Post by @Federation_Bot

this is the one and only reason that the Linux kernel is going out of its way to hide which commits are LLM generated by abolishing the Assisted-By tag, simultaneously with torvalds fully slopcoding a core “improvement” to the kernel’s memory management

if you don’t believe me, here’s part of what the diff removed from the kernel’s docs:

> -When AI tools contribute to kernel development, proper attribution
> -helps track the evolving role of AI in the development process.
> -Contributions should include an Assisted-by tag in the following format::

and surprise, here’s the dickheads responsible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Kernel_Developers_Summit a set of people who get money and tokens from Anthropic, OpenAI, and a bunch of other AI corps via the Linux Foundation

don’t you love when the paid heads of a community project meet behind closed doors to do something that damages the community? https://furs.social/@Rycochet/117438960055913573

Linux Kernel Developers Summit

annual Linux conference

Rycochet

@Rycochet@furs.social last wk.

@davidgerard And as things get less and less stable, they'll deny it being down to the slop code. Comments sections will be packed with slopbros going 'Nuh huh, you have no way to know it was down to AI, you're just guessing! Correlation is not causation! Checkmate, luddites!'

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Stylus

@stylus@social.afront.org last wk.

@zzt Asbestos-by: tag

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

you know what’s fucking incredible about growing up in neoliberalism

some fucker can abuse you and make you feel unsafe for years and you’re expected to take the high road or you’re the bad person

once that fucker gets rich, because capitalism rewards abuse with money, it’s then considered too late to stop them

fuck the high road

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

and before anyone fucking starts with me

no I’m not calling for violence. be more creative than that.

can you really think of no option other than doing nothing or unrealistically threatening violence?

do you really think there aren’t enough people pissed about this, compared with the total Linux developer base, to gum up the works if literally anyone does anything to protest as a group?

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

no I’m not going to give you marching orders. do you see why? it should be a bit obvious, no?

there’s a reason why the dickheads doing this gathered behind closed doors

but so many closed doors get picketed and protested, and people notice

you’ve tried nothing and it’s too late now? why?

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

as someone who’s been doing LLM critique since ChatGPT’s first public release and AI critique much longer than that: do you know how allergic AI boosters are to shame, to being made fun of, to resistance?

they need you to take them seriously on their terms and they’ll do everything they can to shut you out if you won’t

goof on these motherfuckers to their faces because goofing on them works

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[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

did you know that Linus Torvalds, boy genius, thinks you need an LLM to do an incredibly basic thing that we’ve been doing in IDEs an editors since the 80s? https://peoplemaking.games/@clayote/117439268154603995

maybe we should stop assuming this guy was ever good at anything, honestly

AI boosters love humiliating themselves by insisting you need their shit to do something you can do faster and better with an editor you know how to use, and now torvalds is doing it too

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Amethyst 🌸

@amethyst@toots.n7.gg last wk.

@zzt I built a deterministic auto-fixing linter and saw people/teams refuse automated diffs applying those fixes because they didn’t like the “churn” or were worried about vague notions of reliability of the fixes, just for everyone to turn around two years later and happily have an LLM both generate fixes for outstanding lint errors and then automatically “review” those diffs without a human being involved, all while burning thousands/millions times more computing resources to do so than the original auto-fixes would have required. Fuck.

Bee O'Problem :godot:

@beeoproblem@mastodon.gamedev.place last wk.

@zzt oh but IDEs are "bloated" and "unnecessary" and "Evil" and "real developers use vim" according to way too many Linus/OSS/FSF fanboys back in the day.

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

I can guarantee you that microemacs, the editor he was previously known for insisting on using, has ctags support

or you could just use the actual emacs. or like, any other editor

but then you’d have to learn a fucking skill, linus

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

it is amazing how many LLM guys just freely admit they never learned to use any of their tools, then they insist that the LLMs they’re pushing are tools and it’s everyone else’s problem for not using them correctly

LLMs are fucking horrible at everything that an editor or IDE can do. trivially so. you don’t in fact need to waste several bottles of water, many minutes of your own time and patience, and several attempts to do some basic shit like call site lookup

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

so uh needless to say, you’ll want to stay on a 6.x version of the kernel for as long as you can. downgrade from 7.x if you’re on it. be very careful with backported patches.

no this isn’t a solution at all. this keeps you running until late 2028 at most. don’t use it as an excuse to do nothing.

the thing you need to do isn’t polite. we’ve been far too polite to these fuckers pretending they’ve been donating their labor to us, while they receive millions of dollars, job opportunities, and the ability to shape the software world.

protect your systems if you can, but you need to get fucking angry.

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

I’m pushing this reply to top level because it’s extremely important: https://is.badat.dev/objects/a142a17d-9320-4007-bef4-99762f9fa854

> I asked whether that risked cutting off bright new developers that we would rather hang onto; Torvalds answered that the kernel project only wants serious developers. That includes having access to enough resources to function in this world.
> [...]
> Torvalds added that he does not want to scare off people who want to write code; his message is that you have to either put in the effort to learn, or put a lot of money into an LLM to participate.

Linus Torvalds prefers if you can’t contribute to the kernel without pouring money into tokens for Claude Code

if you don’t pay a shit ton of money for tokens, you aren’t a serious developer according to him

the “learn” thing here is a distraction: in this context, you’ll be learning to clean up slop until you either burn out (very quickly at that) or pay for tokens and cognitively surrender to the bot

that’s the learning path now

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[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

LWN link for anyone who can’t access the link to that post (but it’s in my replies): https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1099594/be20382b54a9b4cd/

e: subscriber link posted, thank you @techokami!

LWN.net

The 2026 Maintainers Summit

The Maintainers Summit is a one-day, invitation-only gathering of about 30 kernel developers; i [...]

Techokami

@techokami@woof.tech last wk.

@zzt this whole thing is just a multitude of fuckedness

THIS hurt the most to read:
> Torvalds and others repeatedly said low-quality contributions from new developers should receive low priority, and that the community should stop trying to make contribution easy. Many developers said, repeatedly, that trying to mentor those developers is almost always a waste of time; they do not listen.

Techokami

@techokami@woof.tech last wk.

@zzt also it sounds like if you want to become a contributor now, hope you have lots of money for plane flights and hotel rooms to frequent conferences enough to be noticed

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[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

oh cool and the LWN link about the invite only maintainers summit where Torvalds went full mask off is itself subscriber-only!

we’re fucking cooked aren’t we

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

come back on the 22nd for exclusive content about how fucked over we got I guess?

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[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

if you believe in code, believe your eyes. read the diff that was applied to the kernel tree. what do your eyes say?

this governance structure is not for your benefit. it’s for the benefit of the corporations paying to capture Linux.

if you believe or believed in any of the FOSS ideals, this is the moment that all of the evangelism and advocacy and rabid fandom was supposedly there to steel the community against.

but it didn’t work. we’re in the disaster scenario and you’re still asking about fragile solutions. “well what OS do *you* recommend? why can’t we just fork the kernel? what if it’s not all that bad? what if torvalds and the rest snap out of it?”

none of this shit worked to save FOSS. try something else.

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot last wk.

@zzt one of the things I find particularly telling is(from the LWN article):

> I asked whether that risked cutting off bright new developers that we would rather hang onto; Torvalds answered that the kernel project only wants serious developers. That includes having access to enough resources to function in this world.
> [...]
> Torvalds added that he does not want to scare off people who want to write code; his message is that you have to either put in the effort to learn, or put a lot of money into an LLM to participate.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1099594/

Subscription required [LWN.net]

[object Object]

@zzt@mas.to last wk.

what do I recommend? fuck another OS. hold these motherfuckers responsible. why in fuck should Torvalds have a place in polite company anymore? why in fuck should Stallman? any the Linux Foundation employees? any of the slop-loving fuckers at the OSI? why should any of the people whose actual job it was to stop this shit get away with not doing their work?

and no Stallman isn’t anti-AI. you can’t fucking tell me that the guy who’s so against proprietary software he prefers when his shit doesn’t work on anyone else’s hardware conveniently decided to be soft now, in the moment when it matters. one strong word from any of the FOSS organizations could’ve slowed or stopped this outcome. but no, none of the boys who assured us their licenses and their legal might would protect us could be fucking bothered

d@nny disc@

@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run last wk.

@zzt after stallman pushed back on me in the weirdest possible way when i proposed fixing the emacs configure script and bootstrapping known-good deps instead of LLM-riddled and actually backdoored shit a couple weeks ago i'm still evaluating whether he's controlled opposition the whole damn time

d@nny disc@

@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run last wk.

@zzt MIT AI lab fuckboy is not going to lead us into the future

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PorkrollPosadist

@porkroll@toots.matapacos.dog last wk.

@zzt I think you're right on, but we should also take over the FSF and issue GPL 4.0: Butlerian Jihad Edition.