3 ms·

So I voted against, partly because I feel that the text doesn't to justice to such a multifaceted topic. If all projects on Codeberg were human-written, that w

by Aachen 3mo ago

So I voted against, partly because I feel that the text doesn't to justice to such a multifaceted topic. If all projects on Codeberg were human-written, that would be a big seal of quality! There are a lot of projects coming out now where someone feels like they've made a cool thing but it breaks on the first edge case and is entirely unmaintainable. Many are built on wrong principles because the prompt authors aren't savvy and don't know better. Some authors (I've encountered this in the OpenStreetMap community) even have the gall to pretend that their code is a gift that we now have to host and maintain. Aside from these quality and community issues, build and test pipelines also take a lot of compute resources, and with large growth in projects, that will increase as well. That the author of the proposal wants to avoid this makes a ton of sense to me. But it also drives a lot of projects away because maybe you later want to use LLM assistance (imagine LLMs got twice as good as they are today), or maybe the auto-generated tests might become >50% of the code. You'd have to migrate your repository and community away from Codeberg. Why take that risk? It's just not a worry I feel that developers need. They're looking to get away from Microsoft (GitHub) for their open source project and that's the point where Codeberg should be a no-brainer We're an open source community and so the mass stealing of all our work to feed LLM training which heats the world and causes (at least temporarily) giant price hikes in consumer hardware... there's a lot to say for more ethical training and use of LLMs, but does it matter at all if Codeberg bans LLM output? Won't we just make ourselves obsolete? Idk. It's multifaceted and this proposal seems too vague and blunt for me. That's not an option that's set in stone btw, just my current understanding of the different aspects

therealpygon 3mo ago
A big seal of quality because it is human written? Maybe in narrow spaces but in general, I’d put money on the average developer being significantly worse at writing code with bugs than an AI. It’s codebergs infra so their choice, but it seems like an overly simplistic solution to a complicated advancing technology, in that it is a threadbare line between “vibe-coded” and “complex agent harness with human oversight and review”. Also, I’m actually quite happy with some of the vibe-coded apps I use. Handy is an example, which started as a vibecoded app, and is fantastic for STT/dictation. It seems like a literal baby with the bath water approach.
- shumaila12 3mo ago
  [dead]
- Aachen 3mo ago
  I'm not saying you can't be happy with autogenerated software, especially for something like a dictation app where the main functionality amounts to a language selector (or calling into a detector) and calling TTSlibary.render(String text).play(). You could also just use an existing TTS app, but whatever works for you For more complex software, so far it has been my experience that you get more predictable behavior (fewer edge-cases), performance, and relevant (but, to be fair, less comprehensive) documentation when someone thought about and built it
  - therealpygon 3mo ago
    For software that became popular, sure. Have you spent a lot of time looking at horribly written unpopular software that far outpaces the popular ones in quantity, not quality? I fully agree that a well-written human application can be far better organized and documented. But I’m not talking about the top 10% that most people interact with and focus on, but rather the bottom 90% that get far fewer eyes and are way more poorly written, regardless of perceived complexity.
    - Aachen 3mo ago
      Hah, that's a unique argument. I haven't before been quizzed on how much time I spend with unpopular software. Do you have a minute? xD I think I use more unpopular software than 99% of the world population. Besides that it's part of my job to security test what are usually internal applications (every ~two weeks a new one), I also use basically only software from F-Droid and the Debian repositories, pulling only the apps from the Play Store from (semi) governments where it's unpractical to get by without them. Besides that, a lot of what I use is self-written, with number of users at most a few hundred, biasing heavily towards one. Yes, I'm familiar with hobby coding projects thank you very much :D > I’m not talking about the top 10% that most people interact with and focus on I’m glad we're on the same page then :)
mcv 3mo ago
> imagine LLMs got twice as good as they are today) I have no idea how you'd quantify that, but they're pretty good already. At least in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing. I share everybody's concern about many aspects of LLMs; copyright, data collection, energy use, component prices, not to mention what it does to us: outsourcing our thinking, dependency, slop. And I don't entirely disagree wanting to limit that. And yet, I have just written a library that I was planning to put on Codeberg, but I've used a lot of LLM assistance for it, because it's simply too big otherwise. I put a lot of effort on code quality and architecture, and I don't think this counts as slop, but I do think it violates Codeberg's new rule, so I guess I'll have to look for another place. No idea where yet; I don't want to go to Github, and I believe there were similar concerns about Gitlab, so I don't know where to go yet.
- Aachen 3mo ago
  If you could have built it yourself but it was just too much work for the available time, then I trust that indeed the architecture will be sound and it sounds to me like it should be fine to build this way and host on Codeberg... until this amendment :/. I feel sorry that I'm part of this organisation that just shut the door on you How's your appetite for self hosting? I've only ever hosted the predecessor of Forgejo, Gitea, and that was a breeze. Sadly I'm not aware of other open source hosting platforms, like, if you search "forgejo is confirmed" (with quotes) you find a lot of instances, but the point of Codeberg was the (presumed) longevity
  - mcv 3mo ago
    I was hoping my library is useful enough to enough people that a community would form around it. Self hosting doesn't sound like a good way to do that. I'll have a look at Gitea. Otherwise it's probably going to be Github. Or I'll self host until I find something better.
- 0rzech 3mo ago
  > No idea where yet; I don't want to go to Github, and I believe there were similar concerns about Gitlab, so I don't know where to go yet. Perhaps https://radicle.dev https://radicle.dev or https://tangled.org https://tangled.org would be fine for you?
microtonal 3mo ago
You'd have to migrate your repository and community away from Codeberg. Why take that risk? It's just not a worry I feel that developers need. I feel like we are already there. I am not vibecoding a lot, but I certainly use LLM-assisted coding now for most of my work. Once you go beyond vibe coding, an LLM feels a lot like a compiler from your well-specified ideas to code. So, to some extend, these restrictions feel like disallowing a higher-level programming language in a time when everyone was still writing machine code. I understand where this decision is coming from (especially because they have been under attack by LLM bots) and it is well within their right, but the vague language adds a lot of uncertainty: You must not share projects that mostly consist of code written by "generative AI"-tools It's clear that this excludes vibe coding. But what about LLM-assisted coding, where the developer writes very clear instructions of what to do and carefully reviews every line? In such cases a project 'mostly consist of code written by "generative AI"-tools', but the quality is probably not worse than fully hand-written code, especially because an LLM is often more able to 'think' of all kinds of corner cases. I have some projects on Codeberg and donate monthly, but I have to reconsider both, since with this change Codeberg does not really align with how I work anymore. The projects that I have on Codeberg are largely human-written, but certainly use LLM-assistance for new code. At any rate, I guess I'm back to GitHub until I have found a better alternative.
- p2detar 3mo ago
  > It's clear that this excludes vibe coding. But what about LLM-assisted coding, where the developer writes very clear instructions of what to do and carefully reviews every line? My impression is that they don‘t care, it’s still ”slop” for them and for most of coderbergers for that matter. But I do exactly this. It‘s a code base that I have written prior manually, before LLMs, so now this helps a lot with boilerplate and add features. LLM-assisted is not vibe-coding, but FWIW I don‘t care what others think.
  - 0rzech 3mo ago
    I think your impression is right, at least judging by https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware .
YeGoblynQueenne 3mo ago
>> There are a lot of projects coming out now where someone feels like they've made a cool thing but it breaks on the first edge case and is entirely unmaintainable. Many are built on wrong principles because the prompt authors aren't savvy and don't know better. It would be nice to have concrete examples of that kind of project.
saidnooneever 3mo ago
you say human code is better but in reality it is not. a lot of human code is garbage. i am sure if youd look at mine you would be horrified. moritified. a lot of people just have fun with it. what you imply is only wanting 'professional' projects on there written by professional programmers. This seems like some exclusive membership would be more adequate. no need for fees, just invite the people whos code you like to see -_-

by Aachen 3mo ago

therealpygon 3mo ago

A big seal of quality because it is human written? Maybe in narrow spaces but in general, I’d put money on the average developer being significantly worse at writing code with bugs than an AI. It’s codebergs infra so their choice, but it seems like an overly simplistic solution to a complicated advancing technology, in that it is a threadbare line between “vibe-coded” and “complex agent harness with human oversight and review”. Also, I’m actually quite happy with some of the vibe-coded apps I use. Handy is an example, which started as a vibecoded app, and is fantastic for STT/dictation. It seems like a literal baby with the bath water approach.

shumaila12 3mo ago
[dead]
Aachen 3mo ago
I'm not saying you can't be happy with autogenerated software, especially for something like a dictation app where the main functionality amounts to a language selector (or calling into a detector) and calling TTSlibary.render(String text).play(). You could also just use an existing TTS app, but whatever works for you For more complex software, so far it has been my experience that you get more predictable behavior (fewer edge-cases), performance, and relevant (but, to be fair, less comprehensive) documentation when someone thought about and built it
- therealpygon 3mo ago
  For software that became popular, sure. Have you spent a lot of time looking at horribly written unpopular software that far outpaces the popular ones in quantity, not quality? I fully agree that a well-written human application can be far better organized and documented. But I’m not talking about the top 10% that most people interact with and focus on, but rather the bottom 90% that get far fewer eyes and are way more poorly written, regardless of perceived complexity.
  - Aachen 3mo ago
    Hah, that's a unique argument. I haven't before been quizzed on how much time I spend with unpopular software. Do you have a minute? xD I think I use more unpopular software than 99% of the world population. Besides that it's part of my job to security test what are usually internal applications (every ~two weeks a new one), I also use basically only software from F-Droid and the Debian repositories, pulling only the apps from the Play Store from (semi) governments where it's unpractical to get by without them. Besides that, a lot of what I use is self-written, with number of users at most a few hundred, biasing heavily towards one. Yes, I'm familiar with hobby coding projects thank you very much :D > I’m not talking about the top 10% that most people interact with and focus on I’m glad we're on the same page then :)

mcv 3mo ago

> imagine LLMs got twice as good as they are today) I have no idea how you'd quantify that, but they're pretty good already. At least in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing. I share everybody's concern about many aspects of LLMs; copyright, data collection, energy use, component prices, not to mention what it does to us: outsourcing our thinking, dependency, slop. And I don't entirely disagree wanting to limit that. And yet, I have just written a library that I was planning to put on Codeberg, but I've used a lot of LLM assistance for it, because it's simply too big otherwise. I put a lot of effort on code quality and architecture, and I don't think this counts as slop, but I do think it violates Codeberg's new rule, so I guess I'll have to look for another place. No idea where yet; I don't want to go to Github, and I believe there were similar concerns about Gitlab, so I don't know where to go yet.

Aachen 3mo ago
If you could have built it yourself but it was just too much work for the available time, then I trust that indeed the architecture will be sound and it sounds to me like it should be fine to build this way and host on Codeberg... until this amendment :/. I feel sorry that I'm part of this organisation that just shut the door on you How's your appetite for self hosting? I've only ever hosted the predecessor of Forgejo, Gitea, and that was a breeze. Sadly I'm not aware of other open source hosting platforms, like, if you search "forgejo is confirmed" (with quotes) you find a lot of instances, but the point of Codeberg was the (presumed) longevity
- mcv 3mo ago
  I was hoping my library is useful enough to enough people that a community would form around it. Self hosting doesn't sound like a good way to do that. I'll have a look at Gitea. Otherwise it's probably going to be Github. Or I'll self host until I find something better.
0rzech 3mo ago
> No idea where yet; I don't want to go to Github, and I believe there were similar concerns about Gitlab, so I don't know where to go yet. Perhaps https://radicle.dev https://radicle.dev or https://tangled.org https://tangled.org would be fine for you?

microtonal 3mo ago

You'd have to migrate your repository and community away from Codeberg. Why take that risk? It's just not a worry I feel that developers need. I feel like we are already there. I am not vibecoding a lot, but I certainly use LLM-assisted coding now for most of my work. Once you go beyond vibe coding, an LLM feels a lot like a compiler from your well-specified ideas to code. So, to some extend, these restrictions feel like disallowing a higher-level programming language in a time when everyone was still writing machine code. I understand where this decision is coming from (especially because they have been under attack by LLM bots) and it is well within their right, but the vague language adds a lot of uncertainty: You must not share projects that mostly consist of code written by "generative AI"-tools It's clear that this excludes vibe coding. But what about LLM-assisted coding, where the developer writes very clear instructions of what to do and carefully reviews every line? In such cases a project 'mostly consist of code written by "generative AI"-tools', but the quality is probably not worse than fully hand-written code, especially because an LLM is often more able to 'think' of all kinds of corner cases. I have some projects on Codeberg and donate monthly, but I have to reconsider both, since with this change Codeberg does not really align with how I work anymore. The projects that I have on Codeberg are largely human-written, but certainly use LLM-assistance for new code. At any rate, I guess I'm back to GitHub until I have found a better alternative.

p2detar 3mo ago
> It's clear that this excludes vibe coding. But what about LLM-assisted coding, where the developer writes very clear instructions of what to do and carefully reviews every line? My impression is that they don‘t care, it’s still ”slop” for them and for most of coderbergers for that matter. But I do exactly this. It‘s a code base that I have written prior manually, before LLMs, so now this helps a lot with boilerplate and add features. LLM-assisted is not vibe-coding, but FWIW I don‘t care what others think.
- 0rzech 3mo ago
  I think your impression is right, at least judging by https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware .

YeGoblynQueenne 3mo ago

>> There are a lot of projects coming out now where someone feels like they've made a cool thing but it breaks on the first edge case and is entirely unmaintainable. Many are built on wrong principles because the prompt authors aren't savvy and don't know better. It would be nice to have concrete examples of that kind of project.

saidnooneever 3mo ago

you say human code is better but in reality it is not. a lot of human code is garbage. i am sure if youd look at mine you would be horrified. moritified. a lot of people just have fun with it. what you imply is only wanting 'professional' projects on there written by professional programmers. This seems like some exclusive membership would be more adequate. no need for fees, just invite the people whos code you like to see -_-