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Astral to Join OpenAI

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Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#751

Post by Terretta »

theptip wrote: post #616
arw0n wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree uv is great but let’s not get carried away here. Poetry is good, pip was fine for many use-cases after they added native lock files.

let's get carried away.

`uv run` a .py with inline script metadata has all the deps installed and your script running in a venv while poetry is still deciding to resolve...

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#752

Post by zbentley »

1718627440 wrote: post #419
zbentley wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not use non-OS package managers? If not, do you develop software with source dependencies (go, java, node, rust, python)? If so, how do you handle acquiring those dependencies—by hand or using a tool?

> Do you not use non-OS package managers? Mostly no, sometimes I give up and still use pip as a separate user. > If not, do you develop software with source dependencies (go, java, node, rust, python)? If so, how do you handle acquiring those dependencies—by hand or using a tool I haven't felt the need to use Go, the only Java software I use is in the OS repo. I don't want to use JS software for other reasons. This i…

Thanks for explaining your workflow. It seems predictable, but like it really locks you into one of the few (albeit popular) programming languages that has many/most of its development libraries repackaged by your OS. There are plenty of very popular languages that don't offer that at all.

Go and Rust, specifically, seem a bit odd to be allergic to. Their "package managers" are largely downloading sources into your code repository, not downloading/installing truly arbitrary stuff. How is that different from your (presumably "wget the file into my repo or include path") workflow for depending on a header-only C library from the internet which your OS doesn't repackage?

I understand if your resistance to those platforms is because of how much source code things download, but that still seems qualitatively different to me from "npm install can do god-knows-what to my workstation" or "pip install can install packages that shadow system-wide trusted ones".

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#753

Post by dwd »

Frieren wrote: post #591
ren_engineer wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

somebody looked at Claude Code's binaries and Anthropic is testing out their own app platform called antspace. Not sure why people are shocked, they've been cloning features of their API customers and adding them to their core products since day 1. Makes sense they will take user data and do it for Claude Code by copying features or buying up what developers are using so they can lock people into a stack. These are t…

> they've been cloning features of their API customers and adding them to their core products since day 1 Is this not just the strategy of all platforms. Spy on all customers, see what works for them and copy the most valuable business models. Amazon does that with all kinds of products. Platforms will just grow to own all the market and hike prices and lower quality, and pay close to nothing to employees. This is wh…

It is exactly the strategy of all platforms - they get greedy to the point of screwing over their own customers. I've lost count of number of times I've seen a platform get popular and then expand to offer the same services as its customers, often even undercutting market rates.

Just wait till they offer "Developer Certification" so you have to pay them to get a shiny little badge and a certificate while they go around saying no badge = you're shit.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#754

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dahlia wrote: post #414

What 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…

> it doesn't have a built-in betrayal baked into the structure

Astral was founded as a private company. Its team has presumably worked hard to build something valuable. Calling their compensation for that work 'betrayal' is unfair.

Community-based software development sounds nice. But with rare exception, it gets outcompeted by start-ups. Start-ups work, and they work well. What is problematic is the tech giants' monopoly of the acquisition endpoint. Figuring out ways for communities to compete with said giants as potential acquirers is worth looking into–maybe public loans to groups of developers who can show (a) they're committed to keep paying for the product and (b) aren't getting kicked back.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#755

Post by sbinnee »

dahlia wrote: post #502
alexchantavy wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I cannot agree more though I have little experience in open source. I knew that Korean environment for open source software would be touch before coming back from Europe, it seems much easier to target international traction rather than focusing on domestic interest.

Personally, I'd like to know, since you have been active in Korea, if there is any groups that I can attend to.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#756

Post by pitcock »

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…

They’re not ahead on code though, and they recently announced giving up on rich media AI entirely lmao

The fuck does OpenAI have to offer?

Nothing I need.

The only reason Gemini is the best is UX, really running my own Mistral 7b is more than fine.

Because slow ass Gemini is still a slightly more convenient experience I use that.

Nobody OWNS nor will own the means of essentially thoughts. It’s such a silly idea I wonder if it’s propaganda.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#757

Post by JumpCrisscross »

shimman wrote: post #609
OutOfHere wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing. To me that says that as soon as cash becomes tight at OpenAI, the Astral staff will no longer get to work on Python tooling anymore, namely uv, etc.

Tale as old as time in SV, why we keep trusting venture capital to be the community's stewards I have no idea. We need public investment in open source, in the form of grants, not more private partnerships that somehow always seem to hurt the community.

> we keep trusting venture capital to be the community's stewards

OpenAI isn't a VC. It's VC-backed. But so is Astral.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#758

Post by ghshephard »

KaiserPro wrote: post #694
arw0n wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I've used python for roughly 15 years, and 10 of those years I was paid to primarily write and maintain projects written in Python.

Things got bearable with virtualenv/virtualenv wrappers, but it was never what I would call great. Pip was always painful, and slow. I never looked forward to using them - and every time I worked on a new system - the amount of finaggling I had to do to avoid problems, and the amount of time I spent supporting other people who had problems was significant.

The day I first used uv (about is as memorable to me as the the day I first started using python (roughly 2004) - everything changed.

I've used uv pretty much every single day since then and the joy has never left. Every operation is twitch fast. There has never once been any issues. Combined with direnv - I can create projects/venvs on the fly so quickly I don't even bother using it's various affordances to run projects without a venv.

To put it succinctly - uv gives me two things.

One - zero messing around with virtualenvwrappers and friends. For whatever reason, I've never once run into an error like "virtualenvwrapper.sh: There was a problem running the initialization hooks."

Two - fast. It may be the fastest software I've ever used. Everything is instant - so you never experience any type of cognitive distraction when creating a python project and diving into anything - you think it - and it's done. I genuinely look forward to uv pip install - even when it's not already in cache - the parallel download is epically fast - always a joy.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#759

Post by Kwpolska »

zahlman wrote: post #726
Kwpolska wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core-adjacent people have completely failed to produce reasonable packaging tools for decades, why would you want another new tool from them?

Who said anything about it coming from core-adjacent people? Was Kenneth Reitz "core-adjacent" when Requests was brought under the PSF umbrella?

Is there anyone seriously involved in packaging who is neither working at Astral nor a PyPA member?

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#760

Post by JoshTriplett »

dcreager wrote: post #683
aseipp wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason Astral as a team is so well liked is precisely because they are not part of the main fold or related to "Core Python"; they are an independent vendor, one that delivered high quality code and listened directly to users and their own (extensive) experience to do so, and they succeeded at that repeatedly. Python packaging has {been seen as, actually been} miserable for years , and so by the same toke…

Does that not also suggest (cautious, make sure we back it up with our actions) optimism about this acquisition? We're not breaking up the band. These tools will be in the same hands as before. And it would be extremely value-destructive to bring in a team like ours and then undermine what made us valued and successful.

> And it would be extremely value-destructive to bring in a team like ours and then undermine what made us valued and successful.

It would be, and yet: https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

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