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

[Nyall Dawson]

>
>
>
> And for #1 My position is very much `wait and see`, I think it's too early
> to tell where the balance between social benefits and social costs of these
> tools will land in the end. And it would be too bad to remove a tool that
> could genuinely be useful in the future. In the last discussion Stefanos
> mentioned to allow contributor to use LLM once a certain threshold of PR is
> reached I think we should explore this too before straight up ban LLM
>

Fair enough -- but why does "wait and see" mean "allow this potentially
risky new thing", instead of "don't allow, assess, and THEN when we've
'waited and seen' decide if we want it"? That's really what I'm pushing for
right now -- put a halt on things, reassess, and THEN make a decision.

I mean... hell... we deliberate for YEARS on when we want to bump a Qt
dependency. 🤣 Why are we rushing into this new technology that potentially
risks destroying the whole community and the stability of the project?

Nyall



>
>
> And overall it sadden me that we collectively spent 3 decades writing free
> software, free tutorials etc... Effectively creating commons. And LLM
> companies took that from us, and make us pay twice. A first time at
> individual level to access this technology, and a second time by putting
> pressure on people and infrastructure.
>
> I would like to float another ideas around even if it would be hard to
> enforce in practice.
> *Force AI companies to give back*.
> Want to use Claude code? Sure but anthropic have to become a sustaining
> member of QGIS.org first
> Want to use codex, gemini? Then openAi and Google have to contribute to
> the project financially and I'm talking geniully multiple thousands dollars
> contributions.
>
>
> In other words we should enter collective bargaining between open source
> communities and AI companies with in mind the "polluter pays principle"
>
> Cheers,
> Célia
>
>
> Le mer. 16 sept. 2026 à 05:44, Nyall Dawson via QGIS-Developer <
> qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> a écrit :
> >
> > 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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