NetBSD seems to be thriving of late: as the Linux world goes pro-AI, some of the AI-averse are turning to this explicitly AI-free project.
The NetBSD project’s Mastodon feed reports that it received a record 120 donations last month, and it has far exceeded its target:
“We received $120,282 USD in total. Naturally, this has completely filled up our donations target bar which was set at $50,000. Time to fund some projects!”
It’s a welcome contrast to the usual stories of under-funded FOSS projects, and it follows a visible uptick in people asking about NetBSD in the FOSS Unix groups we read, ever since Emperor Penguin Torvalds said that Linux was not an anti-AI project back in July, and the following month, the Debian project polled its developers on AI use, and they chose to permit AI-generated contributions.
… A thing is not like itself?
The modern compound phrase “X like” implies that something is similar to another thing while NOT being the thing itself.
A rogue like game has characteristics similar to the 80’s video game titled Rogue. But is not the game Rogue. We don’t say Rogue is a rogue like. Rogue is just the game Rogue.
Just like you are not a Skullgrid like user, you are the Skullgrid.
If I said could you hand me that gold-like thing I point at would you actually think it was gold even if it was?