General Resolution: Interpretation of DFSG on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models

Time Line

Discussion Period: 2025-04-21

Proposal A Proposer

Mo Zhou [lumin@debian.org] [text of proposal]

Proposal A Seconds

  1. François Mazen [mzf@debian.org] [mail]
  2. Timo Röhling [roehling@debian.org] [mail]
  3. Matthias Urlichs [smurf@debian.org] [mail]
  4. Christian Kastner [ckk@debian.org] [mail]
  5. Boyuan Yang [byang@debian.org] [mail]
  6. Gunnar Wolf [gwolf@debian.org] [mail]
  7. Carsten Leonhardt [leo@debian.org] [mail]
  8. Andrea Pappacoda [tachi@debian.org] [mail]

Proposal A

Choice 1

AI models released under open source license without original training data or program" are not seen as DFSG-compliant.

The "AI models released under open source license without original training data or program", a particular type of files as explained above, are not seen as DFSG-compliant. Hence, they can not be included in the "main" section of the Debian archive. This proposal does not specify whether the "non-free" section of Debian archive can include those files.

Appendix

Inevitably there may be some terminology and/or backgrounds that is not well-known or well-understood by the general public. Please refer to the appendices for more information. If you cannot find relevant information to answer your question, please consult a human professional -- or an LLM.

See appendix A for detailed rationale of this proposal.
See appendix B for background and comments about current AI software.
See appendix C for some related previous efforts and discussions.
See appendix D for comments on potential implications of this proposal.

Disclaimer

We acknowledge that releasing useful AI models under permissive licenses like MIT/Expat and Apache-2.0 is a generous act from the original authors due to huge costs, and it is a great contribution to the software ecosystem and the society. We sincerely respect the respective authors' work. On the other hand, DFSG sets a pretty high standard on software that can be included in the Debian distribution, which means the GR may lead to some results that not everybody agrees with. Nevertheless, we appreciate your understanding of the mission of the Debian project -- to create a free operating system, where the "free" means "software freedom".

Debian Project Secretary