In my writing, i generally try to focus on what i positively want, rather than on what i negatively avoid. Philosophically, any positive or negative motivation can be flipped around and re-framed in another way. But that would be playing a game. What i want is sincerity and truth.
I've been paying close attention to the concept of Open Slopware. This is software under a free license that was not authored by a human being. It's easy to find objections to Open Slopware [1] [2] [3] [7]. The Vim Classic fork offers a clear rationale. Vim was originally inspired to be a force for good in the world. Boiling away the oceans isn't good. [4]
I have become persuaded to avoid Open Slopware for personal reasons. My main objections are less about morality and more about freedom. I like the sensation that i can decide which software is allowed to run on my own system. I also like to imagine that if someone really wants to, they can read and understand the source code for the software that they are running.
I already have a list of reasons to avoid various software projects. For example, i already avoid machine generated code, such as WASM code where you get illegible "Javascript" but not the original sources. I also avoid obfuscated and proprietary code for similar reasons. Avoiding Open Slopware is simply adding another category to the list of "unreadable" and "untrustworthy" code to avoid.
The Open Slopware list [5] is a truly massive wall of text and it's growing fast. I've moved away from many programs that i genuinely liked and have been using for years, such as tmux, vim, and vlc.
Today i learned that the qemu project is revising its policy to start accepting AI/LLM-generated code [6]. For the first time i feel "backed into a corner." Qemu is the only cross-platform, fully free hypervisor that i am aware of. FreeBSD and OpenBSD have their NIH hypervisors, but they are highly technical and work best when running their own kernel as the guest.
My main use for qemu was to provide some isolation to compile, debug, or develop programs. For example, i try to leave Slackware pristine on my primary system. I compile packages in a VM instead.
Prior to virtualization, i used `chroot` environments for this. This is still an option. I could also investigate LXC and other container technologies. I would lose the ability to run foreign kernels in a guest VM. For that, i would set up separate hardware, as i did decades ago.