[QGIS-Developer] Two proposals -- moratorium on LLM use, and requiring a "proof of life" for contributors

[Alessandro Pasotti]

Sounds reasonable to me.

About #2, as long as the proof of life entry fee is low enough to not
discourage a human, it sounds good too.

Would you mind sketching a QEP for these policy changes?

FYI here is the current policy in GDAL
https://gdal.org/en/stable/community/ai_tool_policy.html


On Wed, Sep 16, 2026 at 5:44 AM Nyall Dawson via QGIS-Developer
<qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> Hi list,
>
> It's quite clear that there's considerable hurt and disappointment
> within the QGIS developer community right now, and for very
> understandable reasons.
>
> I've been giving this a lot of thought over the last few days, and
> would like to propose two actions we could take that I think would
> make a positive difference to our community.
>
> #1. Place an immediate, total moratorium on all forms of LLM based
> contributions.
>
> We've tried gentle policies regarding this up till now, but clearly
> that's not helping. So I would like to propose a complete and total
> moratorium on any form of contribution assisted in any way (beyond as
> a replacement for a simple web search*).
>
> I think we should introduce a firm policy ASAP as a step toward
> repairing our community, and only after this could we start
> discussions about what form of LLM contribution may be acceptable.
>
> I.e. RIGHT NOW we default to a safe "NO AI" policy, and potentially
> later loosen this, rather than having a loose policy right now that
> maybe we'll correct in future.
>
> #2. Require a "proof of life" from all new contributors
>
> The above policy only really applies to existing contributors who we
> know and trust. Any policy we introduce will just be totally ignored
> or lied about by bots or karma farming AI sloppers. I've been
> wondering how to handle this. I've been thinking some form of "proof
> that you are a human and who you actually are" could be required, as
> some kind of document submitted to PSC for private/secure storage. But
> realistically, that's impossible in 2026, as any form of ID document
> could be forged in a few seconds, and it's clearly not possible for
> QGIS.org to police.
>
> So I'd propose that new contributors must FIRST make a financial
> donation to the QGIS project, before any contributions from that
> person are accepted in any form. This could be a small amount, just
> enough to deter the karma farmers who don't actually care about the
> project and what they're contributing. And any amount would be
> sufficient to block the bots.
>
> (Another solution could be to require a face-to-face, in person
> meeting with a contributor before they can submit changes)
>
> What do you all think? I believe we need to act immediately on #1. (I
> realise #2 may be more tricky and/or controversial)
>
> Nyall
>
>
>
> * because the web is broken in 2026. "simple" web searches don't work anymore.
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-- 
Alessandro Pasotti
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