Linux memory management expert Lorenzo Stoakes at Arm who has been contributing to the kernel since 2014 is stepping away from some reviewership roles within the Linux kernel due to all of the noise from the flood of kernel patches resulting fro AI/LLMs.
Lorenzo announced today he is stepping away as a reviewer for the memory management (MM), core, misc, and Rust areas due to all the noise caused by AI. Lorenzo will continue serving as maintainer for areas of the kernel he oversees but is looking to lighten his load due to the increased patch burden in 2026.
Lorenzo commented in the patch series removing himself as reviewer for those areas of the kernel:
"Given the current throughput in the kernel resulting from AI-generated series, I unfortunately lack the bandwidth to generally be able to offer review except in those areas I maintain.
I have separated the patches into areas maintained by David, Andrew, and Alice + Danilo, so each can take the patches relevant to the subsystems, for convenience.
Apologies for doing this, but given the current trends I'd like to do something to make my inbox a little more manageable :)"
Lorenzo has been a longtime contributor to the Linux memory management code and also author of the book The Linux Memory Manager.
Let’s see how many more things can be harmed by “AI”. It’s going great!
Ban Anthropic’s IPO before they destroy the economy completely.
https://daringfireball.net/misc/2026/11/gary-marcus-anthropic-ipo.pdf
Hopefully, the amount of bugs/fixes will slow down, when “all” existing bugs and security issues has been found and fixed. Going forward, code will be AI checked, before it is pulled into the kernel, and minimise the amount of issues making it into the kernel. This could ultimately lead to less time spent on fixing these issues later.
Clearly you haven’t been in enough contact with AI generated code. I’m keeping track of merged or reviewd PRs in my team with race conditions or general concurrency issues. We’re up to ten in 3 months (that we’ve noticed). Other teams are doing the same and the numbers are unnerving
Ai cannot consider the entire codebase. It doesn’t fit into context.
Right. The most jarring concurrency issue I’ve reviewed were concentrated in one single file for the whole lifecycle of both threads. Not much context needed thete.
Why is it starting to feel like they will slopify the entire kernel?
Because they are…and Linus set it in motion by acting like LLM code slop is the way forward for linux.
Yeah Linus thinks because he can easily validate the code generated by ai and know what to use and what to discard/recreate, that everybody else can also do the same. It doesn’t work that way. This is gonna end up killing linux or somebody is gonna fork it to keep it human only
Yea which is scary as hell, Linux has always been the “security choice” for an OS…now… everyone in the security field is going to start getting a bit more cautious about it.
It’s for this reason that i’m starting to eye openbsd. Apart from wifi for my laptop not working it seems surprisingly compatible in terms of hardware, but the bigger issue would be that i would be more limited when it comes to gaming. As a Guix/Nix enjoyer i would also kinda miss declaring my OS through code. I’m probably sticking with linux for the time being but i’m gonna try getting more familiar with openbsd as well
Same here. Have been using Linux since 1998 and a daily driver since 2005. After all this time I am starting to look to alternatives to potentially jump to. Currently I run Triqsuel which uses a de-blobed kernel but all the code coming in nowadays will slip past that filter and it will increasingly fall to the wave of slop code.
I wish Haiku OS was a bit more stable because it has so much potential, but I have still found it lacking despite the brilliant work everyone has done on it.
So it might be a BSD system in future as well.
I think FreeBSD has nix support. I think it would be immature though.
FreeBSD moment
Yeah Linus thinks because he can easily validate the code generated by ai and know what to use and what to discard/recreate
I mean, the Linux kernel exists because of him? I would argue to say he knows the most about Linux than anyone arguing against him.
somebody is gonna fork it to keep it human only
People are going to generate and commit code without acknowledging the LLM usage, then 5-10 years will pass and a huge whistleblower will go ““BabaMan29484” has been committing LLM code for years and nobody except I knew about it!! [Insert evidence] [Insert community outrage] [insert fork of a fork created by “real humans”]”
I won’t argue and say that LLM generated code isn’t plagiarism, I mean it has to learn somewhere, but if it’s being audited by industry professionals I can’t see the negative to using it.
I think you partially missed their point. Linus thinks that because HE can then everyone else can too.
Exactly
The dictatorship of Technocratism. This same (circular) argument is pushed by neoliberal fuckers on austerity, when that’s just a game they were paid to play.
Software existed before Linus Torvalds and will thrive after him.
In another time line, Stallman and the GNU team don’t attempt a moonshot Kernel with Hurd and Linux kernel never gets its foot in the door. Many are still promoting Libre/Free software and not the morally corrupted open source that Linus and Eric Raymond fell into for quick success.
morally corrupted open source that Linus and Eric Raymond fell into for quick success.
Yeah you should check your sources on that, because Linux is licensed under GPL so it is actually free software, while ESR is against free software and pro open source (meanwhile he complained on his blog that he barely has enough money while his software runs on thousands of devices (e.g .gpsd)).
Lil kids, noobs, need to be taught to stop idolize guys like Greg and Linus, they went corporate and became evil.
They’re not evil, and “went corporate” is a vague and meaningless jab.
Dont idolize people is generally good advice though. I think these guys’ problem is that they’re old and jaded, and should’ve stepped down long ago. If there’s no one fit to take their place, that’s a reflection of their failure as leaders.
They are evil, they have to be to play along. The big money dictates what happens in the Linux Foundation
Are you donating to Linux? The only reason Linux is where it is at now is big money. Ifnitbwas just people coding in their spare time it would be no where near where it is today. People have to make money. Do youbwork for free?
I do work for free if it is for the greater good. Any works I have done by myself are all copyleft. I have even inherited loads of copyrights from written works that I immediately put into public domain.
Live simply, don’t use much, share as much as possible.
You need to think outside the capitalistic logic.
You need to think with any logic at all
First step in licence laundering
Halloween is over, so put away your strawman.
Because you have decided that any use of AI is badwrongfun
Working on the kernel is not supposed to be fun, attempting to make it fun by utilizing AI is unambiguously bad and wrong.
Utilising AI is not unambiguously band and wrong, stop believing vloggers from four years ago as your only source of truth on the matter.
AI found a bunch of security issues that up until now had not been found. Just because no one had found them doesn’t mean the security exposure wasn’t there. Talk about shooting the messenger (AI in this case). Lorenzo should ask himself why the vulnerabilities hadn’t been found until now.
Are you serious? He’s one human being. He’s not getting paid to do this. All the people who volunteer their time to maintain Linux have lives and jobs too. He didn’t “shoot the messenger” He said "Given the current throughput in the kernel resulting from AI-generated series, I unfortunately lack the bandwidth to generally be able to offer review except in those areas I maintain.
I have separated the patches into areas maintained by David, Andrew, and Alice + Danilo, so each can take the patches relevant to the subsystems, for convenience.
Apologies for doing this, but given the current trends I’d like to do something to make my inbox a little more manageable :)"
It’s right there in the post. It doesn’t matter if the vulnerabilities are valid or not. The man can’t keep up with doing everything he’d been doing because its just too much work for one person to handle.
There seems to be a lot of entitlement in the open source consumer community. It’s kinda wild how so many people seem to think they can dictate how people spend their personal time just because they (wannabe dictator) like the thing they (the person spending their free time making free shit) made.
I think it’s because of capitalism as cliche as that sounds. People are so used to the idea that they’re entitled to things and stuff like “the customer is always right” that they’ve got it in their head that the consumer is sacred. That they have rights or something as the user. That people who make things should be grateful they use them. Rather than the other way around being the case. If you use FOSS software and you never donate to any of them, never submit issues, never provide diagnostic data, etc then you are just a leech. You aren’t entitled to anything. There’s nothing wrong with leeching off something like this that’s why people make it but for fucks sake be grateful. Even a little bit of money makes a difference btw. I use Debian and I will send them 5-10$ a year. I’m also considering sending them some of my old hardware but I’m not sure if it would be very useful to them lol.
Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it’s also created a bunch of entitled paying customers, too, eg the ones that think screaming at front line employees is going to do dick all to help them. I’m happy to see more businesses in my area with signs saying they’ll kick out abusive customers and hope it becomes the norm.
The hilarious (because it’s so outrageous) part is they trained several generations that the customer is supposed to be the boss but then leave hired help to actually deal with those customers, including enforcing policies that go directly against customer wants. And then if someone manages to find their contact info to complain directly to them, they usually bend immediately because they don’t want to deal with them either. But they only bend for that specific case while all the other similar ones still get the previous policy.
It’s the psychosis of the petit bourgeois. They’re treated like a sacred cow but only while spending their money. In all other aspects they are treated as expendable. And so they cling to this one area of privlege like their life depends on it.
I agree broadly, but how do we know he isn’t being paid by ARM for this work?
Even if he is he was being paid for the workload he was doing before. That workload has vastly increased. It would not be reasonable to expect him to take on a bunch of new work with no pay increase. And that’s assuming its even possible for him to do it all by himself.
yes i can also point an LLM on the kernel, instruct it to find vulnerabilities and it will invent one because it’s a sycophantic removed. Doesn’t change the fact that 80% of those reports are absolutely worthless and that are also written by LLM are miserable to read and verify.
This is actually a great opportunity for you to bolster your argument on multiple fronts.
Grab your favourite LLM , point it at that article and ask it to summarise the meaning.
See how that stacks up against the take you just posted.
For bonus points, also provide the prompt, name of model/harness used and the response you were given, for independent verification.
That way, you get to promote your favourite workflow and provide corroborating evidence of interpretation.
i don’t know how you nterpreted that article, but to me it was just a dude overwhelmed by volume, and sending some to others so he can continue to be effective. i don’t think he was claiming anything about AI or the patches themselves.
You may very well be right and I was being influenced by the general hatred of AI in Lemmy. As someone who volunteers my time, I can relate when the commitment changes exponentially while being completely out of my control. Thanks for pointing that out.
your last sentence is not like the others
This is why I am downloading Debian 13 and its entire repository tonight (~500gb). I want to make sure I have a working copy archived.
I see that there are a few people that do not like this but it seems like a reasonable contingency plan considering the way things are going. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
Where can I find the entire repository? Can find all the pakkages butt no “download all”
Assuming you are installing on a 64bit PC, and that I read the docs correctly.
- Install “debmirror”
- Mount destination USB drive (2TB is ideal) to “/mnt/<your_biggo_disco>”
- run the following command
debmirror --arch=amd64
–method=http
–host=deb.debian.org
–root=debian
–dist=trixie,trixie-updates
–section=main,contrib,non-free,non-free-firmware
–nosource
/mnt/<your_biggo_disco>That should work. Give it a test drive before committing to an all night archiving.
Any idea how much more the sources take?
Just set up a mirror
Exactly.
I am working on it and I’ll try to share a script for it. I’ll reply to your comment again once I do.
I’ve already done this for Debian Testing if you run into any problems let me know.
What was your download total?
138GB:
sudo debmirror --nosource -m --passive --progress --verbose --host=deb.debian.org --root=/debian --method=http --dist=testing --arch=amd64 --rsync-extra=none locationcensored/DebMirror
I use mine for pulling packages because I want it to work without internet. I just keep a USB stick with the installer to install the distro from and then would point my sources to the local mirror and update it for an installation. That’s not really my use case tho since it’s more something to help me maintain my existing installation and always have any packages I might want. Not meant to be a full backup. So yours being bigger does make some sense.
Way smaller. Like 180GB or something like that I don’t remember exactly. But I didn’t do the full mirror I just did source and non-freefirmware and stuff like that. I can check my mirror update command when i get on my desktop to see exactly what I did. I have a script that has it in there.
🙏
Oh my God you people. 😂🤣
Huh. Guess I’ll be looking even harder at switching to a BSD to escape the slop.
NetBSD is the most mature AI-free BSD. MirOS is a bit niche, but strictly anti-AI. HyperbolaBSD has yet to be released, but their goal is to be fully-libre, and they also are against AI. AlpineBSD is up-and-coming, and I’m watching it.
OpenBSD is pretty great. I really hope open source projects settle into a human write + LLM static review workflow but I know that’s wishful thinking.
Till then OpenBSD/NetBSD
Lol you mean Microsoft? They are all in on AI.
I use both daily, so I get to experience it from both ends.
BSD
Yeah - Blue Screen of Death = Microsoft
Good… This is called karma.
We needed a serious alternative since a long time ago anyway. Enshitification of the Linux Foundation hopefully will trigger the rise of a less fascist, maybe even antifascist, organisation.
The Linux Foundation is the enshitification itself.
We need that new organization however I wouldn’t know where to look right know: the FSF is full of libertarians. It’s a miracle that they created the GPLs. And the *BSDs are even worse.
We’re in a dire need of something not tainted by braindead American ideologies.
As long as two conditions are fulfilled, and I look at the track record here, I don’t give a shit about personal background:
- The organization does work that is either democratic socialist or is compatible with democratic socialism.
- The organization readily hires, has no negative selectivity when it comes to promoting, respects, includes, enfranchises, cooperates with, actual known track record dem soc people and projects.
And this is 100% in line with my approach in general. Outside software, I consider Islam and Christianity to have negative doctrinal elements, but I 100% support Zohran Mamdani, Abdul el Sayed, and James Talarico. I don’t put a lot of weight on personal background, and do my best to judge based on track record.
I consider libertarianism and ancappism to be highly toxic, but as a background, it won’t detract from the good work the folks are doing.
For all I know, without some weighty evidence, these “libertarians” are closeted democratic socialists. We can’t throw orgs like the FSF, that have done amazing good work, under the bus casually.
But if a new org appears that is explicitely dem soc, and they do good work, I wencome that. There is plenty of space under the sun for many good things.
You sound like a Dem. If you think Dems and whatever you call DemSoc are Leftists, oh boy, we need to talk.
But I’m not throwing out the baby with the water, the FSF did many great things. But it’s limited in what they want to do.
Agreed, this is a kind of hegemony in which I grew up with the FSF and GNU being the good guys and the best we have so I can’t imaging better.
To their credit they exist and their contribution is the best we have so far. Despite full of engineers the western communist movements can’t build anything. So W for the libertarians for that one. For now.
It would be cool to see something like Plan9 get attention or a modern revamp. The idea is super cool, IIRC it didn’t catch on because it wasn’t a compelling enough improvement on Unix for people to switch.
Can you explain what the karma is here? I’m not familiar / don’t have the context you’re referring to
They are Anti-AI but Linux kernel lead developer Linus Torvalds took a position of ‘The cat (AI) is out of the bag and not going back in, so it’s better to adapt than ban AI’ much to their chagrin.
‘karma’ = ‘you deserve this’ cue simpsons’ nelson laugh
