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[ARTICLE · art-20451] src=lwn.net pub= topic=large-language-models verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Tridgell: rsync and outrage

Andrew Tridgell, the maintainer of the open-source file synchronization tool rsync, has publicly defended his use of AI and LLM tools to address a surge in security reports and improve the software's defenses. In a blog post responding to criticism, Tridgell explained that the tools are necessary to manage the increased workload and enhance testing and hardening, while also noting that the controversy has attracted new skilled developers to the project.

read1 min publishedJun 3, 2026

Andrew Tridgell has written a [blog

post](https://medium.com/@tridge60/rsync-and-outrage-d9849599e5a0) responding to complaints that he has begun using LLM tools in
his work maintaining [rsync](https://rsync.samba.org/):

Like many developers of open source packages I've been hit by a flood of security reports lately in my role as the rsync maintainer. Many of those reports are AI generated (not all though, there are some notable ones with very careful and high quality manual analysis).

As this flood started to get more intense I realised I needed to raise the defences on rsync a lot — we needed much more thorough test suites, code coverage analysis, CI testing on a lot more platforms, deliberate and thorough scanning for possible security issues (so I find at least some of them before other people!) and the addition of a whole lot of defence-in-depth hardening techniques.

[...] Now to the future, because we're not done yet by a long shot. The security reports keep rolling in. I'm working on a bunch of CVEs right now. Luckily I've been joined by some other very good developers with great systems development skills and security knowledge. Some of these people came to my attention partly because of all the rage happening at the moment, so I get some rage storm clouds have silver linings. Watch out for some credits for some great new rsync developers in the next release.

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