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Coding agents could make free software matter again

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Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#51

Post by micromacrofoot »

jonahss wrote: post #37
apatheticonion wrote: post #21

Having over a decade of open source software I've written freely available online, I actually really appreciate the value that AI && LLMs have provided me. The thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that my works were likely included in the training data and, if it doesn't violate my licenses (GNU 2/3), it certainly feels against the spirit of what I intended when distributing my works. I was made redu…

I feel kind of good knowing that my code, design decisions, styles, are now part of the data shaping all software now.

a comforting thought but I have bills to pay

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#52

Post by gerdesj »

jonahss wrote: post #37
apatheticonion wrote: post #21

Having over a decade of open source software I've written freely available online, I actually really appreciate the value that AI && LLMs have provided me. The thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that my works were likely included in the training data and, if it doesn't violate my licenses (GNU 2/3), it certainly feels against the spirit of what I intended when distributing my works. I was made redu…

I feel kind of good knowing that my code, design decisions, styles, are now part of the data shaping all software now.

Taken to a hallucinated but logical conclusion, we might define a word such as "cene" to riff off of "meme" and "gene".

The c is for code. If adopted we could spend forever arguing how the c is pronounced and whether the original had a cedilla, circonflex or rhymes with bollocks, which seems somehow appropriate. Everyone uses xene instead. x is chi but most people don't notice.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#53

Post by apatheticonion »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #29
apatheticonion wrote: post #21

Having over a decade of open source software I've written freely available online, I actually really appreciate the value that AI && LLMs have provided me. The thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that my works were likely included in the training data and, if it doesn't violate my licenses (GNU 2/3), it certainly feels against the spirit of what I intended when distributing my works. I was made redu…

> I've been looking for a copy-left "source available" license that allows me to distribute code openly but has a clause that says "if you would like to use these sources to train an LLM, please contact me and we'll work something out". I haven't yet found that Frankly do you think AI companies have even the remotest amount of respect for these licenses anyways? They will simply take your code if it is publicly scrap…

I wonder if there is a "loaded" lawsuit here that could be a win-win for license enforcement case law in LLMs.

Take a litigious company like Nintendo. If one was to train an LLM on their works and the LLM produces an emulator, that would force a lawsuit.

If Nintendo wins, then LLMs are stealing. If Nintendo loses, then we can decompile everything.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#54

Post by ahartmetz »

uduni wrote: post #8
threethirtytwo wrote: post #4

I think the opposite. It will make all software matter less. If trendlines continue... It will be faster for AI to vibe code said software to your customized specifications than to sign up for a SaaS and learn it. "Claude, create a project management tool that simplifies jira, customize it to my workflow." So a lot of apps will actually become closed source personalized builds.

There's too much value in familiar UX. "Don't make the user think" is the golden rule these days. People used to have mental bandwidth for learning new interfaces... But now people expect uniformity

They expect low complexity. Uniformity has greatly declined in the last 30 years or so. How do you even tell what is or isn't clickable, ffs?

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#55

Post by koolba »

jonahss wrote: post #37
apatheticonion wrote: post #21

Having over a decade of open source software I've written freely available online, I actually really appreciate the value that AI && LLMs have provided me. The thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that my works were likely included in the training data and, if it doesn't violate my licenses (GNU 2/3), it certainly feels against the spirit of what I intended when distributing my works. I was made redu…

I feel kind of good knowing that my code, design decisions, styles, are now part of the data shaping all software now.

Reading this I hear The Roots playing The Seed 2.0[1] in my mind.

It’s a wild thought to think that of all the things that will remain on this earth after you’re gone, it’ll be your GPL contributions reconstituting themselves as an LLM’s hallucinations.

[1]: https://youtu.be/ojC0mg2hJCc

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#57

Post by Crye »

Bockit wrote: post #10

It’s such a fun time to have 1+ decade(s) of experience in software. Knowing what simple and good are (for me), and being able to articulate it has let me create so much personal software for myself and my family. It has really felt like turning ideas into reality, about as fast as I can think of them or they can suggest them. And adding specific features, just for our needs. The latest one was a slack canvas replace…

Couldn't agree more. I'm building open source software for the grid, contributing in a way that feels like it could truly make a difference, while building momentum for open standards. It doesn't feel like work, just creativity and problem solving. On top of that, I can just build stuff for fun. Kids want a Minecraft mod? Let's build it and learn a thing or two on the way.

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#58

Post by DesaiAshu »

andoando wrote: post #43
floathub wrote: post #3

Free software has never mattered more. All the infrastructure that runs the whole AI-over-the-internet juggernaut is essentially all open source. Heck, even Claude Code would be far less useful without grep, diff, git, head, etc., etc., etc. And one can easily see a day where something like a local sort Claude Code talking to Open Weight and Open Source models is the core dev tool.

Why isnt LLM training itself open sourced? With all the compute in the world, something like Folding@home here would be killer

data bandwidth limits distributed training under current architectures. really interesting implications if we can make progress on that

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#59

Post by LegionMammal978 »

sigbottle wrote: post #28
woeirua wrote: post #18

I’m not so sure… what I see as more likely is that coding agents will just strip parts from open source libraries to build bespoke applications for users. Users will be ecstatic because they get exactly what they want and they don’t have to worry about upstream supply chain attacks. Maintainers get screwed because no one contributes back to the main code base. In the end open source software becomes critical to the e…

But the users would have to maintain their own forks then. Unless you stream back patches into your forks, which implies there's some upstream being maintained. Software doesn't interoperate and maintain itself for free - somebody's gotta put in the time for that. I think as long as AI isn't literal AGI, social pressures will keep projects alive, in some state. There definitely is something scary about stealing entir…

> But the users would have to maintain their own forks then.

I suppose the idea would be, they don't have to maintain it: if it ever starts to rot from whatever environmental changes, then they can just get the LLM to patch it, or at worst, generate it again from scratch.

(And personally, I prefer writing code so that it isn't coupled so tightly to the environment or other people's fast-moving libraries to begin with, since I don't want to poke at all of my projects every other year just to keep them functional.)

Re: Coding agents could make free software matter again

#60

Post by hparadiz »

jonahss wrote: post #37
apatheticonion wrote: post #21

Having over a decade of open source software I've written freely available online, I actually really appreciate the value that AI && LLMs have provided me. The thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that my works were likely included in the training data and, if it doesn't violate my licenses (GNU 2/3), it certainly feels against the spirit of what I intended when distributing my works. I was made redu…

I feel kind of good knowing that my code, design decisions, styles, are now part of the data shaping all software now.

Me too! I'm glad I'm not the only one.
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