7 ms·

Rsync 3.4.3 has hundreds of Claude commits

123 points by fooker 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
Tiberium 5mo ago
Currently there are 130 Claude-coauthored commits, and the maintainer seems to not be engaging with any of the recent issues and just pushing more of the "security in depth" fixes that are breaking real features for people.
- zero_k 5mo ago
  Citation needed :) That's a bold claim. May be true, but it's a bold one, so something backing it up would be nice.
  - CursedSilicon 5mo ago
    Could one not simply look at the github to verify it with their own eyes? One of git's defining features is every commit being accountable
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - dataangel 5mo ago
      Yes the person making the accusation could do that
  - blurbleblurble 5mo ago
    Go look for yourself, quite a few mention CVEs.
  - Tiberium 5mo ago
    EDIT: posted on top, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334270
firtoz 5mo ago
I see that people are recommending rclone instead
- blurbleblurble 5mo ago
  Their loss
CursedSilicon 5mo ago
I saw an exceptionally long and thoughtful post on Mastodon from "Space Hobo" https://teh.entar.net/@spacehobo https://teh.entar.net/@spacehobo that definitely deserves reprinting here ----- I actually worked at the same place as Andrew Tridgell, over a quarter-century ago. I got to know a few of the OzLabs folks during their immediate post-IBM years, and always had the highest respect for them in that way where you feel acute impostor syndrome when they're in the room. Tridge almost walked backwards into implementing the Windows SMB protocol (he was just debugging some funny NetBIOS extensions IIRC). But his paper on the #rsync algorithm was groundbreaking, and actually writing the tool to implement it was brilliant. It's become one of those tools like #curl that just forms one of the major structural supports of the modern Internet. I still remember the day that the SSH transport became the default, and I remember being able to thank him in person when he came to the San Francisco office (although IIRC by that point he'd handed control of rsync over to mbp). I remember at my next job he came to a summit of folks working on print driver/spooler software. When he pointed out that some problems were effectively a cache-consistency algorithm, we all kind of put our fingers to our temples and said "Oh wow, you're SO right!" He was always insightful and sharp, while being gentle and approachable. I write in the past tense because I haven't crossed paths with him in two decades, and only know what I see him put out. A friend of mine in Australia noted that he hasn't posted to the Canberra LUG list since 2020, thanking someone for congratulating him on receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia. He's very much alive, but from what little I see I grow concerned for him. In 2024 he took over maintenance of rsync once more. The 3.3.0 release was the last one from the previous maintainer, and Tridge is currently working on 3.4.x releases. Well... Tridge and #Claude, it seems: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@JeremiahFieldhaven/116654345332213390 https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@JeremiahFieldhaven/116654345... The issue tracker for rsync has recently lit up with regressions, showing features that worked reliably for almost 30 years are suddenly coming crashing down in 3.4.2 and 3.4.3. People are scrambling to find ways to pin rsync to known-good versions. The considerate, incisive mind I briefly knew is letting the stochastic parrots do his work for him, and it just seems so astonishingly unlike the person I met back in the day. I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope all is well for him, but I will not cast aspersions on his goals or his abilities. No, instead I draw this conclusion: If TRIDGE of all people can't handle #LLMs without a slopocalypse, no one can. That means you. That means someone you admire who is intelligent and careful and considerate. Not even someone whose opinions on technology you respect a great deal. -----
mariopt 5mo ago
I suspect that many of the new cute CLI tools that people are vibecoding will turn into malware given some time. Seeing this happening in trusted CLI tools makes me wonder what will happen to Linux
jasonvorhe 5mo ago
So, has anyone actually checked if it's just an issue with 3.4.3? Going to back to 3.4.1 skips 3.4.2 which features many contributions that aren't either by Andrew or Claude.
- blurbleblurble 5mo ago
  They have not
- omgtehlion 5mo ago
  Seems like 3.4.2 was already vibe-maintained: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/v3.4.2 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/v3.4.2
  - jasonvorhe 5mo ago
    So? May main point is: Which commits actually broke the functionality? Going from 3.4.3 to 3.4.2 to test should be easy for anyone affected and would have been more helpful than this rant. I'm not defending bad slop commits, especially for such a long running project but the tribal Fediverse outrage whenever LLMs are involved is often just lazy and uninformed. To quote this PR: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/928 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/928 > NOTE: This also affects backported rsync versions when they're used on the Receiver: > Debian: 3.4.1+ds1-5+deb13u3 / 3.2.7-1+deb12u5 / 3.2.3-4+deb11u3 > Ubuntu: 3.2.7-1ubuntu1.4
    - fooker 5mo ago
      Figuring out which commit broke what functionality is not something you can expect users to do.
      - cbarnes99 5mo ago
        If you're willing to build from source it's not particularly difficult with git bisect
      - 5mo ago
eunos 5mo ago
It's rather ironic that in profit making enterprises using AI are not only encouraged but also part of KPIs. But in open source it's scourge
- duskdozer 5mo ago
  Why ironic? It seems to me no different than s/AI/dark patterns/
- 3form 5mo ago
  I don't think using AI as such is the core problem here. It's the type of use. Vibe coding, brain off coding and blind trust are the issue, and an issue everywhere, just enterprises were never really about quality in the first place. But eventually, they too will generate more crap than they can handle.
  - kelnos 5mo ago
    I mean, we have no idea how tridge is using claude. I would easily give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not vibe-coding, is involved in the change (not just turning on auto-accept), and reviews the output before committing. But it seems like everyone's immediate hot take here and on Mastodon is to assume the worst and shit on him.
    - 3form 5mo ago
      To be precise, I meant the open source as a whole, as this is what the parent poster mentioned. I don't know about Tridge, I would review the changes first to see what happened there. For rsync in general, I would say that the important value is the trust in it not breaking my data, more so than other projects. That trust can be broken in different ways, AI or not, and the means are of a secondary concern. I hope this gets sorted out soon.
- tactlesscamel 5mo ago
  Pride in one'one's journey, the feeling of accomplishment for creating/learning/doing something, and the general art within the act... Yes, it's ironic that the stock photo companies offer on-demand image generation when the private galleries only offer photos which required an adventure and effort.
einpoklum 5mo ago
Oh, no :-( I was hoping that at least some solid bedrock of stadalone command-line tools would withstand the deluge of AI slop. Will we need to start to label programs with a "written by humans" sticker? :-(
- cowboylowrez 5mo ago
  I'm thinking this will be a natural progression because part of the "AI slop deluge" are now real bug reports generated by these AIs. I'm glad for this noise around the regression as so many more folks are now aware of this issue.
himata4113 5mo ago
Looks fine? most of the commits are tests, ci, docs and issues that could cause memory corruption / hidden bugs rather than any new feature development. Of course it's unfortunate that it caused this bug to surface and it would be curious to investigate exactly why this happened, maybe the "safe" c operations have different (unexpected) behavior instead of immediately pointing out that "ai bad". I think patching issues that could cause future CVE's is pretty important especially because rsyncing a file -> client compromise could be pretty devestating as it often runs unsandboxed. Everyone is still learning how and how much AI should be used and we shouldn't be too harsh on opensource developers. (edit: if someone hears "you are irresponsible if you don't let claude review your code", it would be pretty natural to let AI review your code and fix issues without knowing the full implications of it) I suspect this commit: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad34b034d18fe2fd6cd79adef8a1 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad3..., appears to be changing behavior and changes like these shouldn't be in a patch version (unless it's an active security exploit).
- fooker 5mo ago
  Yeah this is how software development works now, no matter how much anyone wants to disagree with it. The technology is here, you can't put it back in the box. If your tool has AI agents trying to find exploits 24/7, you'll need something comparable. It is worth figuring out the new science of software engineering to get it right. I suspect we are going to find plenty of new techniques that make this sort of development work better. After all, it took fifty years to arrive at our best known (unit test + reviewable tiny change, get an LGTM) model of software development.
  - b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago
    no, no, no. if we all stomp our feet and kvetch really loud, a Hawaii judge will declare AI illegal and order a global moratorium. all trillion dollar companies will immediately cease all AI activities, and then UN death squads will go door-to-door confiscating assault GPUs from the chuds.
    - 5mo ago
blurbleblurble 5mo ago
Maybe he got notified from the mythos team of a bunch of vulnerabilities and then followed up using claude. Doesn't seem that unlikely. What would you do if suddenly there were a dozen exploitable CVEs in your highly used open source project staring you down? Maybe you'd use the tool that found them to patch them as quickly as possible.
- kelnos 5mo ago
  I am absolutely willing to give tridge the benefit of the doubt here, but a note on what you said: I don't think you should ever patch a CVE "as quickly as possible". You should do it slowly, be very sure of the change, and test the hell out of it. You can easily introduce a new security vulnerability by rushing something like that.
  - blurbleblurble 5mo ago
    Good point. I just can't imagine the urgency and pressure I'd feel.
- threecheese 5mo ago
  Looks like at least one of these issues was from a CVE [0], they don’t call out Mythos specifically though (“security researchers”). Many teams are sprinting on security issues atm (including mine, who put all product priorities aside two sprints ago), it must suck to be responsible for high-visibility/high-risk projects like rsync right now. 0: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-pfv9-gp3h-73xv https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-pfv9-gp3h-73xv
Tiberium 5mo ago
Reposting some of the (likely) bad commits with issues open against them, just to show that this isn't a one-off: - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad34b034d18fe2fd6cd79adef8a1 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad3...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/905 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/905 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/900 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/900 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/1d5b5ab83af84db0f66283d4cf5931d16e71f17e https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/1d5b5ab83af84db...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/924 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/924 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/859d44fa4f1420775e4ba050337ef32092f2894c https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/859d44fa4f14207...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/30656c5e358b1c6033f4caf24f3e11b29d25c9f4 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/30656c5e358b1c6...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/896 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/896 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/915 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/915 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/8112445318a35e49813b051a533d7cec7e8c4c8c https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/8112445318a35e4...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/910 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/910 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/927 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/927
My_Name 5mo ago
This is a problem of insufficient checking happening in-between a PR being made, and it being committed. Imagine you have a low quality coder in your coders, they produce a lot of code, but while some of it is fine, some of it is... dubious. That is no different from an AI and the way you deal with it is the same. You check the PR before committing it. To allow PRs from them (or anyone really) to get merged without proper checking for bugs etc is just sloppy repo management. The problem is not "AI bad, human good", it is that a human is allowing PRs through to release without properly checking them.
- bhaak 5mo ago
  The commits were all from the original inventor of rsync. Not a low quality newbie coder.
  - My_Name 5mo ago
    "To allow PRs from them (or anyone really) to get merged without proper checking for bugs etc is just sloppy repo management." I stand by my post.
    - bhaak 5mo ago
      Your post makes no sense unless you speak about project management in general. The commits in question are no pull requests.
solarkraft 5mo ago
So they’re just kind of implying a relationship between the 2 things? Maybe there is one, but it doesn’t support the underlying “and that must mean AI bad” hypothesis as much as the author may think. Somebody on the Rsync team has a new tool. They may have neglected their traditional responsibilities using it, but that’s not really a fault of the tool.
- rzmmm 5mo ago
  My guess is just open source maintainers trying out new genAI tools out of curiosity. Unintentional slopification
- delusional 5mo ago
  > Maybe there is one, but it doesn’t support the underlying “and that must mean AI bad” hypothesis as much as the author may think. It's a tweet. Do you expect thorough null-hypothesis validation from a tweet?
- adrian_b 5mo ago
  I agree that it is not a fault of the tool, but of the human who must have used it improperly. However, rsync is one of those applications where correctness has an extreme importance. If it fails completely, that is still not so bad, but any kind of subtle corruption in file data or in file metadata can be catastrophic. I expect from an rsync developer a much higher standard for program correctness verification than for most other computer applications, so these events are very worrisome. I do not care whether someone uses an AI tool, but I care very much about whether any written code, regardless of its author, is verified very thoroughly, or not.
Ozzie-D 5mo ago
[flagged]
megous 5mo ago
Well, there's 1 +claude commit prior Mythos/Glasswing announcement and the rest are after the announcement. Take of it what you will. Anyway, seems blown out of proportion. There are a few issues in the tracker, some repeated or obscure. Linux 5.10, really? You want to run frankenkernel from 5 years ago with 30 000+ patches never meant or developed against it applied on top? Good luck. Rsync is least of your worries. Linux stable, especially these 5 year old trees are mostly a pacifier for companies that don't want to upstream and maintain their drivers and keep up with evolving internal kernel interface. It's nothing good for users, technically. And I guess if I clone the repo and do a diff against pre-claude and claude assisted state, most of the changes will not be in the actual C code.
stock_toaster 5mo ago
Maybe time to pursue alternative implementations[1]. [1]: https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2026-05-24-minimal-memory-safe-go-rsync-vulns/ https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2026-05-24-minimal-memor...
- shalom1112 5mo ago
  [flagged]
- Elhana 5mo ago
  There is openrsync from openbsd. I think MacOS using it now.
zx8080 5mo ago
LGTM, ship it. /s Is there any sign of enough code review this release got?
vbtechguy 5mo ago
What's the difference between experience a human made bug versus an AI made bug in software?
- bhaak 5mo ago
  A human preserves more context and might remember what they did and when pointing out a new bug, they often have an idea what's wrong.
  - sph 5mo ago
    A human also learns from their mistakes and grows their skillset. I cringe any time I read loaded questions like GP's. Have they ever met a human in their life?
- atomlib 5mo ago
  The difference lies in the field of civic virtue. A human programmer accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the software of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The AI does not.
  - dataangel 5mo ago
    You must be trolling. Most open source software is released under MIT license which explicitly says the author isn't liable for anything.
jasonvorhe 5mo ago
The first actually constructive attempt of figuring out the root cause can be found in this issue: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897
sph 5mo ago
I reckon we will soon see a growing movement of maintainers forking popular open-source projects to the point before vibecoding was introduced to the development process. I can definitely see myself supporting this. Vibecoding promotes the uncontrollable growth of features, and thus bugs, when the vast majority of software benefits from stability. It should be possible to be done with development, barring security patches and bug fixes.
- zulux 5mo ago
  Counterpoint: AI makes refactoring so much easier. Many of our monolithic code bases have gotten smaller and more organized because we were too lazy to refactor.
devinprater 5mo ago
Meh, I wonder how many Claude commits iOS, MacOS, or Windows has that we just don't see?
abc123abc123 5mo ago
Who cares? Is the quality good? Bug free? Readable? If so, I couldn't care less who developed the code.

123 points by fooker 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

Currently there are 130 Claude-coauthored commits, and the maintainer seems to not be engaging with any of the recent issues and just pushing more of the "security in depth" fixes that are breaking real features for people.

zero_k 5mo ago
Citation needed :) That's a bold claim. May be true, but it's a bold one, so something backing it up would be nice.
- CursedSilicon 5mo ago
  Could one not simply look at the github to verify it with their own eyes? One of git's defining features is every commit being accountable
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - dataangel 5mo ago
    Yes the person making the accusation could do that
- blurbleblurble 5mo ago
  Go look for yourself, quite a few mention CVEs.
- Tiberium 5mo ago
  EDIT: posted on top, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334270

firtoz 5mo ago

I see that people are recommending rclone instead

blurbleblurble 5mo ago
Their loss

CursedSilicon 5mo ago

I saw an exceptionally long and thoughtful post on Mastodon from "Space Hobo" https://teh.entar.net/@spacehobo https://teh.entar.net/@spacehobo that definitely deserves reprinting here ----- I actually worked at the same place as Andrew Tridgell, over a quarter-century ago. I got to know a few of the OzLabs folks during their immediate post-IBM years, and always had the highest respect for them in that way where you feel acute impostor syndrome when they're in the room. Tridge almost walked backwards into implementing the Windows SMB protocol (he was just debugging some funny NetBIOS extensions IIRC). But his paper on the #rsync algorithm was groundbreaking, and actually writing the tool to implement it was brilliant. It's become one of those tools like #curl that just forms one of the major structural supports of the modern Internet. I still remember the day that the SSH transport became the default, and I remember being able to thank him in person when he came to the San Francisco office (although IIRC by that point he'd handed control of rsync over to mbp). I remember at my next job he came to a summit of folks working on print driver/spooler software. When he pointed out that some problems were effectively a cache-consistency algorithm, we all kind of put our fingers to our temples and said "Oh wow, you're SO right!" He was always insightful and sharp, while being gentle and approachable. I write in the past tense because I haven't crossed paths with him in two decades, and only know what I see him put out. A friend of mine in Australia noted that he hasn't posted to the Canberra LUG list since 2020, thanking someone for congratulating him on receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia. He's very much alive, but from what little I see I grow concerned for him. In 2024 he took over maintenance of rsync once more. The 3.3.0 release was the last one from the previous maintainer, and Tridge is currently working on 3.4.x releases. Well... Tridge and #Claude, it seems: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@JeremiahFieldhaven/116654345332213390 https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@JeremiahFieldhaven/116654345... The issue tracker for rsync has recently lit up with regressions, showing features that worked reliably for almost 30 years are suddenly coming crashing down in 3.4.2 and 3.4.3. People are scrambling to find ways to pin rsync to known-good versions. The considerate, incisive mind I briefly knew is letting the stochastic parrots do his work for him, and it just seems so astonishingly unlike the person I met back in the day. I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope all is well for him, but I will not cast aspersions on his goals or his abilities. No, instead I draw this conclusion: If TRIDGE of all people can't handle #LLMs without a slopocalypse, no one can. That means you. That means someone you admire who is intelligent and careful and considerate. Not even someone whose opinions on technology you respect a great deal. -----

mariopt 5mo ago

I suspect that many of the new cute CLI tools that people are vibecoding will turn into malware given some time. Seeing this happening in trusted CLI tools makes me wonder what will happen to Linux

jasonvorhe 5mo ago

So, has anyone actually checked if it's just an issue with 3.4.3? Going to back to 3.4.1 skips 3.4.2 which features many contributions that aren't either by Andrew or Claude.

blurbleblurble 5mo ago
They have not
omgtehlion 5mo ago
Seems like 3.4.2 was already vibe-maintained: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/v3.4.2 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/v3.4.2
- jasonvorhe 5mo ago
  So? May main point is: Which commits actually broke the functionality? Going from 3.4.3 to 3.4.2 to test should be easy for anyone affected and would have been more helpful than this rant. I'm not defending bad slop commits, especially for such a long running project but the tribal Fediverse outrage whenever LLMs are involved is often just lazy and uninformed. To quote this PR: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/928 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/928 > NOTE: This also affects backported rsync versions when they're used on the Receiver: > Debian: 3.4.1+ds1-5+deb13u3 / 3.2.7-1+deb12u5 / 3.2.3-4+deb11u3 > Ubuntu: 3.2.7-1ubuntu1.4
  - fooker 5mo ago
    Figuring out which commit broke what functionality is not something you can expect users to do.
    - cbarnes99 5mo ago
      If you're willing to build from source it's not particularly difficult with git bisect
    - 5mo ago

eunos 5mo ago

It's rather ironic that in profit making enterprises using AI are not only encouraged but also part of KPIs. But in open source it's scourge

duskdozer 5mo ago
Why ironic? It seems to me no different than s/AI/dark patterns/
3form 5mo ago
I don't think using AI as such is the core problem here. It's the type of use. Vibe coding, brain off coding and blind trust are the issue, and an issue everywhere, just enterprises were never really about quality in the first place. But eventually, they too will generate more crap than they can handle.
- kelnos 5mo ago
  I mean, we have no idea how tridge is using claude. I would easily give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not vibe-coding, is involved in the change (not just turning on auto-accept), and reviews the output before committing. But it seems like everyone's immediate hot take here and on Mastodon is to assume the worst and shit on him.
  - 3form 5mo ago
    To be precise, I meant the open source as a whole, as this is what the parent poster mentioned. I don't know about Tridge, I would review the changes first to see what happened there. For rsync in general, I would say that the important value is the trust in it not breaking my data, more so than other projects. That trust can be broken in different ways, AI or not, and the means are of a secondary concern. I hope this gets sorted out soon.
tactlesscamel 5mo ago
Pride in one'one's journey, the feeling of accomplishment for creating/learning/doing something, and the general art within the act... Yes, it's ironic that the stock photo companies offer on-demand image generation when the private galleries only offer photos which required an adventure and effort.

einpoklum 5mo ago

Oh, no :-( I was hoping that at least some solid bedrock of stadalone command-line tools would withstand the deluge of AI slop. Will we need to start to label programs with a "written by humans" sticker? :-(

cowboylowrez 5mo ago
I'm thinking this will be a natural progression because part of the "AI slop deluge" are now real bug reports generated by these AIs. I'm glad for this noise around the regression as so many more folks are now aware of this issue.

himata4113 5mo ago

Looks fine? most of the commits are tests, ci, docs and issues that could cause memory corruption / hidden bugs rather than any new feature development. Of course it's unfortunate that it caused this bug to surface and it would be curious to investigate exactly why this happened, maybe the "safe" c operations have different (unexpected) behavior instead of immediately pointing out that "ai bad". I think patching issues that could cause future CVE's is pretty important especially because rsyncing a file -> client compromise could be pretty devestating as it often runs unsandboxed. Everyone is still learning how and how much AI should be used and we shouldn't be too harsh on opensource developers. (edit: if someone hears "you are irresponsible if you don't let claude review your code", it would be pretty natural to let AI review your code and fix issues without knowing the full implications of it) I suspect this commit: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad34b034d18fe2fd6cd79adef8a1 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad3..., appears to be changing behavior and changes like these shouldn't be in a patch version (unless it's an active security exploit).

fooker 5mo ago
Yeah this is how software development works now, no matter how much anyone wants to disagree with it. The technology is here, you can't put it back in the box. If your tool has AI agents trying to find exploits 24/7, you'll need something comparable. It is worth figuring out the new science of software engineering to get it right. I suspect we are going to find plenty of new techniques that make this sort of development work better. After all, it took fifty years to arrive at our best known (unit test + reviewable tiny change, get an LGTM) model of software development.
- b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago
  no, no, no. if we all stomp our feet and kvetch really loud, a Hawaii judge will declare AI illegal and order a global moratorium. all trillion dollar companies will immediately cease all AI activities, and then UN death squads will go door-to-door confiscating assault GPUs from the chuds.
  - 5mo ago

blurbleblurble 5mo ago

Maybe he got notified from the mythos team of a bunch of vulnerabilities and then followed up using claude. Doesn't seem that unlikely. What would you do if suddenly there were a dozen exploitable CVEs in your highly used open source project staring you down? Maybe you'd use the tool that found them to patch them as quickly as possible.

kelnos 5mo ago
I am absolutely willing to give tridge the benefit of the doubt here, but a note on what you said: I don't think you should ever patch a CVE "as quickly as possible". You should do it slowly, be very sure of the change, and test the hell out of it. You can easily introduce a new security vulnerability by rushing something like that.
- blurbleblurble 5mo ago
  Good point. I just can't imagine the urgency and pressure I'd feel.
threecheese 5mo ago
Looks like at least one of these issues was from a CVE [0], they don’t call out Mythos specifically though (“security researchers”). Many teams are sprinting on security issues atm (including mine, who put all product priorities aside two sprints ago), it must suck to be responsible for high-visibility/high-risk projects like rsync right now. 0: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-pfv9-gp3h-73xv https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-pfv9-gp3h-73xv

Tiberium 5mo ago

Reposting some of the (likely) bad commits with issues open against them, just to show that this isn't a one-off: - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad34b034d18fe2fd6cd79adef8a1 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/4fa7156ccdb2ad3...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/905 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/905 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/900 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/900 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/1d5b5ab83af84db0f66283d4cf5931d16e71f17e https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/1d5b5ab83af84db...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/924 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/924 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/859d44fa4f1420775e4ba050337ef32092f2894c https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/859d44fa4f14207...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/30656c5e358b1c6033f4caf24f3e11b29d25c9f4 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/30656c5e358b1c6...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/896 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/896 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/915 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/915 - https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/8112445318a35e49813b051a533d7cec7e8c4c8c https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commit/8112445318a35e4...: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/910 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/910 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/927 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/927

My_Name 5mo ago

This is a problem of insufficient checking happening in-between a PR being made, and it being committed. Imagine you have a low quality coder in your coders, they produce a lot of code, but while some of it is fine, some of it is... dubious. That is no different from an AI and the way you deal with it is the same. You check the PR before committing it. To allow PRs from them (or anyone really) to get merged without proper checking for bugs etc is just sloppy repo management. The problem is not "AI bad, human good", it is that a human is allowing PRs through to release without properly checking them.

bhaak 5mo ago
The commits were all from the original inventor of rsync. Not a low quality newbie coder.
- My_Name 5mo ago
  "To allow PRs from them (or anyone really) to get merged without proper checking for bugs etc is just sloppy repo management." I stand by my post.
  - bhaak 5mo ago
    Your post makes no sense unless you speak about project management in general. The commits in question are no pull requests.

solarkraft 5mo ago

So they’re just kind of implying a relationship between the 2 things? Maybe there is one, but it doesn’t support the underlying “and that must mean AI bad” hypothesis as much as the author may think. Somebody on the Rsync team has a new tool. They may have neglected their traditional responsibilities using it, but that’s not really a fault of the tool.

rzmmm 5mo ago
My guess is just open source maintainers trying out new genAI tools out of curiosity. Unintentional slopification
delusional 5mo ago
> Maybe there is one, but it doesn’t support the underlying “and that must mean AI bad” hypothesis as much as the author may think. It's a tweet. Do you expect thorough null-hypothesis validation from a tweet?
adrian_b 5mo ago
I agree that it is not a fault of the tool, but of the human who must have used it improperly. However, rsync is one of those applications where correctness has an extreme importance. If it fails completely, that is still not so bad, but any kind of subtle corruption in file data or in file metadata can be catastrophic. I expect from an rsync developer a much higher standard for program correctness verification than for most other computer applications, so these events are very worrisome. I do not care whether someone uses an AI tool, but I care very much about whether any written code, regardless of its author, is verified very thoroughly, or not.

Ozzie-D 5mo ago

[flagged]

megous 5mo ago

Well, there's 1 +claude commit prior Mythos/Glasswing announcement and the rest are after the announcement. Take of it what you will. Anyway, seems blown out of proportion. There are a few issues in the tracker, some repeated or obscure. Linux 5.10, really? You want to run frankenkernel from 5 years ago with 30 000+ patches never meant or developed against it applied on top? Good luck. Rsync is least of your worries. Linux stable, especially these 5 year old trees are mostly a pacifier for companies that don't want to upstream and maintain their drivers and keep up with evolving internal kernel interface. It's nothing good for users, technically. And I guess if I clone the repo and do a diff against pre-claude and claude assisted state, most of the changes will not be in the actual C code.

stock_toaster 5mo ago

Maybe time to pursue alternative implementations[1]. [1]: https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2026-05-24-minimal-memory-safe-go-rsync-vulns/ https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2026-05-24-minimal-memor...

shalom1112 5mo ago
[flagged]
Elhana 5mo ago
There is openrsync from openbsd. I think MacOS using it now.

zx8080 5mo ago

LGTM, ship it. /s Is there any sign of enough code review this release got?

vbtechguy 5mo ago

What's the difference between experience a human made bug versus an AI made bug in software?

bhaak 5mo ago
A human preserves more context and might remember what they did and when pointing out a new bug, they often have an idea what's wrong.
- sph 5mo ago
  A human also learns from their mistakes and grows their skillset. I cringe any time I read loaded questions like GP's. Have they ever met a human in their life?
atomlib 5mo ago
The difference lies in the field of civic virtue. A human programmer accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the software of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The AI does not.
- dataangel 5mo ago
  You must be trolling. Most open source software is released under MIT license which explicitly says the author isn't liable for anything.

jasonvorhe 5mo ago

The first actually constructive attempt of figuring out the root cause can be found in this issue: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/897

sph 5mo ago

I reckon we will soon see a growing movement of maintainers forking popular open-source projects to the point before vibecoding was introduced to the development process. I can definitely see myself supporting this. Vibecoding promotes the uncontrollable growth of features, and thus bugs, when the vast majority of software benefits from stability. It should be possible to be done with development, barring security patches and bug fixes.

zulux 5mo ago
Counterpoint: AI makes refactoring so much easier. Many of our monolithic code bases have gotten smaller and more organized because we were too lazy to refactor.

devinprater 5mo ago

Meh, I wonder how many Claude commits iOS, MacOS, or Windows has that we just don't see?

abc123abc123 5mo ago

Who cares? Is the quality good? Bug free? Readable? If so, I couldn't care less who developed the code.