[OSGeo-Discuss] Using AI in OSGeo projects - Notes from the Timisoara BoF

[Even Rouault]

Hi,

At the conference I've also noticed one side effect of LLMs on community 
building. I've discovered a new team of developers creating a new 
project around one of our historic project, sometimes working around its 
behavior instead of trying to improve it at the source, and living in 
their own bubble with little incentive to participate to the main 
project since their oracle apparently saves them from human 
interactions. That kind of situation of course could have happened 
before, but use of LLM technologies is likely to favor that type of 
community split.

There's some parallel to draw with what happened with Tailwind 
(https://www.businessinsider.com/tailwind-engineer-layoffs-ai-github-2026-1) 
that has been cut off from most of its users because of LLM interposition.

Even

Le 02/07/2026 à 21:32, Jeroen Ticheler via Discuss a écrit :
> Dear all,
>
> At FOSS4G Europe 2026 in Timisoara (Romania) we held a Birds of a Feather session on the use of AI in OSGeo projects. Around 25 to 30 people joined, including many core developers who are well respected in our community.
>
> Opinions in the room were strong and differed a lot, which was the point. We wanted to hear from people who use AI in their work and from people who have concerns or bad experiences, and would rather block AI contributions completely.
>
> The problem is clear. Some projects now get many AI-generated pull requests that land on the desks of a few core reviewers. They cannot keep up. A lot of these PRs are long and give no useful reason for the change. The tone can be pushy and cold. On top of that, there is little human to human discussion behind these PRs, which makes the whole process feel inhuman from the start. When this keeps happening, trust drops, people feel worn down, and conflict becomes more likely, because they hold different technical and ethical standards.
>
> People shared their own stories
>
> We heard what it is like to get an anonymous PR with no real person behind it, where the sender seems to have done little more than press submit.
>
> We also heard positive experiences, where developers have taught AI tools their own coding style and review habits, then used those tools in two ways. One is to write new code that is hard to tell apart from your own. The other is to fight fire with fire: let AI check incoming PR’s and reject the ones that ignore the project rules, so those never reach a human.
>
> We also talked about newcomers. Many students and young developers learned to code with AI from the start. Do they know enough to contribute well, and how will they learn to write the kind of code an OSGeo project needs? The room saw a link with earlier changes, like the move to new programming languages. Each time the needed skills changed, and each time people adapted.
>
> A call on tone and community
>
> The first outcome was a call to be careful with the way we talk to each other. If we lose respect and stop being a welcoming community, the harm lasts longer than any single PR. *We are in this together.* AI-assisted coding is here to stay, and it also opens doors, for example for people who do not code but want to help once good guardrails exist. The room agreed on this and backed it.
>
> A call to build shared AI practices
>
> The second outcome was a call to start a new OSGeo effort where developers build shared skills, agents, and contribution practices that any project can use. This is not about copying one person’s style. We have not yet decided if this should sit at OSGeo level or inside each project.
>
> If you code with AI or review PRs, we want you involved and I invite you to start the conversation here on our discuss list or on our Discourse General channel.
>
> Thanks for reading!
>
> Jeroen Ticheler
>
> President of the board of directors of OSGeo
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LLMs contribute to global warming and brain rot