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All my new code will be closed-source from now on

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Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#71

Post by diego_moita »

vidarh wrote: post #35
diego_moita wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And both of them failed. Both the machines and "the system" are alive and well. Did it occurred to you that you're using machines (computers, internet, HN) created by the system to complain about the system? The bitter truth is that we don't have any good alternative for both the machines and "the system". For Luddites' and Marxists' chagrin, manual weaving was indeed a crappy job and "the system" brought what they'd…

Whether you think it possible or not, this take misunderstands Marxism at a fundamental level. For Marxists, automation is a good thing - in fact it is a core precondition of socialism. Marx spent half the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto fanboying over capitalism for the productivity increases brought by capitalism. So why do you think it was to the chagrin of Marxists? Marx spent decades cheering on the adv…

Fair enough: the Chinese Marxists seem to love their robots, a lot.

But, also, they handle all that automation to the capitalists. Because capitalists are simply much better at doing it.

So it seems that, even when it succeeds, socialism can't really get rid of "the system", after all.

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#72

Post by midnitewarrior »

conartist6 wrote: post #57
init1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git is an OSS project and is not owned even slightly by Microsoft. Github the website however is. You don't need to replace git.

I think I do need to replace it to gain a competitive advantage against an incumbent the size of Microsoft. But to replace it at all I would have to build something that is, at least in a few ways, much, much better, otherwise people wouldn't have any reason to give me a moment's consideration. This market has to be won over from the bottom up. But yes, even though git is as FOSS as FOSS can be, to me it's still a cr…

Vendetta code is not going to get you far.

git works perfectly well. git is an afterthought. Engineers need to know git the same way they need to know markdown or SQL.

The complexity of git is becoming less relevant by the day as coding agents take over coding responsibilities.

If your git replacement is optimized for LLM use in ways that git cannot be optimized, you may get some traction.

By all conventional measures, git appears to be peak human-centered source control, with nearly every major company, software authoring tool, agent and SWE invested in using it.

This may be one of the reddest oceans out there.

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#73

Post by karmakaze »

mellosouls wrote: post #4

The entire argument is framed through an anti-open-source view which sees participation as entirely motivated by money. It's an unfortunate presentation that makes it more difficult to sympathise with - and ultimately it may not matter; either somebody else will fill the gap or the LLMs he resents will help coders create their products without the libraries he seems to think are valueless without a set financial cost…

This is demonstrating the difference that still exists between free software and open source. People who use GPL/AGPL want it to be shared and spread vs others using source as means to an end other than more/better software. There is still a problem with AI/LLMs though that basically de-GPL such licensed source.

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#74

Post by oliwarner »

But I use open source software because I can see and alter what's running. When you do this in a community of other developers, even as a user, you get a lot of stuff for free. I write FOSS software because I want to use it. I know the economics require give and take.

Yes, LLMs are all take. Yes, they bastardise the licenses and abuse the model. But they don't change why I want to use open source software. They don't change the fact that people need to keep writing it to keep receiving it.

Long story short, I think a lot fewer people are going to use Marc's software. He might be okay with the commercial realities of this (it might be a runaway success) but I think as non-developers get more acquainted with LLMs, being able to ask a bot to change how your system works is going to be more popular, not less, even if it's not the model RMS wanted.

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#75

Post by conartist6 »

midnitewarrior wrote: post #72
conartist6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I do need to replace it to gain a competitive advantage against an incumbent the size of Microsoft. But to replace it at all I would have to build something that is, at least in a few ways, much, much better, otherwise people wouldn't have any reason to give me a moment's consideration. This market has to be won over from the bottom up. But yes, even though git is as FOSS as FOSS can be, to me it's still a cr…

Vendetta code is not going to get you far. git works perfectly well. git is an afterthought. Engineers need to know git the same way they need to know markdown or SQL. The complexity of git is becoming less relevant by the day as coding agents take over coding responsibilities. If your git replacement is optimized for LLM use in ways that git cannot be optimized, you may get some traction. By all conventional measure…

If I have two advantages it's that nobody else is crazy enough to try this, and I'm not doing it as a vendetta at all. It started out as a toy project; I was just pushing the boundaries of what was possible with streaming parsers for fun. I only realized much later that I'd accidentally solved problems that were critical to version control.

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#78

Post by perrygeo »

I've never thought of open source as something you can make money on directly. It's hard to see how it benefits an IC economically, besides getting some recognition and a sense of pride.

Open source has always felt explicitly like a benefit for companies.

- They get free code, buy vs build is irrelevant when you can just pip install.

- Systems become largely homogenized, thus contributors are replaceable.

- They get an established pool of workers who know the technology already, no training required.

- They get free labor from contributors outside their organization maintaining their dependencies for them in perpetuity.

It's a great deal for employers! Especially if they forbid their employees from contributing back! If you work out the game theory, there's literally no reason for a company to do anything but sit back and siphon the benefits for themselves.

This doesn't really change with LLMs, it just makes the end game much more explicit. The goal was always to capture the intellectual output of open source contributors for private profit. Always. Now that it's actually happening, who's really shocked?

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#79

Post by TrevorFSmith »

The essence of free software is and always has been charity. Some people attempt to interface with capitalism via "open source" but that game is rigged to make previous winners continue to win so you missed the boat. It's a mistake to link coding to how you get food, shelter, safety, etc. Do it for fun or not at all.

Re: All my new code will be closed-source from now on

#80

Post by conartist6 »

steve1977 wrote: post #47
s1mplicissimus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree githubs dominant position is an issue very much worth gnawing at. What's wrong with git though?

And how would OP differentiate from example Forgejo?

By being nothing at all like them. The best current analog for the kind of code forge we'd build is Unison's forge, e.g. here's a library hosted on it: https://share.unison-lang.org/@ceedubs/folds

Notice that lines and columns are completely absent in this UX! It's a forge for semantic trees of code rather than text files of code.

I think they're only scratching the surface of what you can do when you shatter the line/col paradigm. Most importantly you have to use the Unison programming language to use the Unison code forge. I won't have this limitation at all. Anything you can parse into a standard syntax tree you'll be able to host on my semantic forge, and also I'll be able to put a fully-featured code editor right in the forge site so contributors can get started without ever even leaving their browser.

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