--- title: QGIS bans AI assisted contributions | daily.dev description: A formal enhancement proposal to the QGIS project (QEP428) bans AI-assisted contributions outright, replacing an earlier, unenforced 'human in the loop'... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/qgis-bans-ai-assisted-contributions-qndrpwb7a twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: QGIS bans AI assisted contributions | daily.dev og:description: A formal enhancement proposal to the QGIS project (QEP428) bans AI-assisted contributions outright, replacing an earlier, unenforced 'human in the loop'... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/qgis-bans-ai-assisted-contributions-qndrpwb7a og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/QnDrPWb7a.png og:image:alt: QGIS bans AI assisted contributions og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # QGIS bans AI assisted contributions **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A formal enhancement proposal to the QGIS project (QEP428) bans AI-assisted contributions outright, replacing an earlier, unenforced 'human in the loop' policy. The discussion thread shows maintainers and contributors debating scope: whether the ban covers code only or also issues, PRs, comments, and documentation; whether tools like IDE autocomplete or translation aids count as 'AI'; and concerns about ambiguity in enforcement. The proposal passed voting with multiple +1s from core maintainers, with the explicit understanding that it is a strict starting point that may later be loosened on a case-by-case basis. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is QGIS's policy on AI-assisted contributions under QEP428? QGIS adopted a strict 'NOT ALLOWED' policy banning AI-assisted contributions, replacing the earlier 'human in the loop' policy that let contributors use AI tools if disclosed. The change followed roughly 50 pull requests tagged 'AI Assisted', about 40 of which were closed without merging, and concerns about harm to the reviewer community. The policy passed its voting stage with unanimous +1 votes from core maintainers, though it is intended as a starting point that may be relaxed later on a case-by-case basis. _Maintainers shaping AI contribution rules for their own projects can compare approaches like this one on daily.dev._ ### Why did QGIS ban AI-assisted code contributions instead of keeping a disclosure-based policy? The prior human-in-the-loop policy, which just required disclosure of AI assistance, was judged to have failed because the promised review process never materialized in practice and the project lost at least one high-value contributor as a result. Maintainers decided to 'slam the door shut' with a strict ban first, then consider loosening it later for narrower cases like IDE autocomplete or translation help. _Developers weighing how strict an AI contribution policy should be can track similar project decisions on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 193 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-12). **TL;DR:** Reaction to QGIS's AI contribution ban is split: many agree it's a pragmatic way to stem low-effort, high-volume AI-generated PRs given limited maintainer bandwidth, while others argue the ban is poorly defined, conflates AI-assistance with vibe-coded slop, and may push away legitimate contributors. **Sentiment:** 20% positive · 45% mixed · 35% skeptical **The case for** - The ban is seen as a practical response to maintainer workload rather than ideological AI-hate, since reviewing a flood of low-effort AI PRs is more costly than rejecting them outright. - Some argue AI-assisted contributions don't inherently mean lower quality, but unrestricted acceptance invites disproportionate spam that's hard to filter. - QGIS is specialized, high-stakes GIS software where subtle bugs have real-world consequences, so a stricter bar for contributions is seen as justified. - Open source remains forkable, so anyone who disagrees can fork and prove the value of AI-assisted contributions elsewhere. **The pushback** - The policy is criticized as vaguely written and unenforceable, leaving contributors unsure what counts as 'AI assisted'. - Some see it as myopic virtue signaling that doesn't address the real problem of low-effort contributions, AI or not. - Concerns that even well-intentioned human contributors using AI tools will self-select out of the project to avoid ambiguous enforcement. - Critics note the ban may drive away genuinely useful contributions and slow maintainers' ability to recruit new maintainers from the contributor pool. **By community** - hackernews (heated): Discussion splits sharply between those defending the ban as a sane workload-management measure and those calling it vague virtue signaling, with side debates on code quality, forking, and what counts as AI use. **Hottest debate:** Whether the ban is a justified practical measure against PR-review overload or an ill-defined, virtue-signaling overreaction that conflates AI assistance with low-effort spam. **Open questions** - What precisely counts as 'AI assisted' — does it include autocomplete, prototyping, translation aids, or review tools? - How will the policy be enforced without a clear, verifiable definition of AI involvement? - Will the ban eventually be loosened, and under what criteria would AI-assisted contributions become acceptable again? **Highlights** > I think in this case it's not about signalling: in the linked discussion they are saying that the problem is the workload created by the AI-assisted creations, not the AI use in and of itself, and they are open to relaxing the restriction in future once they can figure out how to manage it. (The issue is, I think, if you allow AI, no matter how many paragraphs you write about taking responsibility and ensuring high quality contributions, you're gonna get a lot of bad ones just because by sheer volume there's enough people who aren't gonna read it, and that's gonna take a disproportionate amount of effort to filter out). > — [rcxdude on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055063) > For an outright ban on "LLM, AI or agent assisted code contributions", they do very little to define what that means. This is a terribly written policy - I sincerely urge the QGIS maintainers to put enforceable guardrails on the definition. This reminds me of the legal ambiguity behind the GPL and its definition of "derivative work". A careful analysis of the GPL shows that using GPL software doesn't trigger any other clauses. But distribution does. What is the legal definition of distribution? Who knows!?! That's why most software companies have an outright ban on GPL software. Even companies that are willing to comply with the GPL, they cannot feasibly come into compliance with such a vague definition. So it's better not to engage. Same will happen with anti-AI policies. Even contributors who are fully willing to do things "by hand" will start avoiding these projects. No way to know if you'll accidentally run afoul of someone's AI radar. There's nothing to protect enforcement from becoming a witch hunt. > — [perrygeo on hackernews · 4 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055883) > GIS is basically "serious mapping software", and when it's used for city planning or other large GIS-relevant activities, accuracy and precision are non-negotiable requirements. IOW, your city might be using QGIS to plan the city and verify everything being done on it, down to cm level accuracy. So, any subtle bug is a big deal for these kinds of software packages. While doing construction work (regardless of infrastructure or buildings), the plans are laid and verified to that level. The haphazard spray paints on the ground are indeed big deal, and has a digital copy in the GIS software. It's not only used by municipalities and/or governments either. Research teams use GIS packages extensively as well. I briefly worked with a research team working at Antartica. These GIS software and related ecosystem is their both bread and butter and foundation to anything they do. A patch generated by an AI model breaking these software packages have cascading and important effects. So, the software needs to stay dependable and reliable. Data portal for South Korean team: https://kpdc.kopri.re.kr/ They're not the team I was working with, though. > — [bayindirh on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055679) > Banning does not imply verification. The policy is just a warning. So now you know, if they suspect that a PR is AI-generated, then there may be further consequences. I don’t think someone is going to apply a stamp on each PR. The most egregious examples are always lazy (big diff, lengthy descriptions, weird phrasing,…). Now there’s a section in the policy to point to for the quick rejection. > — [skydhash on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50054907) > I'm in favor of AI, but if I was a maintainer for an open source repo, I would also favor banning AI contributions. At least for the wild, maybe people who have built a reputation in the community could stay. I think AI can write quality code. What I doubt is if the average contribution will involve quality code or even human input. For me, it is the way AI has kept suggestions to either open issues with maintainers or make PRs to fix an "issue" it found. I know it hasn't researched the issue in depth enough to be talking with the confidence it has, and I know I am in no position to be bothering someone else unless I want to spend considerable time investing to make sure the issue is exactly what the AI is claiming, it isn't a known issue, and it is justified to bother the maintainer with it. But there are far too many who will see that option and just tell the AI to do it. It isn't that I'm against AI. It is that opening a PR or filing an issue use to have significant enough gatekeeping that most low effort low quality work simply wouldn't pass it, but that has now changed. So a new gate is needed to ensure those who aren't willing to put their own time into the work before asking for the time of others, and banning AI is one of the better options I've seen. This also doesn't even end AI interacting with the project, just changes it. If you have some unique use case that AI finds, you can download it locally, have the AI make the change just for you, and have AI keep updating when necessary. Each user gets the customization they want while maintainers are protected from low effort low quality spam. > — [SkyBelow on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055053) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50054751) · 191 points · 193 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I Read the AI Policies of 120 Open Source Projects. 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