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NetBSD may have found a new role: The AI-free FOSS OS
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2026
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Can someone please tell the owner of https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware that NetBSD does not in fact have a "Permissive AI Policy."
In fact, it matches two of the "Permissive" criteria: generated code has been merged, and the policy defines conditions that allow such merges (approval by core). The list still recommends various software made by NetBSD developers as viable alternatives to slop projects, where appropriate.
But how is requiring explicit approval (meaning it's not something that is typically allowed) considered "permissive"?
The wording is weird. But the project (openslop) defines permissive as basically having a path for AI to enter the code. This lumps together both measured approaches like NetBSD's and fully embracing slop contributions in the same category.
I think this only makes sense if you view AI contributions as a taint, something that threatens the licensing of a project. In that optic, it really is an all or nothing. But it doesn't help users choose among the options as much.
Do those two commits count as “increasingly”?
There were more commits, the scanner basically checks the most recent history and stops, just to confirm that the project still allows LLMs. I don't have a laptop or good internet right now to clone the entire repo and grep logs.
Before I refreshed it there were 4 flagged commits, all from September 1st. Since then there was one new LLM-assisted commit so it looks like the rate is decreasing.
That is good to know. I've also just checked the commits, and now I'm unsure if the LLM-related lines actually signified LLM use or just were copied from updated software changelogs. I will remove my above comment and stop with this topic until I learn more.