what a shame
Astral to Join OpenAI
501–510 of 951 posts
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#502What strikes me most about this acquisition isn't the AI angle. It's the question of why so many open source tools get built by startup teams in the first place. I maintain an open source project funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund. Getting there wasn't easy: the application process is long, the amounts are modest compared to a VC round, and you have to build community trust before any of that becomes possible. But the…
I think this overstates the “betrayal” angle. A lot of great open source comes out of startups because startups are really good at shipping fast and getting distribution (open source is part of this strategy). Users can try the tool immediately, and VC funding can put a lot of talent behind building something great very quickly. The startup model absolutely creates incentive risk, but that’s true of any project that…
That's fair, and I don't really blame anyone for taking the startup route. It's often the only realistic path to working full-time on something you care about. My point is more that it shouldn't have to be. The more public funding flows into open source infrastructure, the less that tradeoff becomes necessary in the first place. Korea being almost entirely absent from that picture is part of why I feel this so keenly.
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#503[dead]
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small tool shop, burning VC money, true. "Tiny part of the Python ecosystem" is an understatement given how much impact uv has made alone.
Just a tiny project with over 100 million downloads every month, over 4 million every day. No big deal. Just a small shop, don't overstate its importance. https://pypistats.org/packages/uv
That says more about the sad state of modern CI pipelines than anything about uv's popularity.
Not disputing that it's a great and widely used tool, BTW.
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#505A concern: More and more plainly, OpenAI and Anthropic are making plays to own (and lease) the "means of production" in software. OK - I'm a pretty happy renter right now. As they gobble up previously open software stacks, how viable is it that these stacks remain open? It seems perfectly sensible to me that these providers and their users alike have an interest in further centralizing the dev lifecycle - eg, if Clau…
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It's such a laughable take. First of all a language is never getting popular simply because it's good. Actually most used languages are usually terrible.[0]
Secondly it's non factual. Python's market share grew in 2025[1][2][3]. Probably driven by AI demand.
[0]: even truer for natural languages.
[1]: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#most-popular...
[2]: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#most-popular...
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#506[deleted]
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if there will be hiring in the fullness of time. There will come a day when you can will an entire business into existence at the press of a button. Maybe it has one or two people overseeing the business logic to make sure it doesn't go off the rails, but the point is that this is a 100x reduction in labor and a 100,000x speed up in terms of delivery. They'll price this as a $1M button press. Suddenly, labor capit…
There could be opportunities we haven't anticipated. What if labor organizes around human work and consumers are willing to pay the premium? At that point, it's an arms race against the SotA models in order to deepen the resolution and harden the security mechanisms for capturing the human-affirming signals produced during work. Also, lowering the friction around verification. In that timeline, workers would have to…
> What if labor organizes around human work and consumers are willing to pay the premium?
We could start today, but sweat shops and factories dominate the items on our shelves.
But I’m sure people will draw the line at human made software…/s
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is an MIT licensed project, someone will absolutely fork it.
You seem to be underestestimating the laziness of the people, and overestimating their resolve. Angry forks usually don't last, angst doesn't prevent maintenance burnouts.
You underestimate the value that something like uv and company bring to the ecosystem. Given enough time I could have seen it replacing some core utilities, now that its owned by OpenAI I don't see that happening, unless OpenAI "donates" the project but keeps the devs on a payroll.
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#509What strikes me most about this acquisition isn't the AI angle. It's the question of why so many open source tools get built by startup teams in the first place. I maintain an open source project funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund. Getting there wasn't easy: the application process is long, the amounts are modest compared to a VC round, and you have to build community trust before any of that becomes possible. But the…
> I maintain an open source project funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund.
I would absolutely love to know more about this if you are willing to share the story?
Re: Astral to Join OpenAI
#510What strikes me most about this acquisition isn't the AI angle. It's the question of why so many open source tools get built by startup teams in the first place. I maintain an open source project funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund. Getting there wasn't easy: the application process is long, the amounts are modest compared to a VC round, and you have to build community trust before any of that becomes possible. But the…
> I maintain an open source project funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund. I would absolutely love to know more about this if you are willing to share the story?
Sure! Here's what I wrote about the story: https://writings.hongminhee.org/2025/10/stf-fedify/