NetBSD's Mastodon feed reported a record 120 donations last month, bringing in $120,282 and blowing past the project's $50,000 fundraising goal. The project said the surplus will go toward funding new initiatives.
The influx follows NetBSD's early and unambiguous ban on AI-generated code, adopted in 2024. That stance stands in sharp contrast to much of the Linux world: Debian's developers voted to permit AI contributions, Red Hat has pushed an agentic software development lifecycle, and AI dominated the recent Open Source Summit Europe.
NetBSD's community is known for being welcoming, and its portability remains a key differentiator. The donation windfall suggests that its AI-free position is resonating with users who prefer hand-crafted code, even as other BSD projects like FreeBSD continue to debate whether to allow AI-generated contributions.