Astral to Join OpenAI • Hacker News Board

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#691

Post by aanet » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

Uff. Reading all the comments made my head hurt.

I love(d) `uv`. I think it's one of the best tools around for Python ecosystem... Therefore the pit in my tummy when I read this.

Yes, congrats to the team and all that.

I'm more worried about the long term impact on the ecosystem, as are almost everybody who dropped a comment here.

My own thoughts echo somewhat what @SimonW wrote here [1]

[1] https://simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/19/openai-acquiring-astra...

However, a forking strategy is may (or may not) be the best for `uv`.

Could we count on the Astral team to keep uv in a separate foundation?

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#692

Post by UqWBcuFx6NV4r » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

This is like, the worst outcome for Astral. This is severely disappointing. I say this as someone that uses Astral and OpenAI products practically every day. This is such a terrible fit.

I just hope that Charlie doesn’t trot around the dev circuit (like he has in years past) trying to sell everyone on this “being a good thing, actually”. I hope that he isn’t given the space to sell any story other than “we took the AI money despite it being a terrible fit”, because that story would just be a lie. The fact that this blog post is already trying to preemptively justify it—“well in my launch post what I said is…”—is extremely, extremely telling.

This is so hugely disappointing. And again, I am at this point quite bullish on AI. This isn’t a philosophical or anti-AI take at all, because those are easier to dismiss.

I’m not going to pretend to “congratulate the team” or whatever. As far as I’m concerned, that’s HN culture brain rot. Some of y’all in ‘startup culture’ may see getting acquired by OpenAI as some sort of big prize or worth celebrating or whatever, but I certainly don’t.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#693

Post by Ylpertnodi » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:26 PM UTC

selectnull wrote: post #577

I see a lot of comments that are "somebody should fork this" or "community will fork it" or similar. I didn't see a single comment of "I will fork it" type.

You're absolutely correct! Not a single one.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#694

Post by KaiserPro » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

arw0n wrote: post #569

FuckButtons wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if tomorrow uv and ruff ceased to exist, we could all go back to any number of other solutions.

Ruff is nice, but not important, uv is one of the few things making the python ecosystem bearable. Python is a language for monkeys, and if you don't give monkeys good tools, they will forever entangle themselves and you . It is all garbage wrapped in garbage. At least let me deploy it without having to manually detangle all that garbage by version. I'm done pretending this is a "right tools for the right job" kind o…

Ok, what am I missing, I've used python for many many years. What does UV give us over pip + venv + pyenv?

(I'm not doing this to be a dick, I genuinely want to know what the use case is)

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#695

Post by stingrae » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:29 PM UTC

NiloCK wrote: post #67

A 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…

The risk is one of them buys it and pulls an Oracle / Java (Sun) stunt.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#696

Post by crypto137 » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

FuckButtons wrote: post #418

rob wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, but if tomorrow uv and ruff ceased to exist, we could all go back to any number of other solutions.

UV is so much nicer than the other options.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#697

Post by rvnx » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #168

rvnx wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, to our investors, especially Casey Aylward from Accel, who led our Seed and Series A, and Jennifer Li from Andreessen Horowitz, who led our Series B They are buying out investors, it's like musical chairs. The liquidity is going to be better on OpenAI, so it pleases everyone (less pressure from investors, more liquidity for investors). The acquisition is just a collateral effect.

I can see why the former investors and Astral founders would like that, what I don't see is what OpenAI get out of the deal.

Maybe OpenAI literally considers themselves as the ultimate non-profit company. Hmm…

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#698

Post by Ylpertnodi » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #426

So no problem in joining OpenAI after the whole DoD/DoW mess? > I started Astral to make programming more productive. And now they help make killing more productive

> And now they help make killing more productive

As do our taxes.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#699

Post by PurpleRamen » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

0x500x79 wrote: post #556

PurpleRamen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Github is already owned by Microsoft, who are deep in with OpenAI. And what worth would a Github-clone even have for the world? It's not like there is any important innovation left in that space at the moment, or are there any?

Better uptime? https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-is-developing-altern...

Ok, seems reasonable, but still a bit strange. If uptime is their problem, then a dedicated personal instance for their own projects seems good enough? But might be they have some other problems too.

On the other side, thinking about, if all the AI-Slope is moving to their own platform, it would be a big benefit for Github. And maybe this is their real goal? To let Github continue being a source of good high quality human-maintained training-material?

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#700

Post by UqWBcuFx6NV4r » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

Ridius wrote: post #274

opyate wrote: post #265

This is your friendly PSA that pip-tools still exist. https://github.com/jazzband/pip-tools

[flagged]

Get off it.

* uv is better than pip-tools in every single way, apart from it being VC-backed.

* Nobody is placing any value on uv being on someone’s CV.

You are essentially incorrectly LLM pattern-matching being a jaded, sarcastic “smart person”. Learn to tell the difference between a “shiny new thing” and a legitimately better tool. If you can’t do that, you’re at best a sub-par developer.