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

[David Signer]

Hi everyone

I think #1 to get time until we have a good solution for #2 won't hurt. The
QGIS project worked well before AI. I kind of miss the big argument for why
we need to use AI for QGIS immediately. I am not against using new
technology, but I think we risk nothing by proceeding with a careful
deliberation. Regarding #2 I am not a big fan of validating a new
contributor's credibility through financial donations, but with #1 we would
have time to find a good solution there.

Thanks and cheers
Dave


On Sat, Sep 19, 2026 at 8:28 PM Célia Buira via QGIS-Developer <
qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> What about implementing #2 proof of life first, see the effect of this new
> policy on the github tracker, and only then implementing #1 if it's still
> needed ?
>
>
> About #2 I like the idea of the proof of life however requiring a
> financial contribution is rubbing me the wrong way. Contributing
> efficiently to the code of QGIS already required access to multiple
> thousands of dollars hardware, often you come to qgis after higher degrees
> of education which also adds inequality barriers. (I remember when I
> started to contribute to qgis it would take a whole night to do a clean
> build of qgis on my laptop at the time)
>
> I think we should go for something simpler as in require new contributor
> to screencast the end result of their PR and made them open the help >
> about this way we can also check they compiled with the last Sha commit of
> the PR.
>
>
> 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
>
>
> 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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