Maintaining the love for coding in the time of AI
NLnet Labs discusses how the adoption of Large Language Models has significantly altered the landscape of open-source software development for critical internet infrastructure. The organization notes that AI tools have empowered a new generation of developers to submit substantial code contributions to niche projects like Unbound and NSD. This shift challenges traditional maintenance workflows by increasing the volume of external pull requests that require rigorous architectural and security review.
- ▪NLnet Labs develops critical internet standards software such as DNS, BGP, and RPKI in niche languages like C and Rust.
- ▪Prior to recent AI advancements, external contributions to these projects were rare and typically limited to minor bug fixes or typo corrections.
- ▪The release of frontier AI models has led to a surge in substantial pull requests from developers leveraging AI-assisted coding capabilities.
- ▪The core team maintains a rigorous internal and external code review process to ensure architectural integrity and long-term maintainability.
- ▪Some external contributions are rejected or redirected to contrib folders if they do not align with the project's strict coding standards and design choices.
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| Original publisher | The NLnet Labs Blog |
| Canonical URL | https://blog.nlnetlabs.nl/maintaining-the-love-for-coding-in-the-time-of-ai/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:22:42 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-16T13:43:41.691Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-16T13:43:41.691Z |
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Dev Maintaining the love for coding in the time of AI Team NLnet Labs 16 Sep 2026 • 8 min read Share Photo by Luba Glazunova / Unsplash By Alex BandOver the last year, we have seen the profound effects Large Language Models (LLMs) have on our open-source software work at NLnet Labs. These can be grouped into two main areas: community contributions and security reports. Before we dive into this topic, let me first give you some context and history on how we've developed our software over the last 25 years.Developing software at NLnet LabsI want to take a step back and explain how we maintain open-source projects that are intended to run in critical infrastructure.
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