👀 … https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2026/apr/15/eternal-november-generative-ai-llm/ …my colleague Denver Gingerich writes: newcomers' extensive reliance on LLM-backed generative AI is comparable to the Eternal September onslaught to USENET in 1993.
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@josh @silverwizard @ossguy @bkuhn @karen @wwahammy
I can understand having an absolutist position against LLMs. I find that most arguments are either irrelevant to me or directly map to existing arguments about late-stage capitalism. So for me, there's nothing novel to object to about LLMs.
So with that in mind, I find "all contributions derived from LLMs should be rejected" to be misguided. I look at things like the bug fixes coming out of CodeMender (back in Feb, which is an LLM lifetime ago), and I am a huge fan. Fixing stuff found by a fuzzer:
https://issues.oss-fuzz.com/issues/486561029It's a small example, but it's an area that humans alone have not been able to remotely keep up with. (There are hundreds of open syzkaller bug reports, for example.) Gaining tools that will help with this is a big deal, and I'm glad for the assist.
@kees @karen @josh @silverwizard @wwahammy @ossguy @bkuhn
This is an aside, but
I am surprised to see anyone say there's nothing novel to object to about LLMs. I think though that I might post about that tomorrow as it's late now where I am. But I definitely would love to know more about why you think that because a major concern with LLMs I have is what Sean calls epistomological collapse which is it not talked about how it's destroying trustwortiness of info pervasively? Anyway, I should collect up my sources and do a complete argument for that on my personal instance if anyone cares what I think on it (which, feel free to not) -
@josh @wwahammy The point I was trying to make is that people are making software with LLMs who had never made software before, they aren't familiar with how FOSS works, and we should teach them how so they can collaborate (when it makes sense) instead of being an island. When people see the huge benefits of building on FOSS, when they can make meaningful changes to their router, TV, or otherwise by themselves (and collaborate to share their changes with others), then FOSS wins. (1/2)
I get that, and *that* is a much more inviting message. And I appreciate the *sentiment* in things like "new wave of people who are excited about our craft, and how they can improve personal autonomy for themselves and others". But that's not how much of the post came across to many.
If the post had said, for instance:
"LLMs have made basic software development capabilities available to people who could never write software before, and those people may not yet be aware of the norms of the broader Open Source software community or the issues of maintainability and technical debt. Even though we're dealing with a lot of slop, we should avoid driving potential new developers off with abuse before they have a chance to learn. We were all newbies once, and collaboration and maintenance are skills that take time to learn."
Something like that would have been very different. But what you *said* was, for instance, "adapt FOSS projects to improve pro-AI contributor onboarding", rather than "figure out how to reach out to people who are currently using AI and see if they want to join broader communities that may not welcome those tools". You said "seriously consider cautiously and carefully incorporating their workflows with ours", which is advocacy for those *workflows*, not just for being understanding towards the *potential new developers*. -
@bkuhn @karen @josh @wwahammy @kees @ossguy I think the amount of confusion the post has caused might warrant a redraft because I'm deeply trying to understand the point, but I can't. I've asked a few times: Why was the post made? It reads like it's advancing a narrative but all proposed readings have been rejected?
I just noticed the version posted didn't incorporate various final edits. I've been defending *that* version of the post (which almost no one saw) *not* the one you all read.
@ossguy confirmed some final changes may have been lost (possibly moving from Etherpad to website).
@ossguy & I are working to fix that now.
The disconnect this evening hopefully makes sense now. I'll reply to this post when we've updated the public URL. -
I just noticed the version posted didn't incorporate various final edits. I've been defending *that* version of the post (which almost no one saw) *not* the one you all read.
@ossguy confirmed some final changes may have been lost (possibly moving from Etherpad to website).
@ossguy & I are working to fix that now.
The disconnect this evening hopefully makes sense now. I'll reply to this post when we've updated the public URL.If you're going to post a different version, please post a diff somewhere, to help make sure people are talking about the same thing. -
I just noticed the version posted didn't incorporate various final edits. I've been defending *that* version of the post (which almost no one saw) *not* the one you all read.
@ossguy confirmed some final changes may have been lost (possibly moving from Etherpad to website).
@ossguy & I are working to fix that now.
The disconnect this evening hopefully makes sense now. I'll reply to this post when we've updated the public URL.@bkuhn @linux_mclinuxface @josh @wwahammy @cwebber @burnoutqueen @ossguy ah ha! thank you! It did feel off. -
@josh @wwahammy I definitely agree with discouraging developers who should know better from making LLM-generated commits that aren't very good. But this is a separate issue from communicating with the people who are just getting excited about buildings software, so we can encourage them to do so in FOSS-friendly ways. (2/2)
For what it's worth, if your blog post had come across saying what you are *currently* saying on Fedi, I would be much more enthusiastic and appreciative of it, and I suspect others would be too. -
One of *many* arguments against: codebases substantially contributed to by LLMs will develop a tolerance for complexity that is not conducive to being maintained by anything *other* than an LLM.
@josh @silverwizard @ossguy @bkuhn @karen @kees @wwahammy You can prevent it by asking LLM tho add comments and check those comments I'm pretty sure you can make a very good PR with a LLM.
That said without bounds this will definitely not be the default and yes what you said will happen.
Although with the current rate things are going, a LLM will probably be able to rewrite a complete program source-code and re-format it in anything that is currently possible...Which is way worse for FOSS.
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"Words that aren't there" like this?
> Historically, software freedom has has typically necessitated interacting with others
Suggesting that this is merely "historically"?
> more easily with LLM-backed generative AI coding tools (and the ease with which changes can be made generally) there is less of a natural tendency for people to work with existing FOSS communities. And we should be ok with that!
We should be okay with that? We should not treat it as an *existential threat* and respond accordingly? Those are the words that aren't there?To be clear, I am genuinely trying to understand your position because it seems distinct from the (traditional) LLM criticisms (many of which I share). But what is the existential threat? I would understand that in this context to mean a threat to the existence of FOSS. How do you see people improving their software with LLMs as a threat?
My simplified model of the situation is: a person who was previously unable to change their software now can. Then they can either:
A) never contribute it upstream
B) contribute it upstream
(BTW these are also the same 2 outcomes for people who can change their software without LLMs.)I don't see how "A" poses a threat. There is no interaction with the FOSS upstream.
I don't see how "B" poses a threat. Upstream can either ignore it (no change to FOSS) or engage with it (FOSS improved).
What threat to FOSS do you see?
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To be clear, I am genuinely trying to understand your position because it seems distinct from the (traditional) LLM criticisms (many of which I share). But what is the existential threat? I would understand that in this context to mean a threat to the existence of FOSS. How do you see people improving their software with LLMs as a threat?
My simplified model of the situation is: a person who was previously unable to change their software now can. Then they can either:
A) never contribute it upstream
B) contribute it upstream
(BTW these are also the same 2 outcomes for people who can change their software without LLMs.)I don't see how "A" poses a threat. There is no interaction with the FOSS upstream.
I don't see how "B" poses a threat. Upstream can either ignore it (no change to FOSS) or engage with it (FOSS improved).
What threat to FOSS do you see?
Leaving aside for a moment the issue that (B) can leave maintainers drowning in slop...
There is a massive game-theoretic problem here. Employers are forcing some developers to deal with LLMs. Some people of their own volition are excited about LLMs. Some people want nothing to do with LLMs. People who heavily use and rely on LLMs have different standards for acceptable complexity and maintainability. LLMs encourage people to work more in silos without collaboration and use LLMs instead of collaborators, and that serves LLM purveyors. It's much easier to collaborate with "You're absolutely right!". Codebases and ecosystems and communities diverge. -
@kees @karen @josh @silverwizard @wwahammy @ossguy @bkuhn
This is an aside, but
I am surprised to see anyone say there's nothing novel to object to about LLMs. I think though that I might post about that tomorrow as it's late now where I am. But I definitely would love to know more about why you think that because a major concern with LLMs I have is what Sean calls epistomological collapse which is it not talked about how it's destroying trustwortiness of info pervasively? Anyway, I should collect up my sources and do a complete argument for that on my personal instance if anyone cares what I think on it (which, feel free to not)@firefly_lightning @karen @josh @silverwizard @wwahammy @bkuhn @ossguy
I have been trying to keep the scope of my replies as narrow as possible because I think there are unique benefits of LLM use in software development. To your specific point, I think software is more resilient to epistomological collapse in the sense that is has provable characteristics (e.g. it has to compile). Perhaps I am being naive!
The larger scopes around LLMs in prose, art, etc are IMO substantially different and much more alarming.
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@firefly_lightning @karen @josh @silverwizard @wwahammy @bkuhn @ossguy
I have been trying to keep the scope of my replies as narrow as possible because I think there are unique benefits of LLM use in software development. To your specific point, I think software is more resilient to epistomological collapse in the sense that is has provable characteristics (e.g. it has to compile). Perhaps I am being naive!
The larger scopes around LLMs in prose, art, etc are IMO substantially different and much more alarming.
I think software is not at all immune, in the sense that just as LLMs can produce grammatically correct sentences that make no sense and have no factual basis, they can produce code that *compiles* but is utterly alien to what any sensible human with taste would write. -
Leaving aside for a moment the issue that (B) can leave maintainers drowning in slop...
There is a massive game-theoretic problem here. Employers are forcing some developers to deal with LLMs. Some people of their own volition are excited about LLMs. Some people want nothing to do with LLMs. People who heavily use and rely on LLMs have different standards for acceptable complexity and maintainability. LLMs encourage people to work more in silos without collaboration and use LLMs instead of collaborators, and that serves LLM purveyors. It's much easier to collaborate with "You're absolutely right!". Codebases and ecosystems and communities diverge.Also, the "drowning in slop" problems have real-world social consequences too! Some projects are having to go closer to "we don't take patches from people we don't know", and that's damaging the ability to do drive-by or one-off contributions, or to onboard new contributors. That feels like the prologue of ecosystem collapse. -
Also, the "drowning in slop" problems have real-world social consequences too! Some projects are having to go closer to "we don't take patches from people we don't know", and that's damaging the ability to do drive-by or one-off contributions, or to onboard new contributors. That feels like the prologue of ecosystem collapse.
I think the "attention competition" will find a viable solution. It has been solved many times before when we've all fought spam in its many forms. Slop is the byproduct of LLM usage the way spam is a byproduct of email usage, as a grossly simplified comparison. (It's not *good* to have spam of any kind, of course, but for example I can't avoid email spam unless I stop using email entirely, and I'm not about to do that nor stop writing software.)
I see where LLMs are making things genuinely easier for humans (review, debugging, etc), though, so I don't share the same sense of impending ecosystem collapse.
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I just noticed the version posted didn't incorporate various final edits. I've been defending *that* version of the post (which almost no one saw) *not* the one you all read.
@ossguy confirmed some final changes may have been lost (possibly moving from Etherpad to website).
@ossguy & I are working to fix that now.
The disconnect this evening hopefully makes sense now. I'll reply to this post when we've updated the public URL.https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2026/apr/15/eternal-november-generative-ai-llm/ now reflects what I thought was posted hours ago. Sorry for the confusion.
You all got an insight into how much you have to draft & redraft to consider difficult policy questions. Anyone who works in policy drafted a dozen things that were not quite right before getting it right.
Anyway, if you still think it's terrible, I refer you to all my other posts from this evening.
@ossguy @josh @wwahammy @linux_mclinuxface @burnoutqueen @cwebber @silverwizard @mjw @mmu_man
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Leaving aside for a moment the issue that (B) can leave maintainers drowning in slop...
There is a massive game-theoretic problem here. Employers are forcing some developers to deal with LLMs. Some people of their own volition are excited about LLMs. Some people want nothing to do with LLMs. People who heavily use and rely on LLMs have different standards for acceptable complexity and maintainability. LLMs encourage people to work more in silos without collaboration and use LLMs instead of collaborators, and that serves LLM purveyors. It's much easier to collaborate with "You're absolutely right!". Codebases and ecosystems and communities diverge.Most of your reply didn't seem to be describing threats to FOSS. (Using/not using LLMs, etc.) The only statements I could see maybe being a threat to FOSS was this:
> LLMs encourage people to work more in silos without collaboration and use LLMs instead of collaborators
Are you suggesting existing contributors will exit FOSS because of their LLM use? I don't understand how these two things are related. And getting back to @ossguy 's post, it looks like quite the opposite: there are people *entering* FOSS due to LLMs.
> Codebases and ecosystems and communities diverge.
Through what mechanism?
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@josh @silverwizard @ossguy @bkuhn @karen @kees @wwahammy You can prevent it by asking LLM tho add comments and check those comments I'm pretty sure you can make a very good PR with a LLM.
That said without bounds this will definitely not be the default and yes what you said will happen.
Although with the current rate things are going, a LLM will probably be able to rewrite a complete program source-code and re-format it in anything that is currently possible...Which is way worse for FOSS.
> You can prevent it by asking LLM tho add comments and check those comments
You really can't; it is not anywhere close to that simple. The problem isn't just line-level, it's (among many other things) systemic design complexity, tolerance for technical debt, unbounded (except by token budget) capacity to duplicate or reinvent rather than reuse, none of the programmer's virtue of "laziness", and a substantial multiplier on the hubris.
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Most of your reply didn't seem to be describing threats to FOSS. (Using/not using LLMs, etc.) The only statements I could see maybe being a threat to FOSS was this:
> LLMs encourage people to work more in silos without collaboration and use LLMs instead of collaborators
Are you suggesting existing contributors will exit FOSS because of their LLM use? I don't understand how these two things are related. And getting back to @ossguy 's post, it looks like quite the opposite: there are people *entering* FOSS due to LLMs.
> Codebases and ecosystems and communities diverge.
Through what mechanism?
I'm suggesting, as the article we're replying to points out, that it's now easier for people to go "eh, I don't need FOSS collaborators, I have LLMs and look how many lines of code I produce per day!". And conversely, projects developed heavily by LLM will not be welcoming environments to people who don't want to work with LLMs. This creates silos. -
I'm suggesting, as the article we're replying to points out, that it's now easier for people to go "eh, I don't need FOSS collaborators, I have LLMs and look how many lines of code I produce per day!". And conversely, projects developed heavily by LLM will not be welcoming environments to people who don't want to work with LLMs. This creates silos.And the problem isn't just *new projects* that are LLM-written, it's the LLM-cordyceps taking over the bodies of existing projects and driving out developers who want to work with humans and don't have the complexity-and-debt-and-NIH tolerance of LLMs. (And solving that isn't as simple as forking, because it's possible one or both groups don't have the critical mass that they would have had together.)
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I think software is not at all immune, in the sense that just as LLMs can produce grammatically correct sentences that make no sense and have no factual basis, they can produce code that *compiles* but is utterly alien to what any sensible human with taste would write.
@josh @firefly_lightning @silverwizard @ossguy @bkuhn @karen @wwahammy
> but is utterly alien to what any sensible human with taste would write.
This implies no humans are doing code review. If it's crap code then it goes nowhere and collapse is avoided.
And yes, I'm aware of some projects that are utterly YOLOing everything into their codebases, and I think the results will speak for themselves, in either outcome! Either they flame out with no damage to larger FOSS, or the LLMs become so good that we get beautiful FOSS code and proprietary software becomes a thing of the past. Limping along in between seems unlikely to me.
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@josh @firefly_lightning @silverwizard @ossguy @bkuhn @karen @wwahammy
> but is utterly alien to what any sensible human with taste would write.
This implies no humans are doing code review. If it's crap code then it goes nowhere and collapse is avoided.
And yes, I'm aware of some projects that are utterly YOLOing everything into their codebases, and I think the results will speak for themselves, in either outcome! Either they flame out with no damage to larger FOSS, or the LLMs become so good that we get beautiful FOSS code and proprietary software becomes a thing of the past. Limping along in between seems unlikely to me.
> This implies no humans are doing code review. If it's crap code then it goes nowhere and collapse is avoided.
No, it implies no humans *without the aid of LLMs* are reviewing *how easy it would be to maintain without LLMs*. And that's an easy state to get into.
I think the "in between" outcome seems much more likely to me than it does to you: projects can limp along for a long time, and be popular enough to discourage competition or hold onto users for a while.
Diseases that are contagious before people are symptomatic are especially hazardous. LLM-written technical debt takes time to become symptomatic. The epidemic is time-delayed from the initial outbreak, and exponentials are hard to see from the middle.
