it PROJ. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">The initiative by Nyall to
change the GDAL terms was happening as a
consequence of my first email (if I
understood correctly. I didn't know Nyall
was in this mailing list!)</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Of course, changing today PROJ
conditions doesn't mean we can't change them
again tomorrow.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Javier.</div>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, 18
Oct 2026, 20:03 Kurt Schwehr, <<a
href="mailto:schwehr@gmail.com"
target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">schwehr@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">Javier,</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div>What exactly are you voting on?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>For those not keeping up, please
also see this discussion:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a
href="https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/gdal-dev/2026-October/061758.html"
rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener"
target="_blank"
style="word-break: break-word;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/gdal-dev/2026-October/061758.html</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I personally think both PROJ and
GDAL need detailed AGENTS.md files to
help control the situation and to let
AI review tools better help all who
use LLM agents in any part of their
workflow.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-Kurt</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On
Sun, Oct 18, 2026 at 7:55 AM Javier
Jimenez Shaw via PROJ <<a
href="mailto:proj@lists.osgeo.org"
rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">proj@lists.osgeo.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="auto">Let's vote
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I start with my +1</div>
<div dir="auto">Javier</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On
Fri, 16 Oct 2026, 10:57 Kristian
Evers, <<a
href="mailto:kristian@evers.dev" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">kristian@evers.dev</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>Thanks for starting this
discussion, Javier! I think
everyone that follows the
activity on GitHub will have
been overwhelmed by recent
activity. I certainly have.
It’s’ clear to me that we need
to change something but it is
not clear to me what the best
way forward is. Having given
the topic some though over the
last week I think my
priorities are as follows:
<div><br>
</div>
<div>* Community building</div>
<div>* Human interactions</div>
<div>* Avoiding maintainer
burnout</div>
<div>* Producing a useful
software package</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>At the moment we are
struggling in the three
first bullets. In particular
regarding human interaction.
There are quite a few cases
where you can rightfully
doubt if a human was even
involved at all. Really
discouraging. The influx of
new dubious contributors is
driving maintainer burnout
at the moment and is not
doing wonders for the
community either. That said,
access to LLM tools has also
lowered the barrier for
entry[0] to our community
which can be seen in the
increased number of
contributions in the
cartographic parts of PROJ.
An area that hasn't seen
much focus over the last few
years. The LLMs are helping
bridge the gap between
web-based cartography and
our ancient ways of C and
C++. I think it is fantastic
to see some of the
innovation in the
Javascript-space find its
way into PROJ but it is not
worth anything if it causes
the regular maintainers to
burn out.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I can agree to adopt the
GDAL policy but I don’t
think it will fix
everything. I expect we will
end up spending quite some
time policing the policy and
new contributors trying to
circumvent it. Probably
that’s better than doing
nothing but still not
particularly fun.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Let’s finish this debate
at the policy first and once
that is settled I would like
to propose a few extra ideas
on how to avoid bot accounts
and increasing community
engagement. Stay tuned.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>/Kristian</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>[0] Two-edged sword, I
know. <br>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
<blockquote
type="cite">
<div>On 15 Oct 2026,
at 19.45, Javier
Jimenez Shaw via
PROJ <<a
href="mailto:proj@lists.osgeo.org" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">proj@lists.osgeo.org</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Hi</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Recently
there has been
a relative
explosion of
PRs (and
issues) in
PROJ. I would
say that many
of them were
LLM generated,
by people
(well,
probably not
people) that
do not know
the project,
do not care
about it, and
very likely do
not have any
connection
with it. Just
to get some
"points" as
contributors I
guess.</div>
<div>I don't
want to know
how much
energy and
tokens they
burned for
such PRs and
issues.</div>
<div>You can go
to the
repository and
have your own
opinion.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I created
this PR that
is a copy of
the GDAL AI
policy:</div>
<div><a
href="https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html"
rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener" target="_blank"
style="word-break: break-word;" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I don't
know if it
will keep
slope code out
of PROJ, but
it is another
step.</div>
<div><a
href="https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912"
rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener" target="_blank"
style="word-break: break-word;" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4912</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cheers</div>
<div>Javier.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
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<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________
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