Maybe I’m seeing shadows in the clouds, but it seems like AI means a lot more people have been building open source tools.

I’m an AI skeptic, but I’m wondering if this can help undermine some of the shit software industry. Most AI tools sold by companies have an open source alternative.

I’m thinking that maybe AI will accidentally allow the private person to build free tools and reduce the market value of sold tools.

  • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    22 hours ago

    Many people have “itches to scratch” and some interest in development but little time to learn, so AI coding tools will allow them to scratch many of those itches without paying $ to others or investing that time (for better or for worse). Even as an experienced (but no longer full time) coder, I use it to scratch itches when I don’t have the time/lust.

    Often enough, you’ll find some customizable app that does 90% of what you want, with a bunch of features you don’t care about. Writing personalized apps is a cool new thing, giving you exactly the functionality that you want. Many times these will be based on OSS or open libraries, which the AI just glues together.

    Will this personalized development result in new quality OSS apps, though? I doubt it. We also don’t really need more sloppy code on github.

    There are a lot of personal apps that just happen to have an OSS license… and then there are OSS projects, built and maintained as OSS community projects. It takes dedication to run a real OSS project, build a community, handle issues, websites, etc.

    Will AI coding tools assist developers of real OSS projects? Sure… many are already using it to varying degrees. We’ll increasingly see it being used to find and fix bugs and security issues ahead of time - security researchers & blackhats are already having a field day.