<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>
      <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">
                    </div>
                  </div>
                  <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>
_______________________________________________<br>
                                    PROJ mailing list<br>
                                    <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><br>
                                    <a
href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/proj"
                                      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/mailman/listinfo/proj</a><br>
                                  </blockquote>
                                </div>
                              </div>
                            </blockquote>
                          </div>
                        </div>
                      </div>
                    </blockquote>
                    <br>
                  </div>
                  _______________________________________________<br>
                  PROJ mailing list<br>
                  <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:PROJ@lists.osgeo.org">PROJ@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
                  <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/proj">https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/proj</a><br>
                </div>
              </blockquote>
            </div>
            <br>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
      <br>
      <fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
      <pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________
PROJ mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:PROJ@lists.osgeo.org">PROJ@lists.osgeo.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/proj">https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/proj</a>
</pre>
    </blockquote>
  </body>
</html>