The Register reports that the NetBSD project received a record 120 donations in September totalling $120,282, far past the $50,000 target its Mastodon feed had set, and links the surge to growing interest in a project that banned AI-generated code in 2024 while the Linux world moves the other way. The article cites Linus Torvalds saying Linux was not an anti-AI project in July, Debian developers voting to permit AI-generated contributions, an AI-heavy Ubuntu Summit and a Red Hat memo on an agentic software development lifecycle, and argues the louder the AI noise gets the stronger the aversion of those who want to avoid it. It notes NetBSD’s donations are a welcome contrast to the usual stories of underfunded open source projects, and quotes the project saying the money means it is time to fund some projects.
NetBSD's record donations arrive as it gets framed as the AI-free FOSS OS
The Register reports that the NetBSD project received a record 120 donations in September totalling $120,282, far past the $50,000 target its Mastodon feed had set, and links the surge to growing interest in a project that banned AI-generated code in 2024 while the Linux world moves the other way. The article cites Linus Torvalds saying Linux was not an anti-AI project in July, Debian developers voting to permit AI-generated contributions, an AI-heavy Ubuntu Summit and a Red Hat memo on an agentic software development lifecycle, and argues the louder the AI noise gets the stronger the aversion of those who want to avoid it. It notes NetBSD's donations are a welcome contrast to the usual stories of underfunded open source projects, and quotes the project saying the money means it is time to fund some projects.
Source: The Register