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Are Anti-AI Linux distributions practical? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I have been using Linux for over 8 months now, and my primary distribution of choice was Debian.

Debian recently conducted a community vote on allowing AI contributions, and it ended up allowing responsible AI contributions.

What is this responsible? How can AI commits be responsible? There are thousands of reasons to not use AI, and the primary reason is AI is a thief.

How did you react to Debian's decision? Did you switch distros? Which one was your option, and why?

Also, when the Linux kernel itself allows AI commits, is there any practicality in a Linux distribution strictly limiting or restricting AI commits?

I have no serious usability issue with Debian now but am concerned about the use of AI even in my Linux distribution. Should I keep going with Debian or consider any other distribution, as I only have 8+ months of experience as a daily Linux user? I tried almost all Linux distros and am comfortable with everything except Void Linux and highly complex ones like Gentoo.

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[–] 23 points 1 day ago (19 children)

thief

If you advocate for further expansion of "copyright" oppression, you deserve microsoft windows.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 day ago (8 children)

    This. So much.

    I am old enough to remember many people on the Internet questioning the entire concept of copyright and reacting to it with free licensing, defense of torrent sites, founding Pirate Parties.

    Now I read that the primary reason to reject AI is that it is a "thief"??? In the era I described above, someone wrote a song with the lyrics: copying is not theft, stealing a thing leaves one less left, copying it makes one thing more, that's what copying's for…

    See also https://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/23/copyright-infringement-still-isnt-theft-even-when-a-microsoft-employee-says-it-is/

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (6 children)

    Copyleft is a hack of copyright that ensures rights to users of software that you wouldn't have if there was no copyright. Software is different from other creative works like music and books in that it does computing. Sharing a binary file freely isn't enough - you need the source code to keep it maintained or change it to your will (through collaborative efforts). You prevent others withholding the source code via that copyrighted license.

    You can reject the unreasonable sentences of copyright infringement, the illegality of breaking locks on your own hardware, or the long copyright terms while still promoting copyright for copyleft's sake. Companies lobbies for those laws to prevent "stealing', throwing people in jail or fining them into oblivion - are they going to undo all that? Can I share Disney films without going to jail now?

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  • [–] 4 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

    while still promoting copyright for copyleft’s sake.

    What the hell.

    Copyleft means "the absence of copyright", not "copyright wielded by radlibs".

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  • [–] 1 point 14 hours ago (4 children)

    Words have different usages among different groups of people. Wikipedia seems to support my use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

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  • [–] 2 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

    TIL radlibs' holy scripture smears copyleft. The page reads like it was written by a bourgie copyright advocate.

    I should have known, radlibs' holy scripture was founded by ancaps after all.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (2 children)

    That's many new words for me, seems some groups of people also have no usage of words that others use!

    I value software freedom; basically being in control of your own computing. I dislike others taking my code and then denying their users the same freedoms they enjoyed. If not for that I could do without most of Copyright as it is today.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 hours ago (1 child)

    You don't get what copyright is at all. The bourgie propaganda seems to have convinced you that "copyright protects you from copyright and if it weren't there nothing would protect you from copyright"

    For some people, it's easier to imagine the end of the world, than to imagine the end of capitalism the copyright system.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (8 children)

    GPL may call itself "copyleft", but legally it is dependent on copyright to be enforceable. In the first place, the whole point of licenses like GPL is to ensure that when people take from the commons, they also give back to the commons. The way AI gains its ability to generate shitty code undermines this, and so is ideologically very much at odds with Linux and the wider FOSS world.

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  • [–] 5 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

    Copyright is a deprivation of freedom, and the GPL comes using this rules to turn around them. I won't defend copyright. AI comes with more important problems, such as ecology, and creating monster private companies that have far too much power.

    The tool in itself can really be usefull when well used. Many people use it and get nice results. Many people abuse it, and many people abuse themselves with it. It is true with a hammer too. I don't think "hammer-free" is a feature, even if their are many domain in which I don't see the point of using a hammer (and so "made with a hammer" isn't a feature either).

    Also, I can't find any example in history of a technology that was successfully banned despite being usefull. Some have been regulated, such as nuclear industries, but that was not perfect and needed a continuous and hard strugle. The strict "no-AI" movement has already lost its battle, at most we could get regulations, maybe...

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  • [–] 1 point 14 hours ago* (2 children)

    The thing is, if all other things remain the same, an absence of copyright will also be used by the wealthy and powerful to further enrich and empower themselves and as a tool of oppression.

    From the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:

    #34 War is good for business.

    #35 Peace is good for business.

    You cannot have internally consistent, principled view on copyright without also having a compatible view on the economy. And even then, the economy needs to come first; you cannot start destroying load-bearing pillars, no matter how ugly, without first getting everyone out of the house.

    The tool in itself can really be usefull when well used. Many people use it and get nice results.

    The way I see it, there are two kinds of people: those to whom AI is utterly useless because it just ends up taking more time and have them burn through their cognitive endurance faster, and those to whom it would be irresponsible to let them use it, because it would prevent them from finding better solutions for the busywork they're letting the AI do, and they just end up creating a lot of needless maintenance overhead.

    But more importantly, being "useful" to certain individuals is not the same as being good for society. Which brings us back to it undermining licenses like the GPL, which would further enrich and empower the already advantaged.

    Also, I can’t find any example in history of a technology that was successfully banned despite being usefull.

    CFCs? Asbestos? The bans on them aren't perfectly enforced, but nevertheless, the hole in the ozone layer is shrinking and the number of people dying of asbestos-related lung cancer is reducing, so they do have value.

    The strict “no-AI” movement has already lost its battle

    Even if it were true, that would be no reason to stop trying or to stop saying the truth: No matter useful you experience it as being, you are causing harm. To yourself, to the field, to society.

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  • [–] -1 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    You can call it "the truth", but I will call it "the dogma".

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    It only appears dogmatic to someone under the mistaken impression that technologies are value-neutral. Make no mistake: even if every generative AI model were open-source and you could run on your own hardware, it would still be a technology that empowers the already advantaged far more than anyone else.

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  • [–] 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

    GPL wields the copyright system against itself, like a virus. The goal is the complete destruction of the copyright system and the liberation of all software.

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  • [–] 2 points 17 hours ago (1 child)

    It won't exactly be able to accomplish anything like that if it's been undermined no matter what the mechanism of its enforcement is.

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  • [–] 2 points 16 hours ago

    This is the GPL's trap card. When it gets undermined, the "copyright" system loses its credibility.

    That was the idea, at least. Seems like there's people who double down on their belief in copyright in response. But that's their own fault.

    The usual saying applies: "It's easier for them to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism the copyright system."

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  • [–] -1 points 22 hours ago*

    GPL (and copyleft generally) gets way more attention than it should. In the wild, MIT and similar permissive licenses are by far the most common. Linux is on GPL, but that may be a historical artifact as much as anything. I don't know if Linus himself would choose it if he were making the choice today.

    The wider FOSS community, in my experience, leans permissive rather than copyleft. The copyleft people are just loud.

    EDIT: To be clear, when I say I don't know what choice Linus would make today, I don't mean that I'm skeptical he'd choose GPL. I literally just mean that I don't know. He's been quite clear that he's not a principled believer in copyleft, but it does have real advantages for a project like the Linux kernel.

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