| ▲ | jameslk 4 hours ago |
| It seems open source loses the most from AI. Open source code trained the models, the models are being used to spam open source projects anywhere there's incentive, they can be used to chip away at open source business models by implementing paid features and providing the support, and eventually perhaps AI simply replaces most open source code |
|
| ▲ | pravj 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Extending on the same line, we will see programs like Google Summer of Code (GSoC) getting a massive revamp, or they will stop operating. From my failed attempt, I remember that - Students had to find a project matching their interests/skills and start contributing early. - We used to talk about staying away from some projects with a low supply of students applying (or lurking in the GitHub/BitBucket issues) because of the complexity required for the projects. Both of these acted as a creative filter for projects and landed them good students/contributors, but it completely goes away with AI being able to do that at scale. |
|
| ▲ | bawolff 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > they can be used to chip away at open source business models by implementing paid features and providing the support There are a lot of things to be sad about AI, but this is not it. Nobody has a right to a business model, especially one that assumes nobody will compete with you. If your business model relies on the rest of the world bring sucky so you can sell some value-added to open-core software, i'm happy when it fails. |
| |
| ▲ | anileated 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | When LLMs are based on stolen work and violate GPL terms, which should be already illegal, it's very much okay to be furious about the fact that they additionally ruin respective business models of open source, thanks to which they are possible in the guest place. | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > the fact that they additionally ruin respective business models of open source The what now? Open source doesn't have a business model, it's all about the licensing. FOSS is about making code available to others, for any purpose, and that still works the same as 20 years ago when I got started. Some seem to wake up to what "for any purpose" actually mean, but for many of us that's quite the point, that we don't make choices for others. | |
| ▲ | charcircuit 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Being able to learn from the code is a core part of the ideology embedded into the GPL. Not only that, but LLMs learning from code is fair use. | | |
| ▲ | catlifeonmars 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Being able to learn from the code is a core part of the ideology embedded into the GPL. I have to imagine this ideology was developed with humans in mind. > but LLMs learning from code is fair use If by “fair use” you mean the legal term of art, that question is still very much up in the air. If by “fair use” you mean “I think it is fair” then sure, that’s an opinion you’re entitled to have. | | |
| ▲ | charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >question is still very much up in the air It is not up in the air at all. It's completely transformative. |
| |
| ▲ | jeroenhd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That freedom for many free licenses comes with the caveat that you provide basic attribution and the same freedom to your users. LLMs don't (cannot, by design) provide attribution, nor do LLM users have the freedom to run most of these models themselves. | | |
| ▲ | charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is if you redistribute or make a derivative work. Applying learnings you made from such software does not require such attribution. | | |
| ▲ | pessimizer 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | In the first sentence "you" actually refers to you, a person, in the second you're intentionally cheating and applying it to a machine doing a mechanical transformation. One so mechanical that different LLMs trained on the same material would have output that closely resembles each other. The only indispensable part is the resource you're pirating. A resource that was given to you under the most generous of terms, which you ignored and decided to be guided by a purpose that you've assigned to those terms that embodies an intention that has been specifically denied. You do this because it allows you to do what you want to do. It's motivated "reasoning." Without this "FOSS is for learning" thing you think overrules the license, you are no more justified in training off of it without complying with the terms than training on pirated Microsoft code without complying with their terms. People who work at Microsoft learn on Microsoft code, too, but you don't feel entitled to that. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | sevenzero 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Competition is extremely important yes. But not the kind of competition, backed by companies that have much bigger monetary assets, to overwhelm projects based on community effort just to trample it down. The FFMPEG Google stuff as an example. |
|
|
| ▲ | giancarlostoro 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I wouldn't say open source code solely trained the models, surely there are CS courses and textbooks, official documentation as well as transcripts of talks and courses all factor in as well. On another note, regarding AI replacing most open source code. I forget what tool it was, but I had a need for a very niche way of accessing an old Android device it was rooted, but if I used something like Disk Drill it would eventually crap out empty files. So I found a GUI someone made, and started asking Claude to add things I needed for it to a) let me preview directories it was seeing and b) let me sudo up, and let me download with a reasonable delay (1s I think) which basically worked, I never had issues again, it was a little slow to recover old photos, but oh well. I debated pushing the code changes back into github, it works as expected, but it drifted from the maintainers own goals I'm sure. |
|
| ▲ | shubhamjain 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I feel AI will have the same effect degrading Internet as social media did. This flood of dumb PRs, issues is one symptom of it. Other is AI accelerating the trend which TikTok started—short, shallow, low-effort content. It's a shame since this technology is brilliant. But every tech company has drank the “AI is the future” Kool-aid, which means no one has incentive to seriously push back against the flood of low-effort, AI-generated slop. So, it's going to be race to the bottom for a while. |
| |
| ▲ | sevenzero 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It'll stop soonish. The industry is now financed by debt rather than monetary assets that actually exist. Tons of companies see zero gain from AI as its reported repeatedly here on HN. So all the LLM vendors will eventually have to enshittify their products (most likely through ads, shorter token windows, higher pricing and whatnot). As of now, not a sustainable business model thankfully. The only sad part is that this debt will hit the poorest people most. | | |
| ▲ | duskdozer 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not so confident that "makes the product worse and makes them less money" is even enough to make them not do it anyway |
|
|
|
| ▲ | epolanski an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| AI is not submitting the slop, people are. This is not a technology, but ethics and respect problem. From the same article: > Not all AI-generated bug reports are nonsense. It’s not possible to determine the exact share, but Daniel Stenberg knows of more than a hundred good AI assisted reports that led to corrections. Meaning: developers and researchers who use the tool as it's meant to work, as a tool, are leveraging it to improve curl. But they are not skipping the part of understanding the content of their reports, testing it, and only then submitting it. |
| |
| ▲ | account42 2 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Technically true but that argument also won't let you bring your gun on a plane. |
|
|
| ▲ | GardenLetter27 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How so? I think the Bazaar model has the most to gain - contributors can use LLMs to create PRs, and you can choose from a vast array of projects depending on how much you trust vibe coding. |
| |
| ▲ | meibo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Most of the drive-by LLM PRs we get are useless, waste our time and are super verbose on top of that. I don't review code like that anymore. |
|
|
| ▲ | ValveFan6969 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "open source" and "business model" in the same sentence... next you're gonna tell me to eat pudding with a fork. |
| |
| ▲ | jameslk 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-sourc... I think you should try eating pudding with a fork next | | | |
| ▲ | timeon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > next you're gonna tell me to eat pudding with a fork Depends if you are in UK or not. | |
| ▲ | Grollicus 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Just leaving this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudding_mit_Gabel | | |
| ▲ | em-bee 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | already decades ago when we were kids eating pudding with a fork was a fun past time, and i am sure the idea is as old as pudding or forks themselves. i mean, the fact that it spread so fast shows that there are many who already practiced it. it's actually surprising it took this long to become a meme. heck, my cousin bet with me or let me compete eating pudding with chopsticks. (and that was long before i went to china) practically speaking, the only downside of using a fork (or chopsticks) is scraping the bottom when you are finishing up. | | |
| ▲ | account42 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I think the meme is as much about a meetup with strangers to eat pudding as it is about using a fork to do it. |
|
| |
| ▲ | Aeglaecia 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | i believe that the existence of not for profit organizations is a valid counterpoint to whatever your argument is |
|
|
| ▲ | direwolf20 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| [dead] |