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

[Nyall Dawson]

Ok, I've submitted https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pull/67509 now. Can someone
please approve and merge this?

Then (someone motivated) can kick-start the follow up discussion and argue
their case that LLM use *should* be allowed.

Nyall


On Tue, 22 Sept 2026 at 01:22, David Signer <david at opengis.ch> wrote:

> 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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