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Astral to Join OpenAI

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Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#841

Post by jimbob74 »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #487
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, if it turns out to be too bad I guess I’ll just end up switching back to pipenv, which is the closest thing to uv (especially due to the automatic Python version management, but not as fast).

I would much rather use pipenv, if it only had the speed of uv. Every interface kenneth reitz originally designed was fantastic to learn and use. I wish the influx of all these non-pythonistas changing the language over the last 10 years or so would go back and learn from his stuff.

Pipenv is a pile of shite

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#842

Post by omcnoe »

fud101 wrote: post #817
PaulHoule wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are working on one tiny project on your machine that pips in four packages you probably think pip was OK. Circa 2017 I was working on systems that were complex enough that pip couldn't build them and after I got to the bottom of it I knew it not my fault but it was the fault of pip. I built a system which could build usable environments out of pre-built wheels and sketched out the design of a system that was r…

> everybody else was blaming themselves for a problem and didn't have a clear understanding of what was wrong with pip or what a correct model for managing python dependencies is (short answer: see maven) I always looked down on the Java ecosystem but if it turns out Maven had a better story all along and we all overlooked it, that's wild.

Maven has its own bone headed design where it SILENTLY resolves conflicting dependency branches through a “closest to dep tree root wins” rule.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#843

Post by fragmede »

heavyset_go wrote: post #790
nunez wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open-source models will never be _truly_ competitive as long as obtaining quality datasets and training on them remains prohibitively expensive. Plus, most users don't want to host their own models. Most users don't care that OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have a monopoly on LLMs. ChatGPT is a household name, and most of the big businesses are forcing Copilot and/or Claude onto their employees for "real work." This is…

Local models are more like browsers than servers. The user doesn't care where they're hosted, they click an icon and ask questions either way.

People do care about the privacy of these things though. It's one thing to talk about encryption, but users are pouring out their heart and soul to these things, and they're not all idiots.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#844

Post by JimDabell »

19205817 wrote: post #585
throwaway63467 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a small tool shop building a tiny part of the Python ecosystem, let’s not overstate their importance. They burned through their VC money and needed an exit and CLI tool chains are hyped now for LLMs, but this mostly sounds like an acquihire to me. Dev tools are among the hardest things to monetize with very few real winners, so good for them to get a good exit.

They were hyped here without any pushback. Maybe OpenAI thinks the Astral folks will now evangelize and foist Codex and ChatGPT onto the open source "community". People need to be very careful about resisting. OpenAI wants to make everyone unemployed, works with the Pentagon, steals IP, and copyright whistleblowers end up getting killed under mysterious circumstances.

> They were hyped here without any pushback.

This is untrue. People frequently complained that they were VC funded and used it to justify mistrust.

Take this discussion, for example. Completely dominated by the topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892209

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#845

Post by jredwards »

MoonZ wrote: post #531
krick wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, well, the fact is that every person who ever touches Python needed uv, but only Astral folks created it. So, nope, there's no one capable of filling the void, just accept that it's fucked now. The best die first.

25 years of Python behind me, please let me tell you that hopefully you're wrong : we don't "need" uv :)

Need is definitely too strong a word, but I think we can agree that uv has so far been the best solution to a problem that plagued python development for a really long time.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#846

Post by jimbob74 »

aanet wrote: post #691

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…

Yeah - that would be a good move. It’s one thing to say something in a press release, it’s another to setup an ownership structure then ensures the tools aren’t dependent on Open.ais continuing goodwill.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#847

Post by hatefulheart »

There are so many comments along the lines of:

"What's the matter, just fork it when it goes bad?"

The problem is that uv in and of itself, whilst a great technical achievement isn't sufficient. Astral run a massive DevOps pipeline that, just to give one example, packages the python distributions.

Those who are saying that forking is an option are clearly not arguing it in good faith.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#848

Post by dheatov »

fortuitous-frog wrote: post #279
kseniamorph wrote: post #181

i feel like moves like this make it even harder for new open-source tools to break through. there's already evidence that LLMs are biased toward established tools in their training data (you can check it here https://amplifying.ai/research/claude-code-picks ). when a dominant player acquires the most popular toolchain in an ecosystem, that bias only deepens. not because of any skewing, but because the acquired tools…

I'm also concerned about this, but I feel as though uv and ruff's explosive growth happening alongside and despite that of LLMs demonstrates that it's not a show-stopper. I vividly recall LLM coding agents defaulting to pip/poetry and black/flake8, etc. for new projects. It still does that to some extent, but I see them using uv and ruff by default -- without any steering from me -- with far greater frequency. Perhap…

However when improved tools are obtained by these capitalists whose business model has no hint of sustainability, what's next is a modern Phoebus cartel situation where further improvement will be restricted or even prohibited to fabricate need for things like "uv Enterprise Pro".

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#849

Post by virgildotcodes »

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…

Also notable that after Anthropic’s acquisition of Bun, the vast majority of the communication and seeming effort from Jared on twitter seemed to shift to fixing issues with Claude Code.

I imagine many of these efforts benefitted the community as a whole, but it does make sense that the owners will have these orgs at least prioritize their own internal needs.

Re: Astral to Join OpenAI

#850

Post by marcyb5st »

dcre wrote: post #371
incognito124 wrote: post #9

Possibly the worst possible news for the Python ecosystem. Absolutely devastating. Congrats to the team

Can't blame you for not trusting OpenAI, but it seems to me they would gain very little from fucking up uv (or more precisely doing things that have a side effect of fucking up uv), and they have tons of incentive to cultivate developer good will. Better to think of buying and supporting a project like this as a very cheap way to make developers think they're not so bad.

But what happens to the Astral team if OpenAI flops at the IPO or runs out of companies throwing billions at them?

This is a bad thing IMHO

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