2026-06-03 On slop
==================

Slop is the result of apply generative AI to making things. What
you're making is slop. Good looking, sometimes wrong, sometimes long
and complicated, energy intensive, built on stolen labour, built on
emotional abuse, for the CO₂ god.

Why is this happening? To vim, rsync, pandoc? Perhaps it's
maintainer burnout?

I posted the following:

> Oh gods above and demon lords below, let all my software repos be
> small and all my needs be simple, and keep me from temptation of the
> treacherous knife that is AI. May my voice be loud and strong: Such
> contributions shall not see the light of day. Their issues shall be
> buried, their discussions shall be banned and their merge requests
> shall be closed.
> Protective angels and whispering devils, beware me of peer pressure,
> management and overenthusiastic users asking me for more than I can
> do, demanding that I wield that treacherous knife that is AI. May my
> thoughts be clear and my ambitions weak: I shall not do more than I
> can do in a days work. All tasks shall be well specified and
> documented, all changes explained with no trickery and subterfuge.
> Let these words be my guide and my staff, to find my way and ward
> off my distractors.
> -- A prayer for the software developer (2026) #ButlerianJihad

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange posted the following:

> It is okay to release a F/OSS project where the expected set of
> users is you.
>
> It is okay to declare that a F/OSS project that you maintain is
> feature complete and stop.
>
> It is okay to stop writing new code in a F/OSS project and just
> review patches from other people.
>
> It is okay to stop reviewing patches once other people are familiar
> enough with the codebase to do so.
>
> It is okay to admit that a F/OSS project that you created has so
> much technical debt that people would be better off reimplementing
> it than depending on it (especially if you write down the lessons
> that they should learn).
>
> It is okay if your F/OSS project doesn't meet the requirements of
> some potential group of users, as long as no one applies pressure to
> force them to adopt it.
>
> It is okay to tell a company that depends on your F/OSS project that
> it's unsupported and they can pay developers to contribute if they
> really need it.
>
> It's okay to say 'I created this F/OSS project to meet my personal
> needs, but someone else made something that meets those needs better
> and so I'll use theirs instead'.
>
> It's okay to say 'I made this F/OSS project as an experiment, and
> the result was that I learned that this approach is a bad idea'.

Tridge is the rsync developer and he wrote about the shitstorm:

> Like many developers of open source packages I’ve been hit by a
> flood of security reports lately in my role as the rsync maintainer.
> Many of those reports are AI generated … As this flood started to
> get more intense I realised I needed to raise the defences on rsync
> a lot — we needed much more thorough test suites, code coverage
> analysis, CI testing on a lot more platforms, deliberate and
> thorough scanning for possible security issues … and the addition of
> a whole lot of defence-in-depth hardening techniques. This is all a
> huge amount of work … so I have reached for several AI tools to help
> with what needs to be done. I have absolutely no regrets about doing
> that …

#Butlerian_Jihad