The NetBSD project collected a record 120 donations totaling $120,282 last month, more than doubling its $50,000 fundraising goal, according to a report published by The Register on October 13. The surge follows NetBSD's 2024 ban on AI-generated code, positioning the operating system as an explicitly AI-free option as mainstream Linux distributions embrace machine learning tools. The influx marks a sharp contrast to typical under-funded open-source projects and suggests growing demand for hand-crafted code among developers.
Interest in NetBSD has visibly increased in FOSS Unix discussion groups since July, when Linux creator Linus Torvalds stated Linux wasn't an anti-AI project, the report notes. The following month, Debian developers voted to allow AI-generated contributions. Meanwhile, the most recent Ubuntu Summit featured heavy AI emphasis, and Red Hat Global Engineering leadership distributed a memo about moving to an Agentic Software Development Lifecycle. At last week's Open Source Summit Europe in Prague, AI dominated talks, materials, exhibitor stands, and even T-shirts, with every vendor eager to discuss deploying or scaling AI. Some attendees from Let's Encrypt didn't recognize NetBSD when asked, illustrating its minimal presence in the mainstream FOSS world.
The report states that NetBSD's policy is unambiguous: "Do not commit tainted code to the repository." Code created by large language models like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or Code Llama "is presumed to be tainted code, and must not be committed without prior written approval by core." OpenBSD project lead Theo de Raadt has said his project can't accept AI-generated code because submitters lack the right to license it—tracing which humans originally wrote regurgitated LLM output is impossible—though the tmux terminal multiplexer included in OpenBSD has already accepted AI-assisted modifications. FreeBSD's central committee has debated permitting AI-generated code for over a year with no consensus reached, the report notes.
The louder AI promotion becomes, the stronger the aversion grows among developers who actively want to avoid it, according to the report. NetBSD banned AI-generated code just one month after celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, establishing a clear position while competitors wavered. Linux's comparable platform support and FreeBSD's advanced features like ZFS integration and Podman containers once threatened NetBSD's "Of course it runs NetBSD" slogan, but recent moves by larger projects have opened new differentiation. FreeBSD 15 dropped 32-bit x86 and POWER support, Debian 13 eliminated x86-32 and MIPS, and RHEL 10 now requires x86-64-v3, cutting off so many older machines that CERN began switching to Debian. NetBSD remains minimal, highly portable, and proud of its welcoming community—qualities that now include refusing AI code.
If NetBSD stays relatively small and gets left behind by the AI wave as a result, the report concludes it plans to stay with the project. The clear stance appears to be serving NetBSD well, attracting developers who prefer transparency about code origins over automation speed. For organizations and developers willing to trade mainstream momentum for certainty about human authorship, NetBSD's explicit AI ban offers a refuge other major projects haven't provided. The choice between efficiency and accountability is forcing open-source communities to pick sides, and that divide may only deepen as corporate backing pushes AI integration deeper into kernel development.