Re: "Why I am retiring from contributing to FreeBSD"

> On Jan 1, 2026, at 10:05 AM, Mario Marietto <marietto2008@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> -> I don't have all the facts and opinions from both sides on the topic of plausible misconduct of core@ >but i would like to comment on another related topic to this discussion which is what is hurting the >project in my opinion
> 
> >in my opinion the project is affected by paralysis due to lack of contributors for a lack of better words, >often times i see many useful patches sitting in review waiting to be approved or critical bugs in >several important ports not being patched or some new ports just sitting for years
> 
> >and the sad part is i have no idea how to properly help with this even though i want to
> 
> >some might think that i can help with reviewing patches or patching those bugs sitting there or those >ports waiting to be approved but the reality is i don't have the skills for that and even if i did i >wouldn't be making much of a big impact by myself alone
> 
> >and the sadder part is instead of seeing new contributors joining from time to time, i see many >veteran contributors leaving from time to time and i have no clear idea as to why
> 
> 
> I agree and I want to ask if the AI can help the relatively small numbers of developers to improve their work of patching new bugs. I don't mean that AI should do all the work,but I suspect that if it is used to automatize the procedures,keeping intact the brain of the developers to express their creativity,could this be acceptable as a measure to mitigate the lack of contributors,if it is intended as a temporary measure,I mean...not definitive… 

(I can’t speak for everyone; just for my self)
(Not discussing personal/specific things in public; just vague generalizations)

Hi Mario,

I don’t know about you, but personally 2025 was a royal shit show for me from start to finish with all of the personal stuff that occurred in my life.

It came in multiple waves:
- Loss of a loved one.
- Climate change induced stress.
	- The fire season was particularly bad where I was in 2025.
- Social and economic upheaval and stress.
- The dull hum (like with fluorescent lights) associated with my corporate job.
- General uncertainty over the future.

Aka “Life”.

While this doesn’t explain away everything, it might help explain some of my ability to focus, concentrate, and respond to others over the past several years (realistically since 2019~2020), but especially last year. This is part of the reason why I get snippy and overly direct sometimes over email, PRs, etc: it’s me showing my frustration over not being able to focus my time and efforts on something that I care about and help others because my time and mental faculties are getting stolen by other things in my day-to-day “life”.

I don’t know everyone’s situation in the project, but there's a lot of other folks were having problems in my part of the world; I doubt it’s going to get better in the near term. This chaos/uncertainty will likely affect a large number of developers until this situation/system achieves homeostasis or resolves itself (my bet is more on the former than the latter).

“AI" slop/enshittification has only increased the amount of shit being sprayed everyone’s way, and is only serving to distract and divide us from things that matter. Just like [anti]social media.

Take care,
-Enji (ngie@)

PS I find the current iterations of applied machine learning to be subpar and a net-negative on the whole for society based on social commentary, and my personal interactions with LLMs and what they produce. I am hopeful in whatever comes out of this “AI” mess, but the bulk majority of what I’ve seen produced by “AI” today is unusable to me for a variety of reasons. I use “AI" more as a shitty search engine these days since general purpose search engines have become such dumpster fires.