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The Rsync maintainer, Andrew Tridgell, used Claude Opus to add a Discord link to the README in one of his recent commits
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this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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Fuck AI
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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I'm no fan of vibe coded apps but rsync is literally free software with a free licence... forking it seems like less work than harrassing the guy who maintains in the hope that he capitulates.
OSS maintenance is a thankless job for the most part and the reaction in this thread proves the point.
It honestly sucks that the #1 requirement to being an effective FOSS maintainer (above even coding talent) is the skill of enforcing healthy emotional boundaries.
After the XZ debacle, it would only be harder, because they can't trust that anyone volunteering to step up is doing so with the best of intentions, and vetting someone would be adding a lot to the workload.
The current maintainer, Andrew Tridgell, is one of the two original authors, and was dragged back into maintaining this in 2024 because rsync is so important and nobody else was stepping up to replace Wayne Davison, who was the primary maintainer from 2002 to 2024.
If this project had people eager to fork it, that probably wouldn't have happened in 2024.
you're absolutely right the only solution remaining is to harass the dev harder🙄
Your only objection to this is that you feel uncomfortable being mean.
"But people could just fork it." This laissez faire attitude doesn't actually do anything, and is only fronted by people who don't want to do anything. This is a states'-right-to-slavery argument.
Yes what a reasonable comparison to make. Being held captive and made to labor against your will, with no rights of your own, is literally the same as choosing to use free tools which were developed in a way that doesn't 100% align with your preferences.
Totally normal thing that totally normal people will say.
Being provocative always pulls people who don't understand comparisons out of the woodwork.
You know you can compare apples and oranges, right? Both are fruit. Neither are root vegetables. Look, we're learning things.
Yadi yada so you're an entitled bully but also an ignorant asshole what a lovely person. You should probably go back to 4chan where your kind belongs.
I think you just don't like the idea that using AI says anything about you as a person. It does though. It tells me where you're willing to compromise.
I think like all bullies you like to dominate and degrade, then you pin fictional ideals on it to make it feel like you're doing good.
This would be absolutely scathing if I wasn't correct that you don't want to do anything about AI.
See that's the psychotic part right here. "Nice try making me feel bad about cyber-bullying a volunteer, when really you're the bad guy for not hating some computer program enough". You have to realize how silly this sounds.
Feel bad? Not at all.
See, unlike you, I fully own my positions. Andrew Tridgell should, and I mean this, I love seeing people improve, stop using this demon technology created by vampires to suck the life out good natured folk. And if he doesn't, I will stop associating with him, because he's siding with vampires. Simple as.
From your perspective this would seem horribly evil because you also side with vampires. I don't care that you think this.
Your position is that you looove AI and sucking vampire dick, but you won't say that because you know it's harder to defend here on the, let me check... right, the FuckAI board.
Just be honest, man. You don't want to do anything about AI. You are a pro AI individual. Shouldn't that be easy? I don't shy away from my own beliefs.
Don't they all haha. I was under no illusion that you would suddenly start feeling empathy.
Apocalyptic religious sentiment doesn't work on me. You forgot to mention that this technology was also created by Ialdabaoth, Cthulhu, Lord Voldemort and the ghost of Genghis Khan.
That's a wild extrapolation. What makes you think i would find it evil to refuse to use a piece of software ? Or to disassociate with someone for any reason whatsoever ? What does that have to do with my position that we shouldn't dogpile on open source maintainers who have been begging for help for ~~years~~ decades and, when nobody stepped up, started using AI to feel the gap ?
To tell you the truth i've been contributing to those "Ai-free software" lists because i think informed choice is awesome and is at the heart of the open source community. In my ideal world people would have all the information to make choices that align with their values. Notice that i never said people should be free to gang up and harass some poor sap whose only crime is to have thanklessly made their lives easier for 30 years.
Thanks for the homophobic drive-by, real classy. What a nice piece of character development. Can't say i'm surprised.
I don't see how that is relevant to my position on cyber bullying. I don't shy away from my own beliefs including on circlejerk communities such as this one, and my comment history is ample proof of that. Yeah I like AI how cool is that ? I've said it left and right on this godforsaken website, what makes you think i wouldn't dare say the words ? I like AI, i love open source, i hate US tech and hope their CEOs meet a fiery end. I hate that in the current political climate, psychopaths are empowered to proudly display their penchant for violence and domination while still claiming they have the moral high ground. You guys have won, everywhere, you are the most prolific ideological faction in the modern world, what more do you want ?
And yeah i know i'm screaming into the void. You don't ever doubt yourself, you think AI is an apocalyptic religious threat, you think anyone who doesn't share all of your values is in league with demonic entities (in a weirdly homoerotic way for some reason), and anything you do to your perceived enemies is fair game. Everybody understands what you are.
I should have been more clear. To disassociate in this case means to excommunicate from the industry. He's behaving like a scab, so I think it's only fair.
Why does he need this speed, exactly?
Thank you. You realize that this is a vector by which we excommunicate bad actors, right?
The point of talking, "harassing" as you say, to Andrew Tridgell about this directly is that I don't want him to be excommunicated. I want him to see the light of humanity. I don't want rsync to be thrown in with the wolves.
Because you weren't, and that's exactly the thing I'm critical of. If you were anti AI, you wouldn't be here... doing what you're doing.
Not disclosing this to the crowd I think is a bit dishonest. So for that, I offer you congratulations. I do appreciate it.
Doesn't this seem a bit hypocritical of you? You can see where a bit of antipathy is useful in one case but not in this other one with Tridgell?
I don't want him to meet a fiery end, I just want him to stop siding with vampires.
Absolute facts. So true.
xD
Listen, I have sucked dick, I would never suck vampire dick. It's gotta be soo dry.
Wow, an openly pro-bullying position from someone on a trans-inclusive instance? I'm sure your admins will appreciate the report I just sent them.
I am militantly pro-trans and will absolutely bully in their favor. Conservative rhetoric has no place in the society I want to live in.
We dont have the capacity to replace like 50% of all open source devs. We just have to hope that they get their shit together again.
I mean. What they need is help. Other people who can code who are willing to contribute time to the help maintain the project.
Burnout is real and I don't think "getting their shit together" actually fixes anything. The next time they burn out we wash rinse repeat?
Considering the pool of open source power maintainers is shrinking year by year and no fresh blood seems to come forward, I wonder what next time will look like? If you add the frank hostility from the community I don't see what could motivate people to start helping on high profile projects
That's my question about people who are now looking to jump to a fork. When the fork maintainer can't keep up, what's happens?
I wish I did have a solution to put forward to get people interested in helping on these kinds of projects (or the relevant skills). I don't have an answer, but this really just sucks.
It's up to them how they develop their completely free software. If you're not happy with it and can't stop using it, you can fork it. If you can't do it yourself, you pay someone else to. If it suddenly seems like paying for 50% of your FOSS is too much, then consider that the FOSS devs themselves pay for most of it with their largely uncompensated free time and probably want to have a bit more of said free time back.
How do they make money? Like they're consultants and make plenty of money and then spend some free time maintaining OSS projects?
Usually they're just regular software engineers who spend some of their free time on FOSS. Very few projects earn enough in donations to pay salaries.
I don't see anyone here quietly hoping
Indeed.
What I see: A world class software engineer (Samba, rsync, linux, and more) is learning how to use the latest tech that is vastly changing the industry he works in. It would be both foolish and irresponsible to not learn it and embrace it responsibly. If anyone is in a good position to direct and judge the output of LLMs, it will be engineers like Andrew who have spent their life applying critical thinking and good judgement.
And on the opposing side, we see a bunch of droll jammerlappies, pitching tents on the side of a highway, waving their fists at the world zooming by.
Keep outsourcing your critical thinking to a glorified autocorrect. Hope that works out for you.
Keep outsourcing your critical thinking to a glorified internet mob turning against open source maintainers, one of our last significant allies in the field. Hope that works out for you.
Lol nice comeback
i think it's as shitty as the comment it replies to
One could just as well argue that books / written knowledge is a crutch that prevents people from learning.
Assuming everyone using a tool is outsourcing their thinking is daft, and casting unfounded aspersions on others isn't exactly a model of critical thinking either. lol
Truly spoken like someone who's never actually read a book before.
Is THAT the best you could come up with? Oh dear.
Come up with? Did you think I was aiming for some kind of pithy comeback?
You literally said that books are a crutch that prevent people from learning. Something an illiterate person would say.
Perhaps you should work on your english comprehension.
jbloggs, could you try making this argument? I really want to see what it looks like.
IIRC, the ancient greek philosophers took a swing at writing, claiming it would weaken memory/increase reliance on written texts to create an illusion of knowledge, plus it can't engage in dialogue which they considered a requirement to develop true knowledge.
IMHO, there's some narrow merit to the arguments, but on the whole, writing has helped to democratise knowledge, and serves as an important tool in education.
The greek philosophers are largely wrong for reasons that can be explained and given.
Speaking requires mental work.
Writing requires mental work.
Reading (such that you can speak) requires mental work.
AI use requires nothing.
This fourth one is not like the other three. "Democratizing knowledge" has nothing to do with it.
Worse even because they're not waving their fists at "the world", they're waving them at a person.
Honestly I would not be shocked if years from now we discover these harassment campaigns are funded by Thiel.