|
|
||
|---|---|---|
| .forgejo/issue_template | ||
| badges | ||
| evidence/img | ||
| CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| LICENSE.txt | ||
| README.md | ||
| STYLE.md | ||
Open Slopware
Free/Open Source Software tainted by LLM developers/developed by genAI boosters, along with alternatives.
The intention of this list is to raise awareness of AI/LLM usage in popular open-source software. Provided below is an informed set of AI-free alternatives for users and developers to consider should their ethical boundaries be crossed or tolerance for risk be exceeded. This list is not a resource to be used for the harassment of other open-source developers. If you wish to advocate for the cessation of use and/or removal of AI-generated code from another project, we ask that it be done respectfully and constructively.
For more information on why we think this list matters, please see Why not LLMs?.
To Contribute, checkout our CONTRIBUTING.md.
Note
This is a fork of a repo by the same name maintained by the @gen-ai-transparency org on Codeberg. If they make their repo available again, we will contribute back.
- Definitions
- Sibling Repos
- Tainted Software
- Browsers
- Cheat sheets and documentation
- Command-Line Shells
- Search Engines
- Computer Graphics
- Terminal Emulators
- Developer Tools
- Document Viewers
- Programming Languages
- Editors
- Accessibility Tools
- Microcontroller Tools and Libraries
- Service Monitoring
- Programming Language-Specific Tooling
- Game Engines
- Audio
- Messaging
- Package Managers
- Password Management
- Git Servers
- Blogging Software
- Services and Utilities
- System Services and Daemons
- Bootloaders
- Operating Systems
- Virtualization
- VPN Software
- Window Managers
- Why not LLMs?
- License
Definitions
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| LLM | Large Language Model, a language model trained on vast amounts of text (often entire websites without the website owner's permission) |
| slop | Anything generated by AI, typically code, books, articles, or images. |
| slopshop | Company, Organization, or Group of sloperators working together to use AI to generate content. |
Below are special definitions that are used for tagging purposes.
Permissive AI Policy
A policy that permits the use of AI/LLMs in any capacity or is declared to be vibecoded. Both vibecoding and opening the door for people to vibecode count as a permissive AI policy.
Evidence can be:
- an explicit AI policy (e.g.
AI_POLICY.md,CONTRIBUTING.md, developer docs) in the repo or something in the project's contributing guidelines or in their website's documentation that says that AI/LLMs are allowed - an LLM friendly
AGENTS.md,CLAUDE.md, or other such LLM instruction files or folders. - core maintainers' blog or social media post about vibecoding
- link to readme, website, or documentation stating the project is vibecoded
Important
If a core maintainer has noted that the code is entirely vibecoded, please put that as the first evidence link.
Vibecode
Asking an AI to write software for you (often without human review). Per Wikipedia:
In computer programming, vibe coding is a software development practice assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) such as by chatbots (programs that simulate conversation) or AI agents such as Codex or Claude Code. The software developer describes a project or task in a prompt to a large language model (LLM), which generates source code automatically. Vibe coding may involve accepting AI-generated code without reviewing the output thoroughly, instead relying on results and follow-up prompts to guide changes.
The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy (co-founder of OpenAI) in February 2025.
A Vibecoder is a person who uses AI prompts to generate anything, typically code or images. It would therefore be appropriate to call Andrej Karpathy a vibecoder.
Note
Humans reviewing vibecoded code does not disqualify said code from being considered vibecoded.
AI Functionality
This would include the ability to enable or disable an AI feature, such as an AI assistant or AI summary feature. This would also cover the case when a project depends on an AI program or library, such as an LLM SDK.
Evidence can be:
- a link to the docs explaining the AI Functionality
- a blog post advertising the AI Functionality
- a link to the default branch in a repo that shows where the AI Functionality is implemented
AI Code Reviews
An AI agent/bot is used to review pull requests, which makes slop acceptance more probable and maintainability more difficult, especially when human reviews are scarce.
Evidence can be:
- a link to an AI code review requested by a maintainer.
- an AI code review CI workflow.
- a PR where an AI code review seems to be automatically created by some sort of third party app
Gen AI 'Art'
AI "Art" is being used in a project. This is typically for banners, avatars, promotional material, and/or blog posts. This means they're using tools that steal art from visual artists.
Evidence can be:
- link to the place where the AI art is used
AI Sponsored
The project is sponsored directly by an AI company.
Evidence can be:
- Blog post disclosing AI funding
- link to website that lists AI companies in sponsors list
- README that says "Sponsored by "
AI Databroker Usage
The use of an AI company as a third party service for processing user data.
Evidence can be:
- Blog post talking about using AI for processing user data
- Privacy policy listing an AI company as a third party service
AI In Issue Tracker
The use of an AI bot/agent for responding to Issues, Discussions, Forums etc related to a project's issue/bug tracking.
Evidence can be:
- Link to AI in an Issue, Bug report, Discussion, etc - must be related to the project's bug/issue tracking
Request for Help
This means someone is asking for help with research. They would like it if you found the last known good version of a project or suggestions on alternatives for people to use. You can submit a pull request to add this info.
Sibling Repos
This is a section for repos that are similar to this one either because they are also forks of the original upstream, or because they align with our goal of identifying and avoiding AI/LLM usage OR identifying/elevating projects that do NOT use AI/LLMs. These repos are not all maintained by the same people, but we may share some contributors and are generally kind FOSS neighbors. ✨
- llm-afflicted-software offers a similar list to ours here, however in YMAL file format for each category, making it more suitable to consumption via code (for instance writing a CLI, GUI, or TUI tool to consume it). They've also kindly reached out in the past and submitted Issues and PRs (e.g. #12, #22) to help us here.
- forge.starlightnet.work/Team/No-AI/ which is the repo for this no-AI list that lists projects that have explicitly pledged not to use AI or have an explicit policy to not use AI.
- slop-free-index is a list of software that has taken steps to reject AI in its development processes.
Tainted Software
Warning
We've recently added a "Last Untainted Version or Commit ID" section to our below tables. This is meant for tech savvy individuals to be able to fork the project and continue maintaining it without the use of AI. Choosing to install an older version of software could expose you to to security risks over time. Only do this if you are able to accept such risks.
Browsers
Desktop Browsers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Chromium/Blink engine | |
(1, 2, 3) |
| Firefox | |
 (1, 2) (1) |
| Ladybird | |
(1) |
| WebKit | |
(1, 2, 3) |
| Zen | |
(1, 2) (1) |
Note
Desktop Browser Alternatives
- Epiphany (by GNOME, WebKit based) does not currently have a stance, but GNOME developers as a whole show aware anti-"AI" sentiments and roll out wide reaching rules against it.
- Servo (New engine, formerly owned by Mozilla, now by a co-op) is not yet daily driver ready, but has strong protections for when it is some time in the future.
- waterfox They have clear anti-ai stance
Mobile Browsers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Firefox | |
(1, 2) (1) |
Note
Mobile Browser Alternatives
- IronFox For Android, while not officially related to LibreWolf, some of the same developers work on it.
E-Mail Clients
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NeoMutt | |
(1) |
mutt |
Cheat sheets and documentation
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| tldr-pages | v2.3 |
(1, 2) |
|
| cheat | v4.4.2 |
(1) |
|
Command-Line Shells
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oil Shell | dddab4a |
(1) |
dash |
nushell |
|
(1) (1) |
elvish shell |
| PowerShell | |
(1, 2, 3) (1) |
|
xonsh |
|
(1) |
|
yash |
|
(1) |
dash |
Addons and Prompts
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
oh-my-posh |
|
(1) |
|
oh-my-bash |
|
(1) |
|
ohmyzsh |
|
(1) (1, 2, 3) |
|
| Starship | |
(1) |
|
Search Engines
| Name | Alternatives | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Searxng | LibreY | Copilot used in reviews | Note: maintainers experimenting with and open to adding AI results, see 1, 2, 3 |
Computer Graphics
Image Manipulation
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ImageMagick | v7.1.2.16 |
(1) |
GraphicsMagick |
| excalidraw | |
(1) |
LibreOffice Draw |
| tldraw | |
(1) |
LibreOffice Draw |
| draw.io | |
(1) |
LibreOffice Draw |
Photography
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| RapidRAW | |
(1) |
|
| RawTherapee | 5.12 |
(1) (1, 2, 3) |
5.12 |
Video
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| VLC | |
(1) |
Showtime (gstreamer-based) SMPlayer (mplayer-based) ffplay (ffmpeg+SDL-based) |
| gstreamer | |
(1) |
|
| mpv | |
(1) |
MPlayer Showtime (gstreamer-based) SMPlayer (mplayer-based) ffplay (ffmpeg+SDL-based) |
| Kodi | |
(1) (1) |
|
| Jellyfin (server) | |
(1) (1) |
|
| Jellyfin Desktop | Use the (now archived) Qt-based client | (1) (1, 2) |
|
| PipePipe | |
(1) |
LibreTube |
| NewPipe | |
(1) |
LibreTube |
Terminal Emulators
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| iTerm2 | |
(1) |
| Ghostty | |
(1) |
| Kitty | |
(1, 2, 3) |
Note
Alternative terminal emulators
Developer Tools
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
atuin |
Built-in shell history | AI command generation, LLM PRs accepted |
| Sapling | Continue using git itself |
.codex and .llms directories, .claude folder |
cargo-nextest |
Just use cargo test |
CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md in repository |
| Golly | 5.0 release notes say the app icon is generated by Claude. | |
Jujutsu |
Continue using git itself |
A core dev occasionally uses Claude to generate local test cases.; Merged Claude commits (e.g. 1, 2, 3) |
just |
A Make implementation | Lists an MCP server in its User Manual. |
mold linker |
GNU ld, LLVM lld | Copilot use |
| Taskfile | A Make implementation | Uses Copilot for PRs |
wild linker |
GNU ld, LLVM ld | Allows AI use, doesn't require disclosure, accepts AI code |
curl |
An older version; wget? | Core maintainer uses LLMs for code review (e.g. 1, 2, 3), and is quoted in the description of the Aisle Research Bot LLM. See also this post |
rsync |
An older version: 3.4.1 and below; Maybe scp or FTP client? (not applicable to the all cases) |
For now (2026-03-15) two top commits at 2026-03-01 were "coauthored" by Claude LLM, see: 1 and 2 |
npmx |
npmjs | Include copilot-instructions.md; permissive AI policy; makes use of CoderabbitAI; merges PRs with Claude commits |
Note
On task runners and
make(1)implementations:A lot of Make implementations exist that are very fit to replace other task runners. In fact so many were produced, that one can just look up "GNU Make alternative" and find >10 results to pick the one they like the best. Also see: wikipedia/Make Here are some Make implementation suggestions:
name description GNU Make the most complete one, extra extensions, guile scripting, exports, etc. NetBSD make Make used to build NetBSD ports tree Jam OSS rewrite by Perforce
Document Viewers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sumatra PDF | v3.5.2 |
(1) |
Xournal++ |
Programming Languages
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| .NET | v9.0.0 | (1, 2, 3) (1) |
See below |
| Julia | v1.11.4 | (1 (1, 2) |
See below |
| Kotlin | v2.3.0 | (1, 2) (1) |
See below |
| mruby | v3.3.0 | (1) (1, 2) |
See below |
| Nim | e2a3063 |
(1, 2, 3) |
Ada? |
| Python | v3.14.0a4 | (1, 2) (1) |
See below |
| MicroPython | 1.26.1 | (1, 2, 3) |
See below |
| CircuitPython | 9.2.9 | (1, 2, 3) |
See below |
| Ruby | v.3.3.8 | (1, 2) (1) |
See below |
| Scala | v3.3.6-RC1 | (1, 2, 3) |
See below |
| TruffleRuby | v33.0.0 | (1, 2) (1) |
See below |
| Typescript | v5.1.3 | (1, 2, 3) |
See below |
Note
On alternative languages:
Suggestions for alternative programming languages are necessarily more complex than many other categories considered here, as that's one of the core technical choices to be made when starting a new software development project.
Depending on your needs and technical concerns, you may find any number of different alternative languages useful. For example, when considering alternatives to .NET, Java may be an interesting candidate from the perspective of being a similar VM-based framework.
- Clojure - dynamic, compiled, general-purpose programming language: AI-generated code not accepted
- Java - memory safe, object-oriented, VM-based programming language: AI-generated code not accepted
- Zig - general-purpose, compiled, system programming language: Strict No LLM / No AI Policy
Editors
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helix | |
(1) |
See editors below |
| Joplin | |
(1) |
See note software below |
| Logseq | |
(1) |
See note software below |
| Neovim | |
(1, 2, 3) |
See editors below |
| VIm | v9.1.0189 | (1, 2, 3) |
See editors below |
| VS Code | |
(1) (1, 2, 3) |
VSCodium's builds disable AI "features" |
| Zed | |
(1) (1, 2, 3) |
Lapce Gram (fork) Others (emacs, etc.) |
Note
Note Software Alternatives
- Zettlr (Markdown-based)
Note
Alternative TUI Code Editors
- emacs
- EVi
- vim-classic
- Other forks of VIm prior to March 20th 2024, build v9.1.0190 or commit
8950bf7f8b85c1287d4e696965d88091fcc60594
Accessibility Tools
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| espeak-ng | |
(1, 2) (1, 2) |
espeak (note: heavily outdated and very bad from a modern standpoint), flite |
| Nametag | |
(1, 2, 3) |
Monica |
Microcontroller Tools and Libraries
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| FastLED | 3.10.1 |
(1, 2, 3) |
|
| ch32-hal | |
(1, 2, 3) |
Official WCH C SDK's, ch32fun |
Service Monitoring
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uptime Kuma | |
(1) |
|
| Glitchtip | |
(1) |
|
Programming Language-Specific Tooling
C
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| harfbuzz | Not realistically replaceable currently, use earlier version. | Core developer enthusiastically discloses LLM usage | |
| sd-bus (via systemd) | basu (sd-bus extracted from systemd 2 years before first AI commits) | See systemd section | |
| zlib-ng | zlib | LLM-powered Coderabbit reviews are used extensively for pull requests: Example, contains commits authored by Claude: 1, 2, 3 |
C++
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| spdlog | v1.16.0 |
(1, 2) (1) |
|
| SQLiteCpp | v3.3.3 |
SQLite's first-party interface | (1, 2) |
CSS
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
tailwindcss |
twind |
Sponsorship page states explicitly that the founder uses AI to write code and even sells access to his "Cursor/Claude/AGENTS.md rules" |
JavaScript And TypeScript
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zod | TypeBox (in grey area) | CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .cursorrules in GitHub repo | Is also sponsored by AI startups |
| Valibot | TypeBox (in grey area) | Uses LLM's in GitHub issues and PR's; prompts folder; LLMs.txt |
|
| ArkType | TypeBox (in grey area) | Uses an LLM for PR review (e.g. PR #1594), accepted a PR from someone using Claude, and has an llms.txt | Contains a Cursor instruction file that may be pro-LLM |
| Electron | Using native GUIs, such as GTK, instead of making a web site | Contains CLAUDE.md and commits from Claude (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) | |
| nvm | AGENTS.md, with precursor copilot rules dating back to July 2025 |
Python
Note that Python is itself tainted; see the Programming Languages section.
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chardet | 6.0.0.post1 |
(1, 2) |
charset_normalizer |
| JupyterLab | v4.5.6 |
(1) (1) |
Possibly Emacs (1, 2) |
| Requests | |
(1) |
urllib.request in Python Standard Library |
| Textual | v7.5.0 |
(1) (1) |
pytermgui |
Rust
Also, there is an advisory database of Rust slopware crates, which you can use in tools like cargo-deny: https://codeberg.org/1millibyte/rust-slopdb.
Game Engines
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| UPBGE 0.5 | UPBGE 0.36.1 seems to be slop-free | 0.5 release notes state the use of AI in plain language |
| Godot Engine | Pandemonium Engine | Allows LLM contributions (also see this comment) |
Audio
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| HISE | DPF | Include AGENTS.md |
| zrythm | Ardour (opinions may vary whether it is a replacement or not) | CLAUDE.md in repository |
| FineTune | BackgroundMusic | Include CLAUDE.md in the .gitignore |
| SimpMusic | Include CLAUDE.md and .claude directory; offers AI integration for song suggestions |
Messaging
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Mattermost | |
(1) (1) |
| Telegram | |
(1) |
| Zulip | |
(1) |
| Sharkord | |
(1, 2) |
| ArcaneChat | None | (1) (1) |
| Delta Chat | |
(1 (1, 2, 3) |
Note
Messaging alternatives
Package Managers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| brew | |
(1) |
Build packages from source |
| macports | |
(1) |
Build packages from source |
| PiKISS | |
(1) |
Use system repositories provided by your distro or manual installation of software |
Password Management
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| AliasVault | |
(1) |
| Bitwarden | |
(1) |
| KeepassXC | |
(1, 2, 3) |
Note
Password manager alternatives
- vaultwarden (server) / rbw (client)
- KeePass 2. It is a .NET application, but Mono or Wine can be used for non-Windows platforms.
- KeePassXC 2.7.9 was released before the statement, and was awarded 3 year security Visa by the French National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) for a First-level Security Certification (CSPN), valid in France and Germany, under report No. ANSSI-CSPN-2025/16 (archive.org, certificate).
- KeePassChi: A fork of KeePass 2.7.9 with clear stance against LLMs.
- Secrets uses the KeePass file format.
- Password managers based on pass or Himitsu could be interesting.
Git Servers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gitea | |
(1, 2, 3) (1) |
Forgejo (self-hosted) or Codeberg (hosted) |
| GitLab | |
(1) |
Forgejo (self-hosted) or Codeberg (hosted) |
Blogging Software
Content Management Systems
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost | |
(1) |
WriteFreely |
| Wagtail | |
(1) (1) |
WriteFreely |
| WordPress | |
(1, 2) |
WriteFreely |
| Bludit | |
(1) (1) |
WriteFreely |
Static Site Generators
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Hugo | |
(1, 2, 3) |
| Pelican | |
(1) |
| Zola | |
(1) |
Note
Static site generators alternatives
- Bridgetown
- BSSG
- Jekyll maybe? No signs of AI in the repo but also no clear statement provided
- Haunt
- Zine
Services and Utilities
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calibre | 8.15.0 |
(1) |
BookLore Clbre, a Calibre fork without AI Arcalibre, a Calibre hard-fork from before AI features |
| somafm_tui | |
(1, 2) |
soma-player |
File Storage
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| MinIO | Garage | Advertises AI as their primary focus on their website. |
| Nextcloud | seafile for file storage and syncing only (not a complete worksuite replacement) | ✨ Nextcloud Assistant (can be disabled) Nextcloud Desktop has AGENTS.md |
| SeaweedFS | Garage for S3 api + JuiceFS for the NFS mounts and K8s CSI driver Rook/Ceph |
Using Gemini and coderabbitai in PRs. |
Game Managers
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Lutris | Bottles | Issue "is lutris slop now" & Discussion "is lutris slop now" |
Social Media
This is for both social media websites and apps.
Servers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bluesky | |
(1) |
See below |
rsky |
|
(1, 2, 3) |
See below |
| PeerTube | |
(1) (1) |
|
| Mastodon | |
(1) |
See below |
| Misskey | |
(1) |
See below |
| Lemmy | |
(1) |
|
Note
Generic social media server alternatives
- GoToSocial
- Wafrn supports both ActivityPub and ATproto
- snac2
- Iceshrimp.NET
- Epicyon
Clients
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| IceCubesApp for iOS | |
(1) |
Feditext (an iOS fediverse app in beta), wafrn-rn |
| Bluesky Social App | |
(1) (1, 2, 3) |
wafrn-rn |
Unified Push Distributors
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| ntfy-sh | see below | v2.18.0 is "14,997 added lines of code [...] written by Cursor and Claude" (archive) |
list of unified push distributors at: https://unifiedpush.org/users/distributors:
- Sunup
- NextPush (see entry for NextCloud on taintedness)
- Conversations (XMPP client) or one of the forks
Budgeting
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Actual | Include AGENTS.md; Used Open Collective funds for Cursor subscription | |
| Firefly III | Include agents.md |
System Services and Daemons
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| framework-system | 50a18e8 |
(1, 2) |
BIOS settings, UI widgets, /proc |
| lvm2 | |
(1,2,3) |
|
| rsyslog | |
(1) |
syslog-ng |
| systemd | |
(1, 2) |
dinit, s6, OpenRC, shepherd |
| wireplumber | |
(1) |
|
| Mesa3D | |
(1) |
|
Bootloaders
| Name | Alternative(s) | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Limine | Hyper, GRUB | This entry was added by the creator and main maintainer of Limine. Limine does not ban code authored by LLMs or anyone/anything else, as long as it's reviewed by a human. The author has used LLMs (Claude Code) numerous times for many commits. |
Operating Systems
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| DragonFlyBSD | |
(1) |
See below |
| FreeBSD | |
(1) |
See below |
| FreeDOS | |
(1) (1, 2) |
The original MS-DOS source code is under the Expat/MIT license |
| Linux Kernel | |
(1) (1) |
See below |
| MidnightBSD | ed4b0a5 |
(1) (1) (1, 2, 3) |
See below |
| NixOS | |
(1, 2, 3) |
GNU Guix System |
| OpenBSD | |
(1, 2) |
See below |
| ReactOS | d4993c6 |
(1) (1, 2, 3) |
Wine for some use cases |
| TrueNAS | |
(1) |
|
Note
Alternative operating systems
Operating systems are a tough ask. No matter what you choose, support will be inferior compared to an operating system with the Linux kernel, so don't feel pressured to switch.
- MirBSD has banned LLMs
- NetBSD has a somewhat ambiguous policy
- illumos and its distributions remain unaffected as of April 2026.
- RedoxOS has banned LLMs
- Haiku has banned LLMs
Virtualization
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Botspot Virtual Machine | |
(1) |
QEMU + virt-manager |
VPN Software
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headscale | |
(1, 2, 3) |
|
| netbird | |
(1) |
|
| nebula | |
(1) |
|
Window Managers
| Name | Last Untainted Version or Commit ID | Tags and Evidence | Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyprland | |
(1) |
|
| i3 | |
(1, 2) |
|
| Niri | |
(1) |
|
Why not LLMs?
Could use some help writing this with concrete receipts on environmental, social, political, and economic/labor harms.
Legal Ramifications
LLMs are often trained on, and thus prone to, regurgitate either completely, or in-part, chunks of code that are licensed under terms which have specific legal requirements that a sloperator may not understand or even be aware of when making a contribution. Regardless of this ignorance, it falls to the repo's owner to comply with the terms of any and all licensed code integrated into their project.
Legal Cases And Law Problems
- copilot litigations, IEEE article explaining how we go here
- broader lawsuits against AI companies tracker
License Problems
Legal, copyright and ethic problems arise especially with copyleft licenses such as (A/L)GPL. With the "help" of AI the copyleft code may be "license-washed" very easily.
There are ongoing problems with AI "license-washing" in the FOSS world:
chardet- switched from LGPL to MIT license without asking all contributors (which itself is a violation of GPL)- relicensed release: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/releases/tag/7.0.0
- original author's concerns: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/327
- "consumer's" concerns: https://github.com/chardet/chardet/issues/331
Stolen Training Data
AI companies use data from across the web for training their models, most often without the website owners' and users' consent. Big tech companies like Google and Meta are scraping data from the users of major FOSS projects, such as Mastodon, WordPress, and other ActivityPub-powered and self-hosted software.
- In 2023, the Washington Post published a list of sources in Google's C4 data set. A multitude of fediverse instances and personal sites were included. The fediverse is known for its userbase being major proponents of privacy and opt-in consent, making this especially jarring for those who have chosen to use decentralized social media for control over their data.
- In 2025, a similar leak of Meta's sources was published. Meta's list demonstrates how their integration of ActivityPub into their Threads software has enhanced their ability to mine content without authorization. Threads is widely blocked in some parts of the fediverse, but their scraping of server CDNs has allowed them to get around that. Notably, both the CDN domains of the managed hosting services masto.host and fedi.monster are included in the list; large servers like mastodon.art, which is hosted by the former and has many artists who've left sites like DeviantArt and others due to their AI scraping of user content, had media unknowingly scraped.
FOSS projects listed in this repo are using tooling that blatantly disregard licensing and violate of Codes of Conduct, making said tools antithetical to FOSS' purpose.
Environmental Impact
To start learning a bit more, you can checkout the wikipedia page on Environmental impact of artificial intelligence. We're very open to people contributing other explanations, links, and resources to learn more about this. Here's what we've gathered so far:
- MIT News: Generative AI’s environmental impact
- MIT Technology Review: We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.
Labor
AI usage and normalization contributes to labor violations in many ways that are obvious and some you may not be aware of.
On one hand, many things that you think are "AI" are actually humans in another country pretending to be an AI chatbot for you for either extremely low wages or in some cases, no wages e.g. prison labor. This is particularly common for "friend"/"sex" bots, but it is also extremely common in the image/video identification. You can find a bit more info at the following links:
- Long hours and low wages: the human labour powering AI’s development
- OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic
- 'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back
- These Prisoners Are Training AI: In high-wage Finland, where clickworkers are rare, one company has discovered a novel labor force—prisoners.
- Amazon grocery stores previously reported to use AI actually used people in India
Poor Code Quality
Vibe coding / agentic workflows result in poorer code quality, and relaxed oversight practices. These effects may be compounded by the common practice of using additional LLM-based tooling to provide code-reviews.
- How I Dropped Our Production Database and Now Pay 10% More for AWS
- Claude Tested Everything Except the One Thing That Mattered (Ai agent refuses to follow explicit instructions to test
createPost()in increasingly erratic ways) - Amazon calls engineers for a “deep dive” internal meeting to discuss “GenAI”-related outages
- GitClear has released reports in 2024 and 2025 indicating a worsening of key code quality metrics correlating with increased LLM adoption.
Deskilling
There is increasing evidence to show that LLMs negatively impact developers' coding abilities:
- Brains show less activity when completing tasks with LLMs compared to completing tasks with search or completing tasks without digital help.
- Developers who use early-2025 LLMs reported higher subjective performance, but were measured to have lower objective performance. This gap between subjective and objective performance was considered notable.
- In an Anthropic study, learners using LLMs demonstrated lower learning rates on average compared to learners not using LLMs.
- A recent study uses the term "cognitive surrender" to describe the way humans tend to offload key critical thinking skills onto LLMs, even when the output is wrong.
- There are anecdotal reports of LLM users forgetting how to code.
Infosec risks
This also often results in massive security holes.
- Meta Security Researcher's AI Agent Accidentally Deleted Her Emails
- Moltbook’s ‘vibe-coded’ breach is the future of security failures
- In a study evaluating over 500k code samples, LLM-generated code was found to contain more high-risk security vulnerabilities than human-generated code
- LLMs make up package names, making them vulnerable to incorporating malicious code in "slopsquatting" attacks (Arxiv study)
Healthy and Safety
There's been a number of high profile incidents that have resulted in endangerment or death. Here's some examples:
LLM use has also been linked to new-onset psychosis.
Ties to the War Industrial Complex
A lot of AI companies also work directly with nation states for use in their Departments of War (sometimes called Defense) which in turn leads to further AI usage during war and invasions. This is coupled with NYT: Palantir, Anthropic and small start-ups are generating rewards from their investments in defense tech.
As another example NPR: OpenAI announced Pentagon deal after Trump banned Anthropic which was due to the USA Department of War launching an AI acceleration strategy.
Due to the nature of LLMs being only kind of as good as the data they are trained on, this can lead to additional civilian deaths and housing/infrastructure damage either intensionally or not. Examples:
Content Warning: War details, death
- Gaza: UN experts deplore use of purported AI to commit ‘domicide’ in Gaza, call for reparative approach to rebuilding
- Lavender & Where’s Daddy: How Israel Used AI to Form Kill Lists & Bomb Palestinians in Their Homes
- Microsoft says it provided AI to Israeli military for war
- Google has dropped its promise not to use AI for weapons
All of this to remind you that if you use AI, you're helping to support these companies and the additional activities they participate in, outside of generative code or images.
Effects on Policing
Police have quickly embraced AI, which has already directly led to people being jailed for things they've never done. As examples:
- This Grandmother was jailed for 6 months after an AI error linked her to a crime in a state she had never even visited
- How Wrongful Arrests Based on AI Derailed 3 Men's Lives
This is, in part, due to companies such as Amazon Aggressively pushing police to use AI which they do through both facial recognition and offering compute for predictive policing. With regards to facial recognition, here's an example of how it too can lead to false arrests: Face Recognition on Flawed Data.
There have been warnings about AI in policing, particularly around racial bias, such as:
- Bennan Center of Justice: The Dangers of Unregulated AI in Policing
- OxJournal: Predictive Policing or Predictive Prejudice? A Study of the Legal, Historical and Ethical Implications of AI in Policing
- The Guardian: Police AI Chief admits crime fighting tech will have bias...
- A third of all Black children were flagged by a child services agency
Maintainer Fatigue
Having to deal with the onslaught of many LLM written pull requests and issues, causes real maintainer burnout that stagnates projects as maintainers become overwhelmed with half baked, poorly written, insecure code. Here's some examples:
- Overrun with AI slop, cURL scraps bug bounties to ensure “intact mental health”
- Godot maintainers struggle with 'draining and demoralizing' AI slop submissions
- An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me (matplotlib)
Effect on Hardware Prices
The demand for construction and outfitting of new data-centers to host AI/LLM compute capacity has overwhelmed global supply and production of multiple hardware components. Memory, Storage, and GPUs have seen massive increases in price for both consumer and enterprise models upward of 400% in some cases.
The lack of supply has led large system-builders to purchase production capacity from OEMs well in-advance of delivery leading some manufacturers to end consumer-oriented product lines in favor of enterprise capacity.
The down-stream effects for consumers is that near all electronic devices which contain memory and storage will see their prices rise and availability decline. Those who already own existing electronics and computer hardware components may also find themselves unable to have their devices repaired or replaced under warranty.
This all results in shrinking the pool of people who have access to building home computers for any purpose, from gaming to coding to home labs, which in turn makes the tech industry less diverse due to people who have been historically marginalized having less financial resources to learn the skills at home. When this is factored in with the price of college being unaffordable in many places, we will see a sharper decline in disabled people, people of color, women, and the queer community entering the tech industry.
License
This repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International license. Please see LICENSE.txt for more information.