7 ms·

is it unrealistic to think the companies that benefit from orgs such as this could donate a fraction of a percent of their wealth to keep them going? the respon

by iqihs 7mo ago

is it unrealistic to think the companies that benefit from orgs such as this could donate a fraction of a percent of their wealth to keep them going? the responsibility always seems to fall most on those with the least resources.

idle_zealot 7mo ago
The decision of the market seems pretty clear. We've been able to co-operate and build a software commons for decades, iterating on and improving shared infrastructure and solutions to problems common and niche. The work done for these commons, though, benefits everyone, and that's a hard sell for a profit-driven organization. So the commons are enriched with a) volunteers b) brief windows in which corporate decision makers are driven by ideology and good intentions, where those decisions carry momentum or license obligations (see Android, and how Google tries to claw it back) c) corporations attempting to shape the larger landscape or commoditize their complement, see Facebook's work on React, or contributions to the Linux kernel Of the above, only (a) or rarely and temporarily (b) are interested in collective wellbeing. Most of the labor and resources go into making moats and doing the bare minimum to keep the shared infrastructure alive. Now companies selling LLM coding agents enter the scene, promising to eliminate their customers' dependence on the commons, and whatever minimal obligations they had to support it. Why use a standard solution when what used to be a library can now be generated on the fly and be part of your moat? Spot a security bug? Have an agent diagnose and fix it. No need to contribute to any upstream. Hell, no upstream would even accept whatever the LLM made without a bunch of cleanup and massaging to get it to conform with their style guides and standards. Open source, free software, they're fundamentally about code. The intended audience for such code is machine and human. They're not compatible with a development cycle where craft is not a consideration and code is not meant to be read and understood. That is all to say: yes, it is unrealistic to expect companies to donate anything to the commons if they can find any other avenue. They prefer a future where computer programs are purchased by the token from model providers to one where they might have to unintentionally help out a competitor.
- indymike 7mo ago
  > Now companies selling LLM coding agents enter the scene, promising to eliminate their customers' dependence on the commons, and whatever minimal obligations they had to support it. This is misguided. Maintenance of LLM code has a far greater cost than generating it. > They prefer a future where computer programs are purchased by the token from model providers to one where they might have to unintentionally help out a competitor. I don't think that's even a thought. The thought is that "no one can tell me no".
  - doublerabbit 7mo ago
    > This is misguided. Maintenance of LLM code has a far greater cost than generating it. In corporate reality they don't care. They have their product, requirement. As it starts to rot it's easier to rebuild than to maintain. If you can ask for an LLM with a skeleton crew team now they can do it all again in five years time with the next level of LLMs.
    - indymike 7mo ago
      Yes, it is precisely misguided, and will be in five years, too. Software lasts way longer than people think it does.
      - vova_hn2 7mo ago
        > Software lasts way longer than people think it does. It was true, but I'm not sure if it's still true in the age of LLMs. Maybe we are moving into the era of disposable software.
      - sublinear 7mo ago
        The longevity of code depends at least on whether it's a product or a service. Services are what the majority of devs already work on and maintain. There's almost no incentive for anyone to use LLMs for that outside of startups. They do indeed last a long time because the code is as fundamental to the recurring revenue of the business as their legal or accounting or marketing. Devs make changes according to the evolving needs of the business, and "productivity" isn't as much of a priority as accuracy and reliability. The implementation details are very relevant to the business, especially for B2B services that need to meet compliance requirements. Products, however, have always been disposable code written by people being thrown into a meat grinder. I don't think LLM-generated code is better, but it's probably not that much worse either.
mentalgear 7mo ago
It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a company builds a product using an open-source library and reaches a specific revenue threshold (e.g., $XX million), they must compensate the authors proportional to the library's footprint in their codebase and/or its execution during daily operations.
- colesantiago 7mo ago
  Good idea. The MIT license and other "pushover" licenses was built in the pre-LLM era. I don't think it is fit for purpose anymore since now maintainers are getting burnt out and most code is now being generated from OSS. A new OSS license for the AI age must be made for newer libraries, projects and existing projects that want to change licenses.
  - satvikpendem 7mo ago
    What new license would you make that isn't already covered by existing ones?
  - pabs3 7mo ago
    The AI companies claim that training is fair use, so no license can prevent what is happening with AIs. It would require a clarification in copyright law that AI models are considered derivative works, and that AI generated code is a derivative work of the model and the prompt. That seems unlikely to ever happen though.
- bpavuk 7mo ago
  we have a solution for that: GPL + commercial dual-licensing. the problem is that a) there is an entire anti-GPL crowd; although I'd just not give a shit about them, it's worth mentioning, b) who's gonna enforce the license?, c) how are you going to monetize internal use? what if your tech (e.g. a build system) is only really useful internally?
actionfromafar 7mo ago
It's called "taxation" but it's not very popular.
Ferret7446 7mo ago
We really need to stop this misconception about FOSS. Free software is provided as is, with no obligations on either party (minus the viral clause of copyleft). The user is not obligated to "contribute" in any way, and the provider is not obligated to support in any way. It is a single one off donation of work from the author to the public.
surgical_fire 7mo ago
Yes. Companies optimize for profit, all else be damned, no matter the damage they cause to the world around them. In that sense, I fully expect companies to extract all value they can from Open Source without paying not contributing nothing in return. The world would be saner if more people understood that.

by iqihs 7mo ago

idle_zealot 7mo ago

The decision of the market seems pretty clear. We've been able to co-operate and build a software commons for decades, iterating on and improving shared infrastructure and solutions to problems common and niche. The work done for these commons, though, benefits everyone, and that's a hard sell for a profit-driven organization. So the commons are enriched with a) volunteers b) brief windows in which corporate decision makers are driven by ideology and good intentions, where those decisions carry momentum or license obligations (see Android, and how Google tries to claw it back) c) corporations attempting to shape the larger landscape or commoditize their complement, see Facebook's work on React, or contributions to the Linux kernel Of the above, only (a) or rarely and temporarily (b) are interested in collective wellbeing. Most of the labor and resources go into making moats and doing the bare minimum to keep the shared infrastructure alive. Now companies selling LLM coding agents enter the scene, promising to eliminate their customers' dependence on the commons, and whatever minimal obligations they had to support it. Why use a standard solution when what used to be a library can now be generated on the fly and be part of your moat? Spot a security bug? Have an agent diagnose and fix it. No need to contribute to any upstream. Hell, no upstream would even accept whatever the LLM made without a bunch of cleanup and massaging to get it to conform with their style guides and standards. Open source, free software, they're fundamentally about code. The intended audience for such code is machine and human. They're not compatible with a development cycle where craft is not a consideration and code is not meant to be read and understood. That is all to say: yes, it is unrealistic to expect companies to donate anything to the commons if they can find any other avenue. They prefer a future where computer programs are purchased by the token from model providers to one where they might have to unintentionally help out a competitor.

indymike 7mo ago
> Now companies selling LLM coding agents enter the scene, promising to eliminate their customers' dependence on the commons, and whatever minimal obligations they had to support it. This is misguided. Maintenance of LLM code has a far greater cost than generating it. > They prefer a future where computer programs are purchased by the token from model providers to one where they might have to unintentionally help out a competitor. I don't think that's even a thought. The thought is that "no one can tell me no".
- doublerabbit 7mo ago
  > This is misguided. Maintenance of LLM code has a far greater cost than generating it. In corporate reality they don't care. They have their product, requirement. As it starts to rot it's easier to rebuild than to maintain. If you can ask for an LLM with a skeleton crew team now they can do it all again in five years time with the next level of LLMs.
  - indymike 7mo ago
    Yes, it is precisely misguided, and will be in five years, too. Software lasts way longer than people think it does.
    - vova_hn2 7mo ago
      > Software lasts way longer than people think it does. It was true, but I'm not sure if it's still true in the age of LLMs. Maybe we are moving into the era of disposable software.
    - sublinear 7mo ago
      The longevity of code depends at least on whether it's a product or a service. Services are what the majority of devs already work on and maintain. There's almost no incentive for anyone to use LLMs for that outside of startups. They do indeed last a long time because the code is as fundamental to the recurring revenue of the business as their legal or accounting or marketing. Devs make changes according to the evolving needs of the business, and "productivity" isn't as much of a priority as accuracy and reliability. The implementation details are very relevant to the business, especially for B2B services that need to meet compliance requirements. Products, however, have always been disposable code written by people being thrown into a meat grinder. I don't think LLM-generated code is better, but it's probably not that much worse either.

mentalgear 7mo ago

It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a company builds a product using an open-source library and reaches a specific revenue threshold (e.g., $XX million), they must compensate the authors proportional to the library's footprint in their codebase and/or its execution during daily operations.

colesantiago 7mo ago
Good idea. The MIT license and other "pushover" licenses was built in the pre-LLM era. I don't think it is fit for purpose anymore since now maintainers are getting burnt out and most code is now being generated from OSS. A new OSS license for the AI age must be made for newer libraries, projects and existing projects that want to change licenses.
- satvikpendem 7mo ago
  What new license would you make that isn't already covered by existing ones?
- pabs3 7mo ago
  The AI companies claim that training is fair use, so no license can prevent what is happening with AIs. It would require a clarification in copyright law that AI models are considered derivative works, and that AI generated code is a derivative work of the model and the prompt. That seems unlikely to ever happen though.
bpavuk 7mo ago
we have a solution for that: GPL + commercial dual-licensing. the problem is that a) there is an entire anti-GPL crowd; although I'd just not give a shit about them, it's worth mentioning, b) who's gonna enforce the license?, c) how are you going to monetize internal use? what if your tech (e.g. a build system) is only really useful internally?

actionfromafar 7mo ago

It's called "taxation" but it's not very popular.

Ferret7446 7mo ago

We really need to stop this misconception about FOSS. Free software is provided as is, with no obligations on either party (minus the viral clause of copyleft). The user is not obligated to "contribute" in any way, and the provider is not obligated to support in any way. It is a single one off donation of work from the author to the public.

surgical_fire 7mo ago

Yes. Companies optimize for profit, all else be damned, no matter the damage they cause to the world around them. In that sense, I fully expect companies to extract all value they can from Open Source without paying not contributing nothing in return. The world would be saner if more people understood that.