"Can't even match GNU's coreutils"? Care to elaborate? Last time I checked OpenBSD is pretty much in line with Posix and there are plenty of us that consider many of the GNU extensions to be anti-features.
It is, but an already niche operating system that refuses to leverage the advantages of LLMs is only going to fall further and further behind. I say that as someone who has actively contributed to the BSDs since the 90s and would hate to see that happen.
The slop problem is very real. People are spewing reams of bad code that generates entropy faster than humans or LLMs can clean it up. LLM best practices are not yet obvious, and we're still figuring out how best to leverage them while maintaining code quality and human understanding.
... but LLMs are coming whether we want them or not. Models keep consistently improving, the slop keeps getting better, and human-only development is going to struggle to keep up.
In my day job, I'm driving an enormous number of tokens at Astra+Ultramax solving problems in Lean 4 that previously we never would have attempted simply due to the incredible human engineering cost; we review the high-level lemmas and let it prove the rest.
LLMs are the only solution I've seen over these decades that could finally close the feature/usability gap between mainstream and more niche operating systems -- software support, features, drivers, and other broad usability barriers. All of that has historically been far too much work for a much smaller developer community to reasonably undertake.
Think about how far Linux has/hasn't come in the last 10 years. The user experience is nicer, drivers "just work" more, there's more support for more stuff...but at the end of the day, the actual computing experience is mostly the same today as when I installed Debian back in 2016. It's polish, interoperability, etc that's improved.
Maybe VR takes off and takes over the desktop, and then openBSD can't keep up with that, but I don't think that's likely. So what are they trying to "keep up" with?
Well, they were always slow. But they made a stand
against AI slop, which is great. Look at how AI slop
infiltrated the ruby core team. You even get slop-spammed
down when you try to interact with e. g. Hiroshi Shibata,
who suddenly has ... perfect english language skills. A
few years ago his command over the english language was rather
weak (which is fine by the way, I much prefer broken
english from a real human than AI slop spam text as filter acting in between humans).
If you don't break the law you do indeed fall further behind people who do.
Nothing in that post is against using an LLM. It's all about copyright:
>Since every file in OpenBSD has been continually verified to ensure
correct Copyright, and we've even deleted code which has incorrect
Copyright, the chances of us accepting such new code with such a suspicious
Copyright situation is zero.
Once the current bubble pops we're going to see a lot of litigation over copyright enfringement by LLMs. Currently no one wants to rock the boat because everyone hopes to make a trillion dollars from AI, Oracle included, once they see they can't the knives are going to come out and I wouldn't want to be Linux at that point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America
Also my personal opinion about copyright _in the FOSS domain_ is that I simply dont care. Copyleft as the GNU folks like to call it is just using the copyright laws to achieves certain free software objectives. If that doesnt work anymore there will be another fix
Yeah, they won't have a chance to rewrite cp and mv in Rust.
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"Can't even match GNU's coreutils"? Care to elaborate? Last time I checked OpenBSD is pretty much in line with Posix and there are plenty of us that consider many of the GNU extensions to be anti-features.
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That's kind of like saying that the MacOS UI can't even keep up with Microsoft Windows. Who wants inconsistent GNU halfassery?
I think that's a cultural thing in *BSD.
There are already OSes that include LLM code (such as Linux). It's fine to have a few that don't.
It is, but an already niche operating system that refuses to leverage the advantages of LLMs is only going to fall further and further behind. I say that as someone who has actively contributed to the BSDs since the 90s and would hate to see that happen.
The slop problem is very real. People are spewing reams of bad code that generates entropy faster than humans or LLMs can clean it up. LLM best practices are not yet obvious, and we're still figuring out how best to leverage them while maintaining code quality and human understanding.
... but LLMs are coming whether we want them or not. Models keep consistently improving, the slop keeps getting better, and human-only development is going to struggle to keep up.
In my day job, I'm driving an enormous number of tokens at Astra+Ultramax solving problems in Lean 4 that previously we never would have attempted simply due to the incredible human engineering cost; we review the high-level lemmas and let it prove the rest.
LLMs are the only solution I've seen over these decades that could finally close the feature/usability gap between mainstream and more niche operating systems -- software support, features, drivers, and other broad usability barriers. All of that has historically been far too much work for a much smaller developer community to reasonably undertake.
Hating AI isn't going to make it go away.
What does "behind" actually mean, though?
Think about how far Linux has/hasn't come in the last 10 years. The user experience is nicer, drivers "just work" more, there's more support for more stuff...but at the end of the day, the actual computing experience is mostly the same today as when I installed Debian back in 2016. It's polish, interoperability, etc that's improved.
Maybe VR takes off and takes over the desktop, and then openBSD can't keep up with that, but I don't think that's likely. So what are they trying to "keep up" with?
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"Behind" what exactly? This isn't a race to a finish line, it's an OS being developed.
openBSD is ahead. depending on what u need. If u want a PC with tons of apps and even more security issues by all means, they are far behind ;).
Following that line of reasoning a turned off pc is the farthest ahead. Its extremly secure after all and has no apps ;)
This isn't the result of following any sort of reasoning at all.
Yep, drivers are one of if not the biggest blocker in my experience, and that's an area AI can help immensely
Then vibe up the ones you need for yourself.
‘Click to write and install driver’
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Excellent, it will remain stable
Good.
Well, they were always slow. But they made a stand against AI slop, which is great. Look at how AI slop infiltrated the ruby core team. You even get slop-spammed down when you try to interact with e. g. Hiroshi Shibata, who suddenly has ... perfect english language skills. A few years ago his command over the english language was rather weak (which is fine by the way, I much prefer broken english from a real human than AI slop spam text as filter acting in between humans).
Then learn Japanese. No? So you can write broken Japanese and he doesn’t have to translate his words in English for you.
He would use AI on your broken Japanese on his end.
If you don't break the law you do indeed fall further behind people who do.
Nothing in that post is against using an LLM. It's all about copyright:
>Since every file in OpenBSD has been continually verified to ensure correct Copyright, and we've even deleted code which has incorrect Copyright, the chances of us accepting such new code with such a suspicious Copyright situation is zero.
Once the current bubble pops we're going to see a lot of litigation over copyright enfringement by LLMs. Currently no one wants to rock the boat because everyone hopes to make a trillion dollars from AI, Oracle included, once they see they can't the knives are going to come out and I wouldn't want to be Linux at that point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America
Copyright will adapt.
Also my personal opinion about copyright _in the FOSS domain_ is that I simply dont care. Copyleft as the GNU folks like to call it is just using the copyright laws to achieves certain free software objectives. If that doesnt work anymore there will be another fix
Copyright adaptation literally means billion dollar lawsuits, because copyright only adapts after court decisions.
The BSD licences are not copyleft, or indeed part of the GNU copyright regime.
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> my personal opinion about copyright _in the FOSS domain_ is that I simply dont care.
You may not care, but if the OS you prefer to run is the defendant in a copyright case, that's likely to impact you in a negative way.
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