Unix Foo Essays on unix.foo

Local AI Needs to be the Norm

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:21:33 -0800

One of the current trends in modern software is for developers to slap an API call to OpenAI or Anthropic for features within their app. Reasonable people can quibble with whether those features are actually bringing value to users, but what I want to discuss is the fundamental concept of taking on a dependency to a cloud hosted AI model for applications.

This laziness is creating a generation of software that is fragile, invades your privacy, and fundamentally broken. We are building applications that stop working the moment the server crashes or a credit card expires.

The Insecurity of Debian

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In June of 2023 Red Hat made a controversial decision to change how they distribute the source code behind Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). There have been a lot of keyboards tapped angrily across social media that left many uncertain about the ramifications of the decision. There were many questions about the future viability of downstream rebuilds of RHEL affecting distributions like Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Oracle Linux, and others. Each have since made announcements to try and calm their communities.

What's Wrong With Enterprise Linux

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Enterprise Linux model works something like this:

It’s decided to snapshot a collection of upstream open source projects at a specific version, including the Linux kernel, to form as the basis of a new cohesive version of an Enterprise Linux distribution. This collection of software will remain locked at its specific version throughout the lifespan of that Enterprise Linux distribution release – which is often 10 years or more.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Contra vagos

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