1 may 2026
The more I look over the list of AI-tainted FOSS projects, the more I'm glad I hadn't had a chance to donate to any of them. I figured I would if I found commercial success using them, but I have not. At first this had felt more and more guilty for essentially freeloading off of the work of those who are volunteering their time and expertise.
But now, I don't feel that guilt anymore. One of the smaller FOSS projects that I had some familiarity with have made it clear they would use some of the donation to fund the usage of GenAI in further development. I have no guarantees that other projects haven't done that already. I know me choosing not to donate now doesn't impact them at all since I never did. At least now I can say "I won't" instead of "I can't."
Maybe these various FOSS projects embracing AI-slop should be of no surprise. They've been doing this for free. I think a lot don't believe software patent is a positive thing at all. But they still apply a licence to their work. Pivoting to AI as hard as they did feels like they've swung too far to the side they've been on, being okay with the blatant disregard for any copyrights since that's what all these AI models were (pre-)trained on.
In a comment to the news that Blender had accepted Anthropic as a corporate member to their foundation, it was pointed out that it's gotten to a point where the software engineer experts are going to be outside of the industry. Thanks to the brain drain of all these corporations forcing AI on their workers. I'm no expert, but at least I'm in good company :)