nanolith

Pragmatic in that it balances the pro- and anti- LLM sentiments. There are plenty of other valid reasons to take a hard stance against LLMs.

I don't use them for open source projects I maintain.

Regardless of how you feel about using LLMs or using products that are developed with LLMs, it is a good idea to have an ecosystem of open source projects with differing levels of LLM involvement, including pristine software written entirely by humans.

The pragmatic argument for hard no-LLM projects: if models are to be useful, they need good input. Hand-written software that has been carefully audited is free from the kinds of feedback errors that will eventually weaken LLM code generation. Otherwise, a bad pattern gets copied. In the next generation, this bad pattern is seen a bit more often as stochastic models converge on it and more open source code adopts it. This is reinforced in the next generation and it becomes a common pattern. Then, in the next generation, this pattern is seen all over. This could be inert "non-coding DNA" like weird naming conventions or pointless comments. Or, it could be bad edge cases that become commonly exploitable.

That should be the case, but you'd be surprised how many people just run stock dwm. I don't get it.

All of the "suckless" distributions beg to be patched.

By default, OpenBSD uses FFS / FFS2. There is an effort in place to port GeFS (from 9front) to OpenBSD. It's unlikely that ZFS will be ported to OpenBSD, due to licensing incompatibilities. For the same reason, btrfs is also unlikely. That's why I run FreeBSD on my big server, and OpenBSD on my laptop and other edge devices. I don't really have any issues running FFS on a laptop; it seems overkill to run anything more advanced than that.

I'd recommend taking a look on forums to see what other folks are running. If it's a modern Lenovo with integrated graphics or an AMD GPU, it will be supported before others. OpenBSD folks tend to use Lenovos. My best recommendation is to pick a laptop that a core maintainer is using, unless you feel comfortable making your own patches. They have AMD GPU support via DRM from Linux. Intel graphics typically works alright.

OpenBSD works well with relatively recent versions of Chromium and Firefox. That being said, they are on a six month release cycle. The Chromium port can fall behind if you stick to -stable or releases. Building Chromium or Firefox from source is... well, I have a 2012 laptop, so that's not something I am going to do. Regardless, you'd need to be pretty comfortable with applying OpenBSD specific patches to one of these browsers, which isn't always obvious, especially since they are moving targets.

If you're used to being on a rolling release Linux, this will be a bit disorienting. But, in my opinion, it's significantly more stable and better thought out.

I use a custom dwm.

Don't forget: doas syspatch. They tend to find some minor issues rather quickly after release.

Since I maintain my own custom patch set under OpenBSD, this is also usually when I need to vendor in the new release and update all of my patches.

I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years. It's small. It remains mostly consistent between updates. In fact, it's so stable that I barely notice changes when I upgrade until I go hunting for them.

The Lenovo laptop I use as my travel laptop and console display is a 2012. It still runs OpenBSD just fine.

I'd say that it is actually fairly easy to poison oneself brewing different kinds of alcohols. It is a risky activity. So is driving. So is making fireworks. So is chemistry. So is making cheese, pickles, sauerkraut, and canned goods. People die of botulism every year because they don't follow basic safety procedures when canning, or they eat canned goods that someone else improperly prepared.

That doesn't mean that one shouldn't be allowed to do these things. It means that we should provide appropriate training and, in some jurisdictions, reasonable / non-discriminatory licensing for those who wish to do these things.

When it comes to distillation, the rules are pretty straight-forward:

Keep a log book. Use quality equipment. Measure temperatures. Learn to discard heads and tails. Use appropriate ventilation and fire safety protocols. Purchase qualitative test equipment to verify that the product does not contain harmful contaminants. Licensing is a great way to ensure that people know about these things and follow them. A blanket ban actually makes it more likely that people who violate this ban to distill alcohol will poison themselves or others.

Clandestine operations for most illicit substances tend to be quite dangerous. There are safe ways to distill alcohol, but given that one can't purchase quality distillation equipment in locations where it is illegal, folks often end up making their own.

I think it's perfectly acceptable if these is a reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing process, like for HAM radio or small game hunting, that covers safety. This doesn't eliminate the possibility of accidents, but it does reduce this possibility.

No. It is not likely that it will be possible to sell homemade liquor. But, it's this experimentation that will lead to more businesses.

Many microbreweries and small breweries started when home brewers went pro. They had recipes that were popular. They decided to go through the fundraising and investment in order to build appropriate facilities and get licensed.

It's this permission to experiment and play that has inspired many of the popular ales available today.

This would do to spirits what homebrewing has done to beer in this country. So many varieties were rediscovered and popularized when homebrewing and microbrewing were legalized during the Carter Administration.

Liquor has become consolidated among a half dozen global conglomerates. Varieties have been streamlined. Folks who are into making historical cocktails tend to hit roadblocks or make modern "almost" substitutions.

I'm in favor of this ban being struck down, even though I can't really take advantage of it. I brewed beer and wine when I was younger, but for health reasons, I can't drink alcohol anymore.

OpenBSD has a strict "no GPL" policy. It does not incorporate GPL code in the kernel, and it has slowly weeded out GPL code from userland. This is one reason why it builds with Clang instead of GCC.

If Linux DRM weren't licensed under more permissive terms, OpenBSD simply wouldn't permit its inclusion.

I saw the movie Friday night. It is a mind job. You'll walk away with more questions than answers.

Without spoiling the movie, it's possible for people to be multiple things at once. That doesn't excuse what Elizabeth Holmes did or explain what others in her circle may be guilty of. The movie is a wild ride.