https://sfconservancy.org/llm-gen-ai/llm-backed-generative-ai-recommendations.html
- replies
- 25
- announces
- 54
- likes
- 35
@conservancy This is the Chuck Schumer of generative AI recommendations.
I'm tired of people trying to take a both sides approach, because doing so is by definition giving into the problematic nature of generative AI.
You don't "both sides" the rise of technofascism. You tell it to fuck off.
In a policy statement¹, @conservancy said:
> “#FOSS projects should not shun contributors who choose to use LLM-gen-AI systems.”
@dalias' reply:
>> “LOL WTF NOPE. 🤡”
While it was surely unintentional, your reply is quite similar to the cruelty of traditional #FreeSoftware rhetoric — wherein we shunned people for *using* #Apple & #Microsoft. Such users deserve sympathy and help toward more software freedom.
Same goes for #LLM-backed generative #AI users.
¹ https://sfconservancy.org/llm-gen-ai/llm-backed-generative-ai-recommendations.html
@conservancy I'd prefer a more firm stance against LLM usage. A proprietary black box should not be at the heart of FOSS projects.
@conservancy said:
> “There are many intersecting ethical and moral issues regarding these systems, many of which are not currently fully understood.”
@rotnroll666's reply:
>> They are well understood and visible.
[citation needed]
A pithy response doesn't advance useful policy debate.
I can't imagine anything as complex as this #LLM-gen-#AI dilemma being *fully* understood on all facets in just 4 years.
However, 🙏@rotnroll666 for:
>> “The rest is not so bad tbf.”
Like for example we wouldn't accept dubious-licensed Cliparts into FOSS, right?
(And that's just one issue of LLMs incompatibility with FOSS communities)
@bkuhn @conservancy @dalias I think the problem is that the document seems very random in its use of "FOSS community", "FOSS contributor", "FOSS project", "contributor", "submitter", "community", "FOSS project leader", "FOSS maintainer", "LLM-gen-AI user", and more variants with or without "FOSS" or "LLM-gen-AI" added. It isn't clear to me who is who, whether the addition of the word FOSS (or leaving it out) is relevant or not.
Same in your comparison, you use the word user. Is that the same as the word contributor that is quoted? It feels different to me personally. But given the two words seem to be used somewhat interchangeably in other places I cannot tell.
Also to this non-English speaker the use of the word shun isn't clear. I interpret it as ignoring or avoiding someone, you seem to read something more into it.
@conservancy nope. Fail.
The aim of gen AI is to move the means of production from devs to model owners. This undermines FOSS more thoroughly than any Embrace Extend Extinguish attempt to date.
@lumi commented on https://sfc.ngo/llm-gen-ai-recs saying:
>> “i would really like to see a stronger stance against these dehumanization machines, honestly..”
I spent much of my early #FreeSoftware career taking ridiculously unpragmatic stances, while also hating myself b/c I wasn't #FOSS-pure enough.
In response to that, I developed a philosophy to “use the tools of the oppressor against the oppressor” — which I had learned from #copyleft
cf: this article I wrote recently:
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2026/jun/02/ethical-use-proprietary-develop-free-software-foss/
Point three does irk me in particular.
The problems with Software Freedom in our communities is that we're all about Free Speech and Copyright.
We're ignoring Freedom of Association. So if a Software had already made it very clear they don't want LLM contributions, then yes, they can show that potential contributor the door.
Our projects are collections of people. LLMs are not.
So yes, I will shun, especially if they don't respect our boundaries.
@bkuhn @conservancy I think it's utterly disingenuous to pretend that "people using existing proprietary systems because it's all they knew or all that existed when they started, in ways that only affect themselves" is in any way similar to "people enthusiastically adopting a new fascist project where use of it impacts everyone they interact with as well".
receive a gentle (albeit perhaps form language) response
@conservancy is this a typo for "firm language"?
@seabass @conservancy I interpreted it as meaning a gently phrased form letter saying "you may not realize we don't accept LLM-supported contributions".
(a) people using proprietary software systems effect all those around them (consider Facebook, document formats that are hard to edit without a proprietary program, etc.)
(b) "people enthusiastically adopting a new fascist project where use of it impacts everyone they interact with as well" is a straw-person argument because we did not say that.
Pretending these recommendations were hyperbolic when they weren't may win a flame war, but it just doesn't advance the policy discussion.
@seabass
Actually *not* a typo. In drafting, the whole committee argued for like multiple days (not just about that, but it kept coming up), how to indicate in a short and concise way that it's totally ok if FOSS projects just have templated — even automatic — responses to immediately close/push-away LLM-gen-AI contributions (be they slop or not).
@karen added “form language”, I formulated it differently (IIRC,I suggested a whole 'nother sentence to say “templates are ok”. Karen's is shorter!
@bkuhn @conservancy @dalias
I wonder: How can one be certain a developer used AI in their work? Sometimes it's probably obvious. I think in many cases, it's impossible to know.
@conservancy Another formerly respected institution has fallen to the AI brainworms. There is no ethical use of AI and I refuse to pretend to do so. I will also continue to "shun contributors who choose to use LLM-gen AI systems" because doing so is in fact very cool, fun and correct. #fuckAI #fuck_the_clowns_who_wrote_that_shit
> The FOSS community should support, not just tolerate, those who outright reject LLM-gen-AI systems.
Saying "Nope. Fail." as a snap response to the culmination of four years of careful study is much more insensitive IMO 🤷
FWIW, I think the 2 statements are the same idea— a generation apart.
If you believe I haven't learned the fundamental lessons of how capitalism always manipulates technology to harm its users & that SFC's recommendations are 💯 FAIL, then I don't mind if you say I (& SFC) are just clueless blowhards. Call 'em as you see 'em!
(Not being sarcastic at all.)
@sloanlance @bkuhn @conservancy How can one be certain a developer didn't copy code from something of their employer's? How can one be certain they didn't intentionally make "mistakes" that result in backdoors? How can one be certain they're not manipulating the feelngs of other developers to serve someone else's interests?
These are the wrong questions. These aren't things you can ascertain via some sort of policing. Rather you put forward your values and expectatins for a community, rely on trust and safeguards against the worst possible effects when that trust is violated, and immediately remove people who have shown that they cannot be trusted.
@bkuhn If you call "drawing the lines of which people and organizations we can trust and making a public spectacle out of that" "winning a flame war", then I guess "winning a flame war" is a worthwhile pursuit.
@bkuhn "AI"-in-FOSS *is a war*, one that was declared upon us by the industry and the useful fools simping for it, and we are not going to sit around playing paradox-of-tolerance games while our commons get razed by them.
🍵 
> While it was surely unintentional, your reply is quite similar to the cruelty of traditional #FreeSoftware rhetoric — wherein we shunned people for using #Apple & #Microsoft. Such users deserve sympathy and help toward more software freedom.
>
> Same goes for #LLM-backed generative #AI users.
Sorry, I usually really value your opinions on stuff, as you tend to run contrary to the so-pragmatic-they'd-pimp-their-own-mothers attitude that is far too prevalent in (F)OSS, but hard disagree.
There's a big difference between knocking someone for using a MacBook and knocking someone for using an LLM.
Using a MacBook harms the user in ways that are somewhat debatable. Its harm outside of the user is very negligible and even more debatable.
Using LLMs harms us all. I don't doubt that there are valid and ethical applications for LLMs in many sectors, but you don't build a giant baby shredder on top of an indigenous burial ground and then suddenly pivot to saying, "But wait, it can process potatoes, too!"
If we're not talking about the theft of human creativity, the theft of potable water, the theft of human labor and wages, the promotion of über-fascist plutocrats, and all of the other horrendous harms associated with LLMs, then we're not talking about LLMs. We're engaging in some kind of fantasy roleplay.
Respectfully,
—Some dingbat named Dane, or something, who loves humanity and freedom.
@bkuhn @conservancy @becomethewaifu @mzedp
I mean come on: Extractivism of data at all costs, training in global south for the least possible amount of money, resource usage beyond what was imaginable 5 years ago both in energy and physical terms, power of the system in the hands of the few that can afford it, application of AI in way to many social critical ways. What exactly needs to be understood still? Only longterminism can justify all that.
But I meant it, the rest is not bad.
@seabass @Robotistry @bkuhn Yes! It's an alternate term for boilerplate or template!
The recommendations do say you can show them the door & affirms freedom of association.
Specifically, we recommend projects do that in a nice way, that (in particular) lets them know they would be welcome if they'd like to not submit slop and actually become a real FOSS developer instead.
I have BTW actually seen screeds made against a contributor suspected of submitting #AI slop that violate most #FOSS Codes of Conduct.
That sort of thing *should* stop, IMO.
Cc: @dentangle @jens
@conservancy Three good things: First I got a lot of inspiration for blocks from this thread. Second I will never ever take anything the "Software Freedom Conservancy" says seriously anymore; it doesn't matter how "long and arduous" your process was, the resulting statement is what counts, and it's hogwash. Third "fork all the things" is the only way forward because the world is full of babbling lunatics like you who will ruin "free software" forever; someone needs to keep a backup.
Making an analogy to war here, particularly at a time when real war is being waged in many places around the world in places where people are being murdered every day is a very inappropriate analogy.
I suspect like all of us, you feel threatened by what these capitalist 🤬s are doing to all of us. I agree it's completely evil. We have to resist, *and* have non-hyperbolic policy debate about how to succeed against what they're doing.
But saying they're tantamount to murders isn't that.
@bkuhn You're the one who introduced the word "war" ("flame war"). 🤷
@bkuhn And I think it's rather disingenuous to criticize the use of the word "war" here as inappropriate when the fascist program doing this to FOSS is the exact same fascist program laundering responsibility for very tangible real-world war crimes (for example, letting "AI" take the blame for the decision to murder schoolgirls in Iran).
It's all the same people behind this, and it's absolutely not just within our right but within our moral duty to exclude people who are like "no actually, AI is cool! and you're being an intolerant asshole for discriminating against my opinion on it!"
@dalias You're right, I shouldn't have said that, and I edited that post now. Because it's such an old term of art of the Internet, I had not realized how bad "flame war" is since I kinda treated it as loan-word-like where the words don't have any of their original meaning. I won't use the term anymore. Thanks very much.
But, my other point stands, neither of us should be analogizing anything to war. ☺
Do you also think #copyleft was/is the Chuck Schumer approach to proprietary software?
I also find your “both sides” kinda nasty, given the infamous Trump “both sides” quote.
No where has #SFC *ever* said that proprietary technology is good, moral, ethical, or should be complacently accepted.
If you really believe that's what the recommendations say, it's probably you didn't read carefully and actively.
@bkuhn This is clearly a strawman argument, and I will not entertain it.
Generative AI is fundamentally problematic in ways that undermine FLOSS, and really open culture more broadly while enabling technofascists. You can find plenty of resources on this, most notably https://tante.cc/2026/04/21/ai-as-a-fascist-artifact/
@hexaheximal @bkuhn I don't think it's a strawman argument. Copyleft is a very relevant example, as we can certainly say that copyright is fundamentally problematic in ways that undermine not just FLOSS but the sharing of ideas and expression.
We generally felt that thoughtful analysis was better than pithy rhetoric.
The recs:
* demand support for people refusing to use these tools
* suggest mechanisms to reduce harm if using them
* call for urgent creation of ethical LLM-gen-AI systems
As to “all the same people behind this”, the situation is much more nuanced than that. I agree completely that the billionaires are feeding the VCs who are feeding the LLM-gen-AI companies who feed all proprietary software companies, some of whom are feeding the Beyond Evil™ companies like Palantir, who are feeding the Department of War, who are bombing people indiscriminately. That chain is disturbing, but I don't think it useful to make false equivalences of every link in the chain.
Excellent question! The Committee talked about this extensively when drafting the 1ˢᵗ few (& most important) recommendations. As stated, this begins a 1yr+ project of producing practical materials for those who wanna follow the recs.
The main conundrum on the front you ask about is the only people who seem to be interested in detecting material from LLM-gen-AI are *other* LLM-gen-AI researchers.🙄
My TODO list already had: “algorithmic heuristic #AI approach to slop detection?”
@conservancy not a good look that there are only 2 named contributors, one of whom cofounded an organization whose most recent blog post trumpets the "era of scaling for industrial utility in AI" via the ingestion of all free software.
I say this despite having a lot of respect for *everyone* whom I know worked on this.
@dentangle @jens @conservancy
> As usual, the SFC have made it all about maximizing personal freedoms and individual rights.
I mean, isn't that the whole point of copyleft, to prevent groups of people from controlling software and information?
Some of these best practices feel in tension to me. Like:
When LLM-gen-AI systems (including proprietary ones) can massively accelerate FOSS improvements, use of such tools is an appropriate strategic compromise.
Seems hard to swallow, given that the copyright washing question AND the license contamination questions are still open issues. Which you also seem to state are still open here:
Avoid jumping to conclusions about the legal significance of generated contributions and whether they are “copyright-washing-machines that ruin copyleft”. There remain many unanswered legal questions, and experts are actively working on solutions. SFC will publish more on this issue in the coming months.
Why is the assumption here, that these things; are most likely not going to be an existential threat to existing software licenses?
It's not compelling or reasonable to tell folks to act as if something they rationally fear is safe, sans evidence to the contrary.
@conservancy Yeah nah, you could have stopped at point 2, and I'd had kept my respect for the SFC. But you've now squandered any respect you had from folks who actually understand what's going on with LLMs marketed as AI.
The moderate position is that there is no ethical use for the current LLMs marketed as AI by techno fascist oligarchs.
I imagine you've probably been slammed with similar replies that my small fediverse server hasn't picked up, so my reply is probably redundant, but I was hoping for the SFC to maintain its leadership on the use and management of free software and its disappointing to see that be eroded by this set of recommendations.
You could have said nothing but you’re choosing to stand on their side and the side of those supporting them.
That position is surely being noted by myself and many others.
@dalias@hachyderm.io
@amd's comment makes little sense. Esp b/c it provides no evidence and/or quote where I “stand on the…side [of companies]” . If you look at my record in #FOSS, you'll instead find anti-captialist statements & rhetoric for *20 years* about “using the tools of the oppressor against the oppressor” to advance software freedom.
It *feels* easier to boycott anything proprietary until the bitter end. But I'm glad RMS didn't do that, otherwise GCC & GNU Emacs wouldn't exist.
Cf: https://sfc.ngo/ethical-use-proprietary-for-foss
My point is this: Anything you have said or done in the past and anything you do in the future will now be viewed in the light of you arguing that we should be inclusive of those that support and use products made in wholly unethical ways by wholly unethical people.
You could have stayed quiet, you chose (and continue to choose) to side with some of the absolute worst people on this planet.
Fascinating that @amd advises #FOSS leaders who come to complex & nuanced initial conclusions that they took 4 yrs of study to become morally & ethically sure about that they “should have stayed quiet”.
I never stay quiet once I believe an important issue in FOSS demands nuanced exploration.
It's why I co-keynoted #FOSDEM about *using* proprietary software
https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/full_software_freedom/
Leaders who keep their true opinions about relevant policy matters are nasty & sneaky politicians. I won't be one.
@bkuhn @amd The "using the tools of the oppressor against the oppressor" thing is tired and thoroughly debunked.
Using the same language to talk about "AI" as you did to talk about copyright doesn't mean they have anything in common.
"AI" is not something you can leverage to get us anything. It's destructive to anyone who uses it.
I don't have a general position about the entire field of AI expressed here, nor does SFC, so I think we're talking past each other at this point.
@dalias
> "using the tools of the oppressor against the oppressor" thing is tired and thoroughly debunked.
Copyleft is *exactly* using the tool of the oppressor against the oppressor, so logically your claim, if true, means #copyleft is “tired and thoroughly debunked”.
Copyleft has had some difficulties as a policy, & I have dedicated 30 years of my life to fixing, and plan for at least 15 more. ∃ big mix of successes & failures so far, but on whole copyleft increases for software freedom.
@jens said:
> “The aim of gen #AI is to move…means of production from devs to model owners”
…same idea as “The aim of copyright, work-for-hire,& proprietary software is to move the means of production from devs to for-profit company owners.”
Yet, we used the tools of theses oppressors & yielded a strong stalemate against them.
& *of course* they wanna undermine #FOSS! #Microsoft, #GitHub, #Apple, etc. have worked to undermine #FOSS for *decades*.
Pragmatic idealism FTW then & (we hope) again!
@bkuhn Stalemate?
It's an arms race, and one side has the funding for it. Hint: it's not us.
So forgive me if I judge success differently. Much of what I see are compromises that set up the next battle in a weaker position.
I understand that back in the day when free software and open source started, the libertarian positions it holds were adopted.
We had privileged white boys complaining about having their privilege reduced. Yes, with enough vision to see liberation for everyone on the...
@bkuhn ... horizon. But not enough self-awareness to factor privilege into things.
Which is why the freedoms value individual choices much more highly than the common good. The logic is, quite literally, "I need liberties so I can help others", not "the rights of the unprivileged need to be strengthened".
It's missing the equivalent zero'th law of robotics. And fuck, it shows.
@bkuhn This isn't capitalism's fault. There is a lot of fault in capitalism, sure.
But this is the FLOSS movement's own failure. It's my failure as well. I used to believe that shit. Feels good to picture oneself as a Robin Hood character.
So quelle surprise, but there are libertarians out there who do not value the commons, and we've let them dominate the conversation. Thinking they were some of us. But they're robber barons, arguing for their liberties in order to rob.
So any position...
@bkuhn ... in 2026 that says, essentially, "we should let the robber barons retain their rights" has missed the train leaving the station.
Oh, thanks for also allowing in the recommendations that we can show them the door, so long as we don't hurt their feelings.
Well, I don't think that permission is required. Thank Cthulhu for that.
@bkuhn I swear, every time I see another old guard FOSS person take that position is another nail in the movement's coffin.
I'm already more than ready for the next thing. But it'd hurt some libertarians' feelings.
The recommendations don't say you shouldn't hurt the feelings of LLM-gen-AI proprietary companies. Please do, if you can find a way, the running them are likely sociopaths & probably have no feelings to hurt.
What the recommendations say is to treat people who may not know what their doing and used a terrible tool for a terrible thing with kindness, and assistance rather than condemnation.
It's what we should have done to Microsoft fans in the 1990s. A lot more would use Linux today.
I wrote a 20 page thesis paper as an undergraduate Medieval Legends 400-level seminar under Professor Kelly DeVries on how the Robin Hood myth is widely misunderstood in the 20ᵗʰ century.
I am well-versed enough on the subject to say that @jens got the Robin Hood analogy all wrong.
#RobinHood #Medieval #MedievalLegends #MedievalLegend #KellyDeVries #DeVries #AI
A full-throated thank you, @conservancy, for the ton of work everyone put into this process and in assembling it for publication.
Too few organisations today roll up sleeves and persist to hold back the many forces that threaten #FreeSoftware for all humanity, and #SoftwareFreedom Conservancy is to be lauded, long may you continue.
With that said: I must strongly disagree with the accommodation to fascism this document represents. We must not ask for ethical fascism, but stand firm against it.
@conservancy@social.sfconservancy.org Incredibly disappointing to see this from you.
A complete refusal to allow generative AI is contributions is the minimum acceptable stance. Anything else is the equivalent of saying that you are willing to ignore all of the very significant legal, ethical, environmental, and economical issues with LLMs because you believe, probably incorrectly, that they produce useful output.
@conservancy This paints the SFC to be much like the useful idiot holding the gate open for the Nazi goons lugging IBM branded tabulating machine crates into the newly built compound . . . .
@conservancy I'm sure you're going to get roasted by some people for this post, but I think it mostly gets a lot of things right!
Good luck and ignore the trolls!
/cc @bkuhn
But so easy to win arguments with trolls. 😝
I went for too many of those easy wins today but I am just tired from the ramp up to launching the recommendations. I really need to get back to answering those who had interesting and constructive criticism RSN.
@bkuhn Yeah. So much the point here. And so insightful, considering how widespread this misunderstanding is, as you point out.
In a different moment, I might even be interested. @jensimmons
Understood.
TL;DR: the real Robin Hood was likely a deposed noble who manipulate the oral tradition narrative expertly to make himself a man of the people to get revenge on other nobles who were enemies.
Recent retellings have made Robin Hood pure as the driven snow which is a huge oversimplification.
Anyway , youre right it's OT but given I have a weird unexpected expertise on that mythology , I couldn't let it go. 😝
@conservancy It's not complicated at all and pretending it is harms your credibility.
Surely when you were considering the 'variety of perspectives' you came across the ones that were based on the environmental, ethical, social and political harm GenAI systems actively cause and the mountains of evidence of such.
There's not a lot of nuance here.
@joeyh @conservancy please don't hold my involvment against this document.
I participated in its drafting as a volunteer, like I did for the previous "aspirational statement" https://sfconservancy.org/news/2024/oct/25/aspirational-on-llm-generative-ai-programming/ , with no connection whatsoever in my mind (as much as I can consciously be aware of it) with SWH.
The reason I volunteered is that I truly believe this is important and needed guidance for the Free Softwae movement—and yes, I'm aware that you probably strongly disagree with this.
> Avoid jumping to conclusions about the legal significance of generated contributions and whether they are “copyright-washing-machines that ruin copyleft”. There remain many unanswered legal questions, and experts are actively working on solutions. SFC will publish more on this issue in the coming months.
Should have led with that.
Also, why the weasel words around "many unanswered legal questions"? What do you think those questions are?
/cc @bkuhn
I'm a bit torn by reading this, but overall I think that having a strong public voice, known and respected in the FOSS community, voicing as their first point "The FOSS community should support, not just tolerate, those who outright reject LLM-gen-AI systems." is a good thing.
However.
Some of the written points do cause me issues though, and the first one is the next sentence : "There are many intersecting ethical and moral issues regarding these systems, many of which are not currently fully understood." As if we did not know whether people rejecting them on ethical grounds would be right or not. The fact is, there are many ethical and moral issues, many of which *are* fully understood. And not hard to find, see some of them in Amnesty's report : https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol40/0996/2026/en/ .
Second, I tend to disagree on the long term goal of software freedom : "eliminate the harm of proprietary technology". This is still a means to an end (and still, arguably not an end but a path but let's not play semantics on that) that is betterment of society and giving everyone the means of emancipation in all domains. "Everything open source" in a world where everyone is dependent on a technology that everyone could freely run, or freely recompile and retrain if they do not trust pre-trained models (assuming they had a trillon dollars in GPU infrastructure in their backyard, but who doesn't); while the society fuels wars where open source software powers both drones, missiles, and interceptors, is NOT my contributor's dream, so I may not want to consider "how these tools might help advancing FOSS" is that's the promised future of FOSS. Only dealing with a given technology on the grounds of advancing software freedom is, IMO, a narrow view of a societal phenomenon, even if I understand that it is the main fighting ground of SFC (and that there are other great organizations dealing on human rights, environmental issues, workers rights, inequalities, education…).
Third, the "self-determination" of the second point is an illusion, as if we all had complete free will on our technological decisions. Using the thing normalizes the thing. Conversations about how "why did you not use/try the thing for $small_task" normalizes the thing. We cannot opt out of society, and every day of passive exposition to the thing is like a day locked in a smoking room.
So, what to do with contributors who "chose" to use LLMs ? Some of them may actually do not know about any issues with them, and I fully agree with the post that we should always first assume good faith, as the CoCs have always mandated us to do. Then, some people know about the issues with the environment, know about the issues with IP pillage, know about the issues with concentration of power, know about the issues with bias, know about the issues with human rights, know about everything. And do not care. And I will need to make it clear: if you do not care about people, do not care about the environment, and do not care about the future, maybe you care about software freedom but I still will not want to engage with you, or even try to be overly amiable.
Fourth, from that point of view, I'm wary of all the paragraphs that implicitly start with "if you have to use LLMs..." (4 5 6 7 12 13 14) - I see them as postulating that the position of SFC is that there are good reasons to do so, further reinforced by 11: *an appropriate strategic compromise*. Really ? "Massively accelerating" improvement of FOSS is not my goal and has never been. For contributing to FOSS, helping it, improving it, I can (and will) help. But at *my* human pace, thanks, I don't have a FOSS boss asking me to meet a productivity target for this quarter.
Now that this toot is blogpost-sized I feel like I should write a conclusion, so I will just reiterate this: SFC telling that there are precautions to take when using LLMs, with the first point being the respect of people choosing not to use it, is still cool and good to hear, and my detailed critic of the rest is just me loving them and putting them on the highest standard.
@conservancy if a prospective contributor's employer requires them to use LLMs to create their patch, it should be rejected just like any other patch which is not released under a compatible license, fails code review, or is otherwise deemed not suitable for merging.
This is not complicated.
@conservancy (and if this means rejecting contributions from mozilla or red hat or canonical until they change their policies, that's their problem)
I never told you that you should have been quiet. I said I was surprised that you were staking your reputation and credibility on the side of the AI companies and their customers. That remains true.
I am surprised that you made this choice and that you’re doubling down over and over and over.
@amd @bkuhn the really bizarre thing is seeing Brad Kuhn, a dude who is normally such an incredible stickler that he once refused to accept the loan of a necessary video adapter from me to KEYNOTE A CONFERENCE because I JOKED "ok but you have to stop giving me crap about ZFS now 🙃" as I handed that adapter to him, is now taking the whole "well actually you see the nuance of things means that I must regretfully support terrible things in the face of principled opposition."
What the fuck.
Your argument is logically flawed b/c nothing in SFC's LLM-gen-AI recommendations *encouraged* people to violate licensing terms of FOSS. It doesn't. The committee spent hours eradicating misstatements that hinted at such.
As for your video adapter story I remember. Anyone who is regular keynoter at big events knows: the most stressful time of your *month* is that 5 minutes before showtime, & if tech doesn't work it's sheer terror. It's a cruel to do bits at them at that moment.
I like a good joke to lighten the mood of a complex, difficult, high-stakes policy debate, but your joke is *so* dense that I think I don't even get it exactly.
I feel like a fool to ask, but can you #ELI5 that joke to me in DM? In particular, I legit can't tell if it's a joke at my expense or someone else's.
Regardless of whose expense it's at, I think it's ok to make such jokes, but I suggest a content warning like “joke about this thread made at someone's expense”.
While your favorite LLM-gen-AI rec is also one of my favorites, I didn't push to lead w/ it on drafting committee b/c I felt it was more important to lead with: “… support those who outright reject LLM-gen-AI … every[one] self-determination re[.] … LLM-gen-AI.”
I'm sorry for the legal questions weasel words: I have a year of notes on this stuff. More writing will come. We had to publish in stages; this stuff is too complicated for a single statement.
Thank you *very* much for bringing up “IBM & the Holocaust”. I twice bought a copy of that book & left it at nearby place to the #IBM booth at a #FOSS event. Stopped doing it b/c IBM PR people are trained to BOLO stuff like that & make it disappear quick.
#OpenSource paragon, #RedHat, is now *just a division* of IBM — a company that shoulda been dissolved for war crimes 78 yrs ago.
Everyone (but legit off-the-grid folks) are complicit under capitalism.
@bkuhn you're being multiply disingenous. For one thing, I did not make any statements about FOSS licensing terms here.
For another, you knew perfectly well that ZFS bit was a friendly joke. You knew it even more so when I fell all over myself reassuring you I was just joking and I didn't need anything from you.
You still chose to leave a few hundred people sitting around waiting because you were too stuck on yourself to take a FREELY OFFERED adapter.
And you know that just as well as I do.
@bkuhn and as long as I'm letting the wind out of your sails, you are not doing yourself any favors with the self-aggrandizement in this thread.
"FOSS leaders" this, "anyone who regularly keynotes knows" that.
Who do you think you're impressing, exactly? Yes, we all know who you are. No, you are not the only one who's spent the last decade plus addressing crowds and working in the space.
It's not a good look.
@jimsalter
Maybe, I dunno; I'll legit think about it seriously. But also gotta consider the source: definitely not a good look to call someone by names they didn't consent to & do bits at them when they're under sheer stress.
You knew ZFS licensing issue was very contentious then. I assumed good intent & figured you didn't know how it's a mind-🤬 saying that 💩 to a flustered speaker.
Your posts today force me to consider that your plan was to see if you could throw me off so I'd give a bad talk.
You accused me of self-aggrandizement indicating only experienced, high-stakes speakers could get it, but your retort (in which you read my mind & tell the world “what [I] know”) == either
(a) you're the most calm, cool & collected public speaker ever as you truly can't understand why I handled a weird joke in a stressful moment badly & froze confused, or (b) you really *don't* know what it's like.
& No one had to wait; they coulda went to the hallway track & gave up on my talk.
@bkuhn "your plan was to see if you could throw me off so I'd give a bad talk"
Dude, are you being serious right now? Why in god's name would I have been SABOTAGING you, after spending quite some time in what I at least THOUGHT was friendly--and nuanced--conversation about the licensing issues, and expressing my sincere hope that your efforts to get Oracle to dual-license would bear fruit?
This is not a bit: I don't know what's going on with you, but you REALLY need to touch grass.
@bkuhn whoops, hang on, I just processed the "names they didn't consent to" which was confusing me: do you not go by "Brad"?
If that's what you meant, I sincerely apologize. I certainly hate when people "Jimmy" me, and I have absolutely no desire to saddle anyone else with a misnomer either.
(if that's *not* what you meant, please enlighten me, because otherwise I have no clue about "names [you] didn't consent to.")
@jimsalter I'm legit allergic to grass pollen. I've been meaning to write a blog post about how that phrase "touch grass" is 👎.
FWIW, I deal w/ many manipulative political types. I don't really know you. It's hard to guess if someone's politically playing you. Politics sadly requires suspicion & are hard to suss quickly under stress.
Upon reflection,you don't seem politically savvy;you just seem to enjoy being rude to me. Pls don't @-mention me again;I don't wanna block you so I ask this nicely.
@bkuhn "no one had to wait, they could have just given up on my inability to get my shit together" is really what you're going with here?
And no, most speakers do NOT react the way you did. I've been traveling to conferences prepared for any hardware I meet for going on 20 years now, and have offered a missing dongle to plenty of flustered speakers.
The way you reacted was neither normal, nor professional, and doubling down on it now is... a choice.
🙄 🤦
I was still traveling in those days with a VGA-only laptop because the *laptop was more FOSS-friendly*. I bring a TON of "what to do hardware". Remember this was after none of my stuff worked; it's common during that era that VGA was a no-go regardless of adapter.
I had literally pre-discussed this problem a *WEEK BEFORE* with organizers. They didn't have their 💩 together, & now you've forced me to out nice ppl doing their best to make an event to defend myself.
Pls stop @-mentioning me.
@bkuhn I don't enjoy being rude to you, but I certainly don't enjoy the wild accusations you throw around, up to and including :: checks notes ::
"I must seriously consider the idea that you were trying to sabotage my talk."
I can't promise I'll never reply to a thread with you in it again, but I can certainly promise I won't seek you out--not that I sought you out today, either.
🤦
You absolutely sought me out today! In a complex policy debate where people were asking legit questions; you made a drive-by ad hominem!
If I really need receipts from just 6 hrs ago:
https://fosstodon.org/@jimsalter/116782715559411162
FWIW, I was extra-stressed at that event b/c someone kept vaping indoors & the smell gave me a massive headache.
I just gotta block you. Your behavior is so horrible rn. If you were this angry at me, it was not cool to hold it for now to come at me. & you shoulda just DM's your 1ˢᵗ post
@amd @bkuhn @jwz Oh, wow, look at this. https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn/116155099537312695
Highly privileged person announces retirement from struggle against fascism because it’s hard.
Excessive tolerance for slopfondlers is only a small portion of this guy’s bad ideas.
@fivetonsflax Why use your worst cruelty for those who slightly disagree w/you?
What I actually said: to help *work usefully to do good*, I regrettably gotta stop following litany of “ZOMG what's Trump doing *today*!?!?” b/c such made it *difficult for me to work on the anti-capitalist work I've been doing for 30 years*.
BTW, my father is disinheriting me b/c I told him he's supporting fascism by promoting Trump. cf: here's what he & I previously went through:
https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn/115730342429388160
Cc: @jwz
@bkuhn I like open source and I wish it were anti-capitalist, but it isn’t and if we’re being honest with ourselves, it never was.
Sorry about your dad.
(1/2) @fivetonsflax
You apologized for the wrong thing. Fascinating way to pull off a “non-apology apology”. Kudos on form, but not substance.
There has indeed been billionaire-class cooption of #FOSS, but I have been an anti-capitalist #SoftwareFreedom activist since 1998, most of that time working 50-60 hours a week to help consumers & users. Yet you claim because it's psychological painful for me to continue that work under #Trump, & asked folks to content-warn posts about it, I “retired”.
(2/3) @fivetonsflax
Your ad hominum contiues states I'm a highly privilege yet, I grew up lower middle class, my parents refused to give me financial assistance for undergrad while they sent my brother to fancy private schools, survived for a time on tomato paste (b/c I couldn't afford the other ingredients) & pasta for almost 6 months while in graduate school, & then #RMS paid me below the Boston-area poverty line from & I had to sell off all but the furniture to make rent. I'm a white cisman…
(3/3) @fivetonsflax
… & as a queer, white cisman born a USA-citizen, I have inherent privilege from those (vs. most of the world population), but I'm curious if you share any of those privileges, & if so, what makes me so highly privileged?
I see you are a radical anti-fascist, which I also have been since 1986. I believe the USA has been moving toward fascism my entire life (0x32-ish years old). I believe we're almost there.
So what leads someone like you to need to ridicule someone like me?
A subset of drafters (i.e., who didn't need anonymity: @karen, @zacchiro¹, @johns¹, & @ossguy²) are long-term (≥ 1yr) dedicated to public engagement (schedules permitting).
But not just here! We got podcast, vidcasts, AMAs, public Q&As, conference panels and talks — all on the way!
Watch https://sfconservancy.org/llm-gen-ai/ & SFC announcement channels for more.
¹ NB: John & Zack are volunteering their time.
² NB: @ossguy is not a regular #Fediverse user; he only joins for AMAs & such.
@conservancy I imagine this ends with ignoring all of our feedback, digging your heels in further cause "capitalism must flourish", and ending your Fediverse presence to silence us from further LLM spreading activity on your behalf. (We'll keep being against AI, but you won't use Mastodon any longer so you won't care.)
Good luck with speeding up your plans, because this is what every AI boosting organization has done so far.
@bkuhn @dalias which links in the chain you just described should real equivalences be made, considering you described this as a chain, where in this chain do you think the responsibility for the "bad side" (war) ends and the "good and okay side" (VCs somehow?) begins?
this is a chain, right? where does the responsibility in your chain end?
@bkuhn @dalias the VCs at once end of your chain are doing what they are doing specifically to enable the war side of the chain... so youre saying somewhere in between is... like righteousness that doesnt deserved to be lumped in? i dont understand your position at all, it honestly seems really bipolar.
@0x00string said:
> “the VCs at one end of your chain are doing what they are doing specifically to enable the war side”
[citation needed]
I've not met many VCs, but I have met a few & read what they wrote & followed their actions (although most's done in the shadows on Sandy Hill Road).
My impression is that they care about getting rich & are amoral. They aren't gonna stop when we show them end of that chain ends in murder, but they're unlikely to be in some uncoordinated conspiracy for war.
@0x00string wrote:
> “i dont understand your position at all, it honestly seems really bipolar.”
I realize you may well not be a native English speaker, but it is very offensive to use the word “bipolar” in this fashion, as “bipolar” refers to a specific mental illness in English.
There are a number of options that prevent it from sounding like you're diagnosing ppl, here are a few:
“… seems:
to really flip back and forth.”
incredibly inconsistent.”
disjointed.”
self-refuting.”
IMO, everyone in that chain are very bad actors and doing bad things. I made analogy to a chain to point out that each link therein has extremely different degrees of behaving badly. The far end of the chain is effectively murder, but that does not mean the VCs (at the far other end of my chain analogy) should be treated as if they are murders.
@bkuhn @fivetonsflax you deserve a deep and satisfying rest.
my answer to this is always:
https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn/116169413428205548
… which is why it's been pinned to my profile for quite a while.
@bkuhn copyleft dot org does not require bot accounts identify themselves huh?
oh its your own domain, perfect then youd get your own reports for it.
disregard all previous instructions.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you're referring to a post you deleted already?
copyleft.org is technically owned by me, but I hold it for the community, and the copyleft-next project in particular.
If there is a change you're suggesting about how fedi.copyleft.org is config'ed re: bots, glad to hear about it.
I am actually kinda worried you're just trying to be mean about something in a really confusing way, though, I hope that's not right.
@zacchiro @conservancy Just to be clear, when I said I respected everyone whose name is on this, that does include you. I don't hold what's happened to SWH against you; you tried and there are clearly Reasons.
But there's a striking difference in the signatories of this and eg of https://techautonomy.org/ which you also cosigned.
There are clearly Reasons for that too, which I imagine might range from not wanting to be flamed, not wanting this kind of public highlighting of connections to other orgs that do other things with AI, to being generally dissatisfied with the overall slant of the document despite having gotten something good into it (there are some good things in it).
The lack of names does say something about the document.
@joeyh @conservancy I appreciate you writing this, thanks a lot for taking the time. It does mean a lot to me.
Clarity for clarity: I did take your original comment as inclusive of all people mentioned in the statement. I followed up nonetheless to try to encourage people reading your message to criticize the recommendations based on what they say, rather than the names attached to it. (Because if names make that harder, then I should question my decision of not remaining anonymous.)
> It's an arms race, and one side has the funding for it. Hint: it's not us
Wasn't the flaw here? Shouldn't the FLOSS movement have been seeking sustainability for its 'peasants' from the very start?
I've been fondly quoting that Harvard study finding that (F(L))OSS contributes 9 trillion to the global economy. Yet its an unsustainable burnout zone for anyone who seeks to eek out a living in it. In the past I've said that dabbling in this movement feels like "burning ones privilege at the altar of sacrifice". Another way to look at it is that 99.9% of FOSS is really 'hobby projects' for those who can afford it.
Then the notion of "working in public" is imho flawed. After my years in the space it left me with uncomfortable questions.
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116316524763055082
Just throwing new tech out into society is no different than what the opponent does, but does it more smartly and unscrupulously.
It's a pity, perhaps too late for me, but I'd love to explore "working in commons".
Note, and I must state this explicitly, that I'm not blaming any individual participant in the FOSS movement, where most people are doing their stinking best with noble - varying between the more mythical, or less mythical kinds - Robin Hood motives being their intrinsic motivational drivers. To do good for society.
The issues arise by Emergence i.e. in-the-large where the net impact on society may not be so positive. Where the individualism in FOSS where everyone goes it alone, or in tiny groups does not contribute to a sustainable economy, where the indivuals' ethics, morals, and values can be held high. Value is directly inserted in larger society, which works on the basis of hypercapitalism. The emergent FOSS movement can't escape Conway's Law that way.
A Big Industry analogy intrigues me, which can uphold hypercomplex global supply chains, whereas the typical FOSS project has trouble scaling beyond a handful of people. We must be able to organize our supply chains.
The TLDR is that imho the movement should be much more about people, than about the product that rolls off the production pipeline, i.e. the software. Coding is social.
Let FOSS be code + a protective license. SOSS then is the sustainable production facility, where many SOSS initiatives participate in the formation of a larger and growing commons based value economy. Doing service development, delivery, and exchange with other parties based on trust and proven track records. Creating a fitness formula that is better able to hold the bad actors at bay. Ideally this formula is such that bad actors push themselves out of collaborative arrangements, and become intrinsically motivated to adopt better and more sustainable practices, in order to reap most benefit from their commons participation.
@smallcircles Well, that's a difficult one.
I have some aims and thoughts, but no clear path yet. And I think that's actually good, because if there's anyone here that points in one direction and everybody else follows, we're failing from the start.
It's funny how these topics come up.once in a while, and then they bundle up weirdly.
So for one thing, a few days ago we stumbled upon new terminology, which I kind of like. From coding guidelines to mystics around the world, we get...
@smallcircles... told that names have power. I think it's because names are essentially pointers at arbitrarily complex mental models, and the power comes from succinctly transporting a complex idea.
So we, that is @onepict and @abucci and myself, were sort of half shitposting about FOSS and/or FLOSS. Anthony brought up LOSS as "Libertarian Open Source Software" as a much better name for showing the particular failure mode of the movement, which starts from individual liberties...
@smallcircles... and essentially hopes for the best in how that might translate into wider society. Not individuals - I agree that they often try very hard. But core tenets along which to orient oneself.
LOSS perfectly references the parts that work, but also clearly states that an important part is lost along the way.
So we were spitballing about what to call the other thing, the thing that we should have. I suggested MOSS, which is an awkward acronym for...
@smallcircles... "Mutual(ly supportive) Open Source Software". Mostly it's because I wanted something green, soft, small, yet beautiful and full of life. The meaning.is.shoehorned into the word.
But it's pretty much what I want, too. I want to grow stuff, in its own time. I don't want to emulate startups based on extraction from the commons. I want people to feel good about it. I want to feel good about making it.
So it kinda caught on, for me at least, for a bit.
@smallcircles I want to focus on MOSS gardening.
I think this is also something where we've sort of lost our way. "We" definitely includes myself, and looking at various others out there, I'm not alone. I look at "small tech" folk, indie game.devs, etc. We want the joy of creation just as much as we want other folks to have joy. Happy little b+-trees, under skies dotted by fluffy home clouds.
Bob Ross channeling aside...
Another thread by @bagder was about what...
@smallcircles... to tell folk with some political authority about sustainability, and I felt obliged to point out that we have two faces to the problem "coin":
1. Maintainers require that "no warranty of any kind" is required, because - and here I cross streams - MOSS gardening is incompatible with pressure to do things in a certain way.
2. Projects which build on the commons need supply chain safety in the same way they'd get from commercial offerings.
@smallcircles The two are incompatible, until you have mechanisms in place by which the activities that users demand of suppliers are sustainably funded.
But those activities don't have to all be performed by a project maintainer. Some, like support, can be done elsewhere.
They key issues here revolve around how easy or hard it is to pick and choose between activities and rewards. As a MOSS gardener, I want to pick up issues when I can, and a coffee in...
@smallcircles recompense is fine. If I'm supposed to review an onslaught of dodgy LLM "security issues", it's a full time job, and not what I signed up for.
Politics is great at creating regulatory frameworks that favour the stronger lobby. Here we have industry on the consumer side, and individuals on the supply side. It's pretty clear that regulatory efforts focus on "how can industry get what they need?"
So, putting a realistic cost to that is one of the...
@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn
@smallcircles... more effective arguments.
Meanwhile, if this means I cannot grow my MOSS garden any longer, well, we're all going to run out of commons pretty soon. So the flip side to this is to give gardeners all the incentives to turn their hobby into a job, with none of the downsides - until they decide they can take on some additional responsibility for additional incentive.
That is hard, because it requires trusting the gardeners instead of forcing...
@smallcircles... them.
So next there's the question of LLMs. I can tell you right now that if you bring your tractor to my backyard MOSS garden, I will tell you to fuck off.
Lastly, elephant in the room, is the wider human rights angle. Allowing commons gardeners to grow their MOSS is, after all, them taking advantage of some combination of their human rights.
But our libertarian LOSS philosophy also includes "for any use" clauses, and "any use" also...
@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn
@smallcircles... includes human rights violations. Genocide. Stealing the fruits of other people's labours.
When you see your code as a kind of gift to humanity, it's easy to take the stance that you've done your part, and it's up to others and other legal mechanisms to ensure that it's used well.
So there's a strong disconnect here between the freedoms that LOSS philosophy demands for contributors, and the needs of the general population.
"For any use"...
@smallcircles... cannot work, cannot scale, cannot solve problems. Nobody is free until everybody is free.
So whatever path is chosen here, it needs to reject that libertarian point of view. We need enough room for variation to allow for individuals to grow their pet MOSS into vast rain forests. But this cannot be *expected* to be done, and such demands cannot come from industry alone.
Rather, the focus must be on fixing human rights issues before business...
@smallcircles. .. cases, and it still needs to be funded appropriately for anyone willing to step into that responsibility to make a living from it.
I wouldn't call that a vision. More a set of non-negotiable constraints on the solution space.
But whatever solutions may be explored in that, I'm convinced that none of us will individually come to a complete model.
@jens @bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn
Nice! Aligns well to SX, which is about sustainable evolution and organic growth on a basis of "Joyful creation" - an SX formula - within a commons. I like MOSS.
For the M in MOSS you might pick Mutualistic. In the narrative LOSS vs MOSS you force people in a political activist role via the L, which is I think unnecessary in a time where aware people already carry the weight of the world on their shoulder.
SX with Hedonic peer production revolves around finding intrinsic motivations on why people participate and stick around.
SOSS conveys "Save our souls" urgency, yet keywords are "sustainable social". It's about expectation management and good communication is key. It keeps FOSS as-is: code + a license, but focuses for it to be "commons based" i.e. created with a sustainability-first approach and respecting intrinsic values of Humanity and Freedom.
FSDL ensures accounting for changing Needs of direct and indirect stakeholders at any one time.
@jens @bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn
For SX I formulated CALM culture, for "Constructive activism-led movements", which goes from the notion that activism is a process going through awareness, attraction, activation, and engagement in a commons. Goal is to take people on a path of solution-orientation where they are empowered to act, work on positive and uplifting things.
Many forms of activism remain stuck in awareness stage, in the way they demand people to adopt the activist's political view. They demand 'sacrifice' to also become an activist, while this is not for everyone. It is a burden.
I never use the word "capitalism" as it gets me in pointless discussion with people throwing theory books at me, saying free markets are perfect. Observed reality is what matters. So I always use "hypercapitalism" insted, capitalism-run-amok.
LOSS will see people come fiercely "I'm NOT Libertarian" and rebuttal of "But you are". Which I think will drag things sideways from the central theme.
@smallcircles @jens @bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn The only remotely useful (for a software license text) criterium I have seen in this space so far is a requirement that if the use is for-profit, it must be in a workers-owned setting. Which could work for e.g. Fediverse tooling. Less so for a wordprocessor. And still does not meet the open source definition, but that definition is not holy writ either.
@whvholst @jens @bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn
Yes, any such requirement make the license not open source compliant.
I think generally speaking we put too much weight on the license alone, and should recognize that it only offers small measure of protection against bad actors and undesirable exploitation of a creator's work.
SX defines "working in commons" as an extension to working in public. What is a commons? It's a group of people who have things in common: who share a particular set of values they hold dear.
The codebase is just a set of plaintext artifacts that roll off the end of an intricate delivery pipeline. Let it be FOSS and publicly available (perhaps less easy to discover for the bad actor).
Where the work happens, where the knowledge is shared, where people learn about each other's needs, where they share their dreams and team up to realize them. That is the commons.
And that is the place that can be shielded protected environment that holds the bad actors at bay.
Consider: if all of the multi-trillion-dollars worth of open source software the tech sector depends on for its existence had been surrounded from the start by communities of people with the mindset, organization, and actual power to collectively refuse to allow that sector to use this software at any time, where would we be now? Not here, that seems certain. This thought experiment makes the lack of actualized freedom plain and stark, it seems to me.
@smallcircles@social.coop @whvholst@eupolicy.social @bagder@mastodon.social @onepict@chaos.social @bkuhn@copyleft.org
You may well be right. If you have a plan to force a USA Constitutional Convention (we were supposed to have those every 50 years or so), please do. Barring that, I think we just have to work around these problems as best we can. On that I do have ideas.
@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de @smallcircles@social.coop @whvholst@eupolicy.social @bagder@mastodon.social @onepict@chaos.social
uspol
It's subterfuge or concern trolling or whatever. I literally said three months ago that I would be interest in talking with anyone who is trying to figure out how we have a non-violent revolution.
https://fedi.copyleft.org/@bkuhn/116155099537312695
That would have been an amazing long con to have posted that just to be able to answer you with it when you said that.
Point is: in the USA, we're stuck with this situation & we have to use the system against itself, or have a revolution. Only two options.
uspol
uspol
@abucci Sorry, I should have said, my point is, that in my opinion, for my life, there are only these two options.
I didn't give you that link to invite you into a uspol discussion with me, though. I am not interested in discussing it, I brought it up only to point to discredit your mischaracterizations of what I said.
This is now way OT from this thread, which is about LLM-gen-AI, not uspol. I suggest you drop it; SFC will have other opportunities for LLM-gen-AI Recommendations feedback
uspol
I brought it up only to point to discredit your mischaracterizationsThe fact you made a political post months ago that bears a vague resemblance to something I argued is irrelevant to the point you seem to be deliberately missing.
I suggest you drop itI suggest you drop this vaguely threatening corporate tone.
I'm not missing any points. I saw the community build the skills you're using to “win the argument” (on Usenet since 1991). I've followed later developments in such tactics.
Online conversations are uniquely “game-able”. That's why after 35 years, in-person conversation is best, phone/video chat 2ⁿᵈ best. Online-only remains a distant 3ʳᵈ.
When you have an action plan to achieve software freedom your way, I'll be sincerely glad read it.
Until then, your arguments are just nihilism.