Reading this leaves a weird taste in my mouth, since the author tends to regularly make nontrivial >1k LOC PRs (sometimes several per day) and merge them on the same day with no reviews at all. This is even ignoring the LLM aspect; I don't know what % of them are assisted, but even if it was 0%, this isn't the pace of development I'd be comfortable with.
Changing how we develop Ladybird
211–220 of 602 posts
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still open source, but not open for public contributions. That's pretty much how it was before the advent of these forges.
That's not really right, though the license is still Open Source compliant. Linux was practising an open, patches-welcome developement style before the forges existed, on its mailing list. This did indeed contrast with how eg. the FSF was running its projects, though even in those the door wasn't shut as hard on people wanting to contribute as Ladybird's now is, I think. Then Eric Raymond wrote "The Cathedral and the…
"The Cathedral and Bazaar" is orthogonal to open source. Its argument is that open source is most valuable when paired with the bazaar model, not that the cathedral model cannot be considered open.
The open source definition was created in that mind. It does not state or imply open development or a community are requirements.
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#213When AI first happened, I was afraid I was going to eventually lose my job. And while I've been lucky since, many did, and that hurt a lot. When people are losing something to automation, regardless of the economics of the situation, you cheer for the humans, or at least hope that society keeps being fair to those who are most affected. Now I see communities being affected. When you kill PRs, you not only kill the co…
> Now I see communities being affected. When you kill PRs, you not only kill the code contributions, but also massively impact the other, non-tangible contributions like ideas, eyes on code, etc. That feels way worse. These "contributions", while they did exist in small quantities, mostly were not actually what you've described there. Instead, those boiled down to unsolicited opinions, hostile takeover attempts, valu…
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Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still open source, but not open for public contributions. That's pretty much how it was before the advent of these forges.
I think I didn't put the emphasis right in my comment above. The code is still fully open source, but the project that produces the code isn't. It's not dissimilar to other projects producing open source software. This is the first time I've seen a project with this much history in community contributions close down, though. I suspect AI will cause more projects to follow in Ladybird's footsteps.
> The code is still fully open source, but the project that produces the code isn't.
I think your thought was cut off. What is the project no longer?
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
First off, to have conflicting feelings about something is really normal and doesn't immediately point to a problem, it's extremely human, and I feel similar to you to. I'm a creative + programmer, I hate to see what's happening in some communities yet I too use agents for development, it'd be like avoiding Google + SO when they first appeared, feels like there is a clear "before/after" moments with those, and with L…
We can also take some refuge in things like steam engines or electricity or the internet and how if you're just on the cusp of those you'd have similar feelings, but many years later here we are, still with jobs and meaning. A lot of people say this time is different but I guess when electricy showed up people would've said the same? I certainly remember people predicting that Manhattan would stop existing during the…
> A lot of people say this time is different but I guess when electricy showed up people would've said the same?
No. Electricity didn't raise the skill floor all that much. Certainly nowhere near the human skill ceiling.
> the internet would kill all street level businesses
That was never going to happen overnight, if at all. But online retail (and food delivery, etc) does seem to be slowly but surely eating away at local shops so I think it's within the realm of possibility.
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#216I've been looking a lot at Godot (another big open source project) PRs lately, and there's been kind of a surge of wholy ai-generated PRs (both code and description). This is agains project-policy, so people creating these PRs usually get mildly told off. What's surprising is that while many submitters take that fairly well, some people get really indignant, essentially calling the maintainers ungrateful. It's kinda…
I can imagine in these cases the LLM is telling the "contributor" how smart they are and how much the project is loosing out, maybe saying something like: "It's not about maintaining project boundaries, it’s not about ensuring code quality; it’s a gatekeeping mechanism designed by traditionalists who feel threatened by forward-thinking creators like you who truly master the efficiency of AI."
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
As they say, just send me the prompt instead, at least that's more useful.
For anything but the most trivial change, a prompt is not enough though. There's a long iterative process of generating the right code, reviewing it, testing it, experimenting with UX or design for maintainability, fixing bugs... even a predominantly AI-generated PR can capture a lot of value. But apparently trying to distinguish those from the 'one-shot' vibe coded PRs is too much work for the Ladybird team.
> But apparently trying to distinguish those from the 'one-shot' vibe coded PRs is too much work
That is exactly the issue. Projects that are end-user applications - as opposed to libraries or development tools - probably see far more slop than actual work like you've described. The yields are too low for it to make any sense to try to figure out which is which, their time is better spent doing the work.
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#218When AI first happened, I was afraid I was going to eventually lose my job. And while I've been lucky since, many did, and that hurt a lot. When people are losing something to automation, regardless of the economics of the situation, you cheer for the humans, or at least hope that society keeps being fair to those who are most affected. Now I see communities being affected. When you kill PRs, you not only kill the co…
> Now I see communities being affected. When you kill PRs, you not only kill the code contributions, but also massively impact the other, non-tangible contributions like ideas, eyes on code, etc. That feels way worse. These "contributions", while they did exist in small quantities, mostly were not actually what you've described there. Instead, those boiled down to unsolicited opinions, hostile takeover attempts, valu…
It always seemed like a weird default to let people (esp strangers) submit PRs that weren't tied to an issue nor approved.
What do you mean you just spent a week implementing something in secret?
AI makes it extra silly because now you can craft up your unsolicited code change in minutes, making it extra obvious that code changes should spawn from real discussion and agreement.
TFA is part of looking for new processes that actually work. Dunno why people are having such rose tinted glasses about pull requests. Open an issue, talk to people. Have an idea? Then get people to cosign it.
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#219Reading this leaves a weird taste in my mouth, since the author tends to regularly make nontrivial >1k LOC PRs (sometimes several per day) and merge them on the same day with no reviews at all. This is even ignoring the LLM aspect; I don't know what % of them are assisted, but even if it was 0%, this isn't the pace of development I'd be comfortable with.
That's entirely consistent with what they said here:
> Whether code was typed by hand is beside the point. What matters is who is responsible for it once it enters the browser. Ladybird is becoming a browser for real users. The people introducing changes to it must be the people who decide those changes belong in the project, and who will answer for the consequences.
Re: Changing how we develop Ladybird
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are great Open Source projects doing fine with the cathedral style, just look at Sqlite and its siblings (Fossil, …). So I do not see a problem with Ladybirds decision, in contrary, IMHO it strengthens the human aspect of software development and puts the brakes on AI free riders
I still don't see solutions on how a normal person can become a mantainer though. If all relevant open source projects close up their contributions, you can't enter the project anymore from an external point of view. Almost all open-source public figures started by being interested in a project and submitting PR to it, until eventually either joining the project as core mantainer or creating a separate open source pr…
The path is not closed; it must be earned through trust. It has always been this way. Also, note that "pull requests" are a GitHub invention; the concept is not native to Git or most other SCM systems. Before, you would have to submit your patch by email. It would be reviewed by the "maintainer" (or BDFL), who would then accept or reject it. If your contributions are accepted several times, you may be able to earn the rank of "maintainer."
Returning to the topic at hand, the challenge for new developers is to earn trust. I bet there are ways to do so aside from the muddy swamp of GitHub's (AI) bazaar.