#bsdcafe

New rule at BSD Cafe: Do not promote AI

BSD Cafe prefers to define itself by what it supports, rather than by what it opposes.

We support people, open technologies, decentralisation, technological independence, privacy, user control, the sharing of knowledge, and communities where technology remains a tool rather than becoming the authority.

For these reasons, we cannot support the current direction of AI and the ecosystem surrounding it.

Much of today's AI technology is developed and controlled by a very small number of extremely large companies, through an unprecedented concentration of computing power, data, infrastructure, and capital. This creates dependencies that are fundamentally at odds with many of the values this community was built around.

We are also seeing increasingly direct consequences for people. Skilled professionals are losing work to automated systems. Organisations are becoming dependent on services they cannot inspect, understand, or control. AI-generated technical advice is often presented with confidence while lacking essential context. Automation is being used to scale abuse, manipulation, spam, and attacks.

At the same time, fear of these threats can itself push people and organisations towards a handful of large centralised providers, further reinforcing the same concentration of power.

The problem is not simply the existence of artificial intelligence as a technology. The problem is how these technologies are currently being developed, deployed, controlled, marketed, and increasingly presented as an inevitable replacement for human skills, judgement, creativity, and interaction.

Too often, the message coming from the companies selling these systems is essentially: this is inevitable, it will replace what you do, and you will have to adapt to it whether you want to or not.

At the BSD Cafe, we believe there must always be another choice.

For this reason, we ask members not to use BSD Cafe to promote, advertise, or evangelise AI services, or the idea that replacing human work and decision-making with AI is inherently desirable, inevitable, or something everyone should simply accept.

This does not prevent discussion.

But please do not use this community to promote the current AI-driven model of technological centralisation and human replacement.

"Own your data" and the current state of AI are simply not compatible.

#BSDCafe #BSDCafeRules

New rule at BSD Cafe: Do not promote AI

BSD Cafe prefers to define itself by what it supports, rather than by what it opposes.

We support people, open technologies, decentralisation, technological independence, privacy, user control, the sharing of knowledge, and communities where technology remains a tool rather than becoming the authority.

For these reasons, we cannot support the current direction of AI and the ecosystem surrounding it.

Much of today's AI technology is developed and controlled by a very small number of extremely large companies, through an unprecedented concentration of computing power, data, infrastructure, and capital. This creates dependencies that are fundamentally at odds with many of the values this community was built around.

We are also seeing increasingly direct consequences for people. Skilled professionals are losing work to automated systems. Organisations are becoming dependent on services they cannot inspect, understand, or control. AI-generated technical advice is often presented with confidence while lacking essential context. Automation is being used to scale abuse, manipulation, spam, and attacks.

At the same time, fear of these threats can itself push people and organisations towards a handful of large centralised providers, further reinforcing the same concentration of power.

The problem is not simply the existence of artificial intelligence as a technology. The problem is how these technologies are currently being developed, deployed, controlled, marketed, and increasingly presented as an inevitable replacement for human skills, judgement, creativity, and interaction.

Too often, the message coming from the companies selling these systems is essentially: this is inevitable, it will replace what you do, and you will have to adapt to it whether you want to or not.

At the BSD Cafe, we believe there must always be another choice.

For this reason, we ask members not to use BSD Cafe to promote, advertise, or evangelise AI services, or the idea that replacing human work and decision-making with AI is inherently desirable, inevitable, or something everyone should simply accept.

This does not prevent discussion.

But please do not use this community to promote the current AI-driven model of technological centralisation and human replacement.

"Own your data" and the current state of AI are simply not compatible.

#BSDCafe #BSDCafeRules

Today is a special day! It is the BSD Cafe's birthday! Exactly three years ago today, I was rather timidly announcing this project to the world. It was an idea that had already been in my mind for some time, but had not yet become reality. Three years later, I am proud to say that the BSD Cafe is sailing at full speed towards the uncertain horizons of the modern world. We are here to talk about BSD, Open Source, projects, conferences, freedom, pizza and tiramisu, but above all about passions, interests, discoveries and knowledge. We are here among friends who share interests and passions, without geography or borders, apart from those defined by mutual respect. Your Barista is more energised than ever. During the past year, he had to retire one of the services, BlendIT, our Lemmy instance, but he also added several new ones: Journal, based on WordPress, Billboard, running on NodeBB, the Delta Chat relay, and more. He also had to withdraw from BSDCan, with enormous regret, but he is now ready for EuroBSDCon. And for other new things that will gradually follow. For example, here is a small preview: I have been experimenting with MeshCore. My dream? One or more BSD Cafe services that do not use the Internet at all. I already have a few ideas, so I shall not disclose anything more for now 😉 And I will never grow tired of repeating that the BSD Cafe is a success because of you. I am just the Barista, but a place like this is nothing without the friends sitting at the bar. And the friends of this bar are wonderful people who, every day, help make my days calmer, happier and more interesting. So thank you for these three years, and thank you for being here. We shall continue sailing together towards the future, with smiles on our faces and passion in our hearts. https://journal.bsd.cafe/2026/03/31/im-just-the-barista/ #BSDCafe #BSDCafeBirthday #Celebrations #RunBSD #BSD

The BSD (and illumos) cafe Mastodon instances are still at 4.5.x - which is supported. I'm planning to upgrade to 4.6.x as soon as I'll have enough time. It should be quite easy, but I want to proceed when I have enough time. This means I cannot provide a specific deadline, yet. But I'll try to do it ASAP. #BSDCafe #illumosCafe

Friends of the #BSDCafe Friends of the #illumosCafe Friends of the #Fediverse Have a sweet weekend! #Food

Monday Monday... Last night there was a blackout for over an hour. The local substation overloaded because everyone in the area had their AC running on full blast. And this week they say they're coming to finish the FTTH installation. My wife bets that the appointment will fall through this time too. We'll see! Have a great week, #BSDCafe Have a great week, #illumosCafe Have a great week, #Fediverse

Happy #SilentSunday, friends of #BSDCafe, #illumosCafe, and the whole #Fediverse! May the peace of this view bring calm to this day. Alone or in good company, that bench is there for you. #Peace #Relax #Summer #Tranquil #Sea #Italy #Italia

A wave of fake profile registrations is currently underway. Many are easy to spot, others less so. The risk is that some (but credible) fake profiles might slip through, while some legitimate friends might go unnoticed, lost in the chaos of new signups. If you have submitted a request, are a real person, and are genuinely interested in joining BSD Cafe, please contact me privately. #BSDCafe #BSDCafeAnnouncements

The #BSDCafe Brew instance (Forgejo) has been updated to 11.0.15 #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates

Brew (#forgejo), as usual, is being overloaded by the scrapers. I think I'll have to put an Anubis in front of it. I don't love those "blocks", but sometimes you need to. #BSDCafe #BSDCafeServices

The #BSDCafe #Mastodon instances have been upgraded to v4.5.9 #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeAnnouncements

Good morning, #BSDCafe Good morning, #illumosCafe Good morning, #Fediverse I posted a few things over the past days, and some people noticed that I have been more absent than usual. I think it is right to give an update on the situation. Starting in mid-December, my wife came down with the flu. Nothing serious, but it left her with a problem that all the doctors we consulted have identified as long flu. Similar to long COVID, it is a debilitating condition, at times completely disabling. She started a treatment, but had some issues and had to change it. This treatment, however, makes the symptoms worse for a few weeks before improving them, and the result is that we are currently in that phase: she is not well, she is worried, and of course I am too. This has given me time, over the past weeks, to focus on projects like MastoBlaster, also to keep my mind active on something different, something good for my spirit and mental well-being. But in these days, probably the hardest in years, I am in "emergencies only" mode, or almost. No tiramisu, few outings, some good lasagna - but mostly concern and hope for a return to normality. The doctors told her that in her case it is a temporary condition, but it is not clear exactly how long it will last, which is why there is a treatment, to help her live normally while everything gradually returns to normal. In the meantime, I am the solid part, but clearly I also have to take care of everything she usually handles. Life is more often uphill than downhill, so we need to make the most of the good moments and not focus on trivial things. This is why I have always tried to make this place a positive and peaceful one: we all have battles to fight, serious or less serious problems, happiness and despair. Here, at least, we can focus on what you enjoy. So I leave you with two coffees, made with my mother’s moka pot, which remind me of a peaceful day in this period when the sky outside and the climate inside are the same color: gray.

RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@announcements/115982930815021296 Heads-up: Please be careful with this setting, as it could impact the user experience on the BSD Cafe Mastodon instance. Huge thanks to @justine and @grahamperrin@mastodon.bsd.cafe for helping debug this! #BSDCafe #BSDCafeInstance #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeServices #Mastodon #Fediverse

Important announcement, especially for BSD Cafe friends who don’t have a local account. Over the past few days I noticed that, when browsing some public pages on our Mastodon server (especially the federated timeline, meaning posts coming from other instances as well), certain content could appear without a CW and in some cases it was pornographic, illegal, or generally not suitable for a general audience. The problem is that this was visible even to users who were not logged in, which effectively made BSD Cafe a gateway to that content. Also, some media files are cached on our server, so it could look like BSD Cafe is the source of it. For this reason I had to make a decision: I have disabled the ability for non-logged-in visitors to view posts coming from other instances. This way, anyone visiting BSD Cafe without an account will only see BSD Cafe local content, helping us avoid potential issues, including legal ones. Some of you (from other instances) thought you had been blocked because you could no longer see your posts here, but that is not the case: your posts are still fully visible to local users, as usual. I have also re-enabled (at least for now) hashtag browsing, since BSD Cafe is one of the most well federated instances for BSD-related content and it would be a shame to lose that. However, I may reconsider this decision if it leads to problems. Let me know if you notice anything unusual. #BSDCafe #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeAnnouncements #BSDCafeServices #Mastodon #Fediverse