Yes, the author gives many examples of how different students and interviewees draw different lines about when to use it and how to use it ... or not use it.
I found this line particularly poignant: "Torn between their values and their pragmatism, the desire to improve themselves and the fear of being left behind, they’re arguing with each other about AI even more than the faculty are."
Thing is, "And funnily enough, DeVault himself awkwardly failed to state his own flawed policy. ... One of the most consequential pieces of free software on the planet, and the guy writing the rule can't tell you which side it lands on." is a misinterpretation.
That text points to the discussion topic, dated 19 Aug 2026, when the policy was not yet decided and in flux.
The final policy is "original content written with or which facilitates the use of LLMs (large language models) or other generative AI technologies", with interpretation at https://sourcehut.org/blog/2026-08-27-tos-changes-and-llms/ posted 27 Aug 2026.
>Drew DeVault: This policy is worded carefully to allow some room for reasonable interpretation. For instance, the choice to target “original” content in the policy is intended to allow you to host mirrors of major codebases that may have more lenient LLM policies, such as the Linux kernel. An individual who contributes to a project like Linux can host their personal tree and stage patches on SourceHut, and a Linux kernel subsystem which has an internal policy on LLM use which aligns with SourceHut is welcome to host their tree, mailing lists, and so on, on our platform, without worrying about the impact of AI-assisted code in the rest of Linux. However, SourceHut would not be suitable as the upstream platform for the broader Linux project as a consequence of their liberal LLM policy.
> That's the actual thing wrong here. Not that they have opinions today, but that you can never know what they'll have opinions about tomorrow, and they'll never tell you in advance.
I've used Sourceforge, Google Code, GitHub, BitBucket, and others.
Over time these added annoying ads, mandated 2FA, shut down, and dropped support for Mercurial support, as examples.
The lesson learned it that organizational interests always override your interests. Every single one is a potential trap with a grace period - and I got trapped by each and every one.
> Now imagine you were one of the people who put a crypto project on Codeberg in 2020, or used AI assistance for your SourceHut-hosted project in 2025, built years of community around it, and then saw the headline on HN. Your work didn't get banned for what it was. It got banned for what the platform silently decided to become, several years after you signed up for something else entirely.
For a specific example, I migrated to Sourcehut because BitBucket decided to drop Mercurial support, so my way of doing development "got banned", including code repos I made available for scientific research.
But I didn't cry out "censorship!" This is the way life is, if you depend on external services. If you want something different, set up a contract with them.
> What got pitched was an alternative, and thousands of people built repositories, communities, and reputations on top of that pitch in good faith.
"The 500 foot view is that sr.ht is a 100% free and open source software forge, with a hosted version of the services running at sr.ht for your convenience. Unlike GitHub, which is almost entirely closed source, and Gitlab, which is mostly open source but with a proprietary premium offering, all of sr.ht is completely open source, with a copyleft license. You’re welcome to install it on your own hardware, and detailed instructions are available for those who want to do so. You can also send patches upstream, which are then integrated into the hosted version."
The primary pitch was a forge you could use sr.ht on your own hardware, with the option of running on sr.ht services. The first helps avoid the trap of using the second.
> Now I beg that GitHub fixes its issues so people stop migrating away. Because
That's what happens when you depend on a non-free forge - you have no choice but to beg them to change.
> one of the most fundamental gifts GitHub gave to the world: Not having opinions about software.
GitHub has opinions. Its AUP says you may not use GitHub to develop "software for generating unauthorized product licensing keys, or software for bypassing checks for product licensing keys, including extension of a free license beyond its trial period".
> Now imagine this scenario: Bob hates GitHub. Bob has a legit Crypto project on Codeberg.
Now imagine this scenario. Alice, Carol, Dave, Erin, and Frank hate cryptocurrency schemes and believe it can never be a legitimate use of their dues. All have legit projects on Codeberg, but after the organization decides to support crypto projects they decide to self-host Forgejo on their own respective hardware.
How is this better for the environment?
> Or they imply that their ban meaningfully affects projects' progress and visibility, which is literally censorship
By the definition every forge does censorship because every forge has policies which meaningfully affect projects' progress and visibility.
Perhaps not US cases, but those aren't the only antitrust cases against Google.
What about Trump's threats after Google was hit with a 2.95 billion Euro fine from the European Commission's antitrust investigation?
From last year: "EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič on Monday made an 11th-hour intervention to stop the European Commission from issuing a penalty against American tech giant Google for its search advertising practices, amid continued trade threats from U.S. President Donald Trump." https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-google-antitrust-decision...
Or from https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/google-meta-big-tech-6-billi... "In February, Trump signed a memorandum stating the U.S. would consider tariffs to “combat digital service taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies.”"
My point is that your claim 'This administration has done nothing to end or undermine the antitrust cases against Google.' is incorrect if you also include European antitrust cases.
Yes, the last 50 years of post-Borkianism has resulted in an entire judicial system having a very narrow and essentially useless definition of anti-trust, far different from its original goals. That's part of the broader neo-liberal movement which started around the time of Carter, gained strength with Reagan, continued with Clinton's "triangulation" and NAFTA, and is still with us.
Yes, the League of Women Voters warned us about what you term the "two private clubs" back in 1988 when they decided to stop hosting the United States presidential debates saying that following the demands of the two parties would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter".
Yet you seem to think I'm somehow shocked that same aged corporate Democrats who supported Obama, and who now fight tooth and nail against the democratic socialist arm of their party, are somehow in actually in favor of effective antitrust enforcement?
Your rant makes it seem like you're just easily triggered by the least bit of correction.
> I want to see a third Trump term.
Ahh, you're one of those anti-Constitution people. I remember as a kid people calling out "four more years" in support of a 3rd Reagan term, as their hero worship made them forget the lesson of FDR and the Twenty-second Amendment.
Just like those people who forget the lesson of Guiteau about a consequence of whims and bribes as a way to run a government.
Are you calling for open border with no controls? That's the only way to get meritocracy.
The system is set up so the casino wins. You cannot, with a straight face, argue the odds are in your favor, but there are rules about how the casino works, both formal and informal.
When a casino only investigates cases where someone wins $1 million on the slots, to see if there's a fault in the system, while never investigating all the times that people lose, that's technically within the legal system, but the spirit of gambling is not being upheld, and people get upset. Just ask Katerina Bookman.
The immigration system, with the thumb firmly in favor of the interests of capital, is still based on the expectation of good faith by those running the system, as doing otherwise results in orders of magnitude more rules, or an alternate set of unspoken rules based more on vibes.
"Pausing" is a bad faith breaking of the spirit of the system.
I think what he's saying is if a corporation has a genuine need of some high specialist in a skill, and no American has that skill - then okay, such is life - bring in a foreign worker. But corporations have abused the system to unnecessarily employ immigrant labor in lieu of American, because immigrant workers not only tend to earn well below market wages (which is supposed to be illegal), but also tend to be far more easily coerced and loyal because their visa is dependent upon them staying with their employer.
> I think what he's saying is if a corporation has a genuine need of some high specialist in a skill, and no American has that skill - then okay, such is life - bring in a foreign worker.
I don't think so, as that would be a silly point to make. I mean, it's absurd to assume a hiring round should't extend offers to other candidates if current applicants can just barely meet the hiring bar. This is a contrived scenario intended to rationalize excluding better candidates on technicalities that only serve the interest of low-skilled, low-competence applicants that can't compete.
And by the way, I've worked with my fair share of US emigrants, both veterans and juniors fresh out of college, and I would hardly describe them as raising the hiring bar. Nevertheless it would be colossally stupid to argue they should have not been considered for the position just because they were foreigners.
Most H1-Bs earn well below market rates for the roles they fill. [1] The exact data gives 46% of H1-B's earning in the 34th percentile of local rates for their roles, and 60% below the median. That's hard to square against them being world class super employees.
But the interesting thing is that there's a simple solution that we should both be able to agree on, in spite of having quite different views. If you genuinely believe they're super-world-class workers, then you should certainly be enthusiastic about, for instance, rules that would require they be paid wages well above the median for their role. In both of our narratives, that goes a long way towards righting an injustice, we merely disagree on for whom.
But this solution solves it in all cases. And the companies using, but not abusing, H1-Bs certainly wouldn't mind since they'd be mostly unaffected. Finally this would also help prevent wage stagnation. There are many hundreds of thousands H1-Bs and them being paid such low wages is going to have an affect on the market.
> Most H1-Bs earn well below market rates for the roles they fill.
The problem with visas such as H1-B is not salaries. They are a consequence of the exploitation conducted by US employers. The problem with H1-B-style visas is that in practice they work as a modern day take on indentured servitude, and they are designed as a oppression tool where employers can coerce employees to remain at their service under threat of seeing their life uprooted.
So,framing visa discussions on how they make it hard for incompetente locals to compete for jobs completely misses the problem, and helps perpetuate systems of abuse.
Some companies employ systems based on sponsorship that help attract skilled labor whose skill levels are above and beyond what's available in the country's job pool. That's something that helps grow the local industry. Framing this discussion on H1-B visas being coerced into working for meager salaries indicates that the real problem is not being identified.
The way it works in some countries in Europe is that you have to pay the foreign worker a minimum wage that is x% above industry standard for that role. No need to check if they have special skills. This will obviously not fly among corporate donors.
If true, that interpretation hardly seems relevant given that all immigrant visa applications are paused, with the goal of determining whether immigrants are likely to become dependent on public benefits in the US.
It's not simply a pause on immigration by people applying for a category which requires special expertise.
I am well aware of US immigration law history and the views of the current administration regarding immigration.
How does reading up on the history change how the stated reason for this pause has nothing to do with the meritocracy issues, fraudulent H1B visas, etc. that you complained about?
Do you think those labor issues will be improved after the training is finished, and if so, why?
How does your earlier comment explain why visas based on family preference are also apparently on pause as well?
Of course if we look at the history of US immigration we can easily see how for over 150 years it was explicitly set up to support a white supremacist race-based culture, which broke down with the civil rights movement and the incoherency of "whiteness" as a legal or scientific definition (are Arabs white? Are Asian Indians white? Are Chinese immigrants in Mississippi "white"? - https://archive.org/details/mississippichine0000loew/page/n7...).
With the current reactionary administration's antipathy towards nearly all immigration, except seemingly white South Africans and Nordics, it's far easier to interpret this action as deliberately gumming up the works and causing distress, rather than some systemic beneficial labor reform like what you want.
I assume that's what you mean by reading up on how we got here?
No I am talking about why a specific pause on 75 countries turned into this global pause that we all find concerning. You seem to have a wishful view of humanity as some post border utopia but that’s not how our or anybody’s laws work. If you want to go post border that’s a super interesting idea to talk about over some beers or whatever. But looking at our very standard immigration process and telling people who are concerned about curbing real fraud that enforcing our laws is racist is pretty out of touch.
> But corporations have abused the system to unnecessarily employ immigrant labor in lieu of American
I'm not going to say this has never happened, but in general I don't think it's common or widespread. Generally, businesses going to the trouble of bringing in foreign labor through the various programs are trying to fulfill labor shortages.
You should be able to see evidence of it happening in jobs and unemployment numbers. You'd see it higher unemployment among American citizens than the workforce as a whole
Towards the end of the Biden admin, there was a great jobs report, but right-wing media and MAGA pundits spun it by saying the vast majority of all the new jobs were taken by immigrants.
That wasn't a lie, but it wasn't because immigrants were taking jobs that would have otherwise been filled with Americans as they tried to portray. If you looked at the employment numbers by citizenship status, citizens were sitting about as close to full employment as we could ever be. The only way to fill those jobs was to expand the labor pool.
I didn’t follow your casino allegory. Anyway I happen to agree that “pausing” is inhumane. What I’m trying to communicate is we didn’t get here in a vacuum. There is a real problem and good faith attempts have been made to curtail it by putting pressure via “taxes” on the “interests of capital” abusing H1B. Cooperation would have prevented this.
I simply do not know how you can use "meritocracy" to support your position, while also supporting an artificial barrier to free movement which prevents a more competent foreign worker from moving to the US to displace you from your job.
Every day it seems a little weirder how many of these other countries are apparently passively tolerating the US/Google/Apple/etc-centric nature of parts of their internal economy.
In Europe, "US had trust" only in the "free" european media, and among politicians..
People knew and know quite well what US was and is, besides the leading academia (many, if not most, lured there by money from other countries) and the holywood circus.
It's worse than that. No bank will have business with you because that would potentially affect _their_ other customer's ability to operate normally
This is a very big hammer and reveals how foreign entities are deeply dependent on the American financial system and thus exposed to the political whims of the US.
And, of note, online payments across EU countries is most often done with American payment methods. Most Chinese companies only take US-based payment methods.
Such a sanction really narrows down where they can buy online — it's not just the US that becomes off-limits.
Is this a "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" objection, where even the slightest bit of hypocrisy or impurity justifies rejecting the argument?
If a vegetarian, who became a vegetarian because of the high environmental impact of meat production, berates you for defending data center water use, would that convince you to change your mind?
What about a vegan, who also stopped flying and doesn't drive, and is organizing a protest to shut down the local golf course?
If personhood can be applied even to something without volition then it has become such an all encompassing notion as to be essentially meaningless because when using it one will have to surround it with moat of caveats,
You are, I presume, arguing that companies should not have personhood.
I think any definition is going to have caveats. When does a fetus gain volition? Does someone in an irreversible permanent vegetative state lose personhood? Do apes or cetaceans have volition and thus personhood?
The Wikipedia page also points out that "volition" comes from a certain Western philosophical viewpoint, but other philosophies have a different idea of what personhood means.
In any case, "personhood" doesn't mean that all persons have equal legal rights. A 10 year old has personhood but, for example, cannot vote.
From the monitor, boot by entering "B". (The Zenith machines had a hardware system monitor you could drop into with control-alt-insert, which gave a very basic system inspector/debugger. I used it to crack a few games. :)
Press enter twice for the date and time to be the defaults.
Run "basic".
Get the popup "Undefined opcode 0xFF at 0x000F6001".
(Same with "basica".)
Huh. I've completely lost my edlin skills. And the emulator doesn't handle ^Z or ^C for me.
For the matter, neither of the two keyboards I have support an "insert" key.
I found this line particularly poignant: "Torn between their values and their pragmatism, the desire to improve themselves and the fear of being left behind, they’re arguing with each other about AI even more than the faculty are."
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