‘If the maintainers of small projects give up, who will produce the next Linux?’

According to a new study from a team of researchers in Europe, vibe coding is killing open-source software (OSS) and it’s happening faster than anyone predicted.

Thanks to vibe coding, a colloquialism for the practice of quickly writing code with the assistance of an LLM, anyone with a small amount of technical knowledge can churn out computer code and deploy software, even if they don’t fully review or understand all the code they churn out. But there’s a hidden cost. Vibe coding relies on vast amounts of open-source software, a trove of libraries, databases, and user knowledge that’s been built up over decades.

Open-source projects rely on community support to survive. They’re collaborative projects where the people who use them give back, either in time, money, or knowledge, to help maintain the projects. Humans have to come in and fix bugs and maintain libraries.

Archive: http://archive.today/sgl5M

  • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    222·
    28 days ago

    It really is time for UBI - this would take financial pressure off of OSS coders (and everyone else) and ensure that there will always be new source material for the data hungry AI companies.

      • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
        6·
        27 days ago

        Agreed. Would be actually cool if the reason UBI gets realized is the need for human creativity in all their forms - if big tech would push in that direction i couldn’t even argue against it.

        • reksas@sopuli.xyz
          5·
          27 days ago

          i think the reason we do not have ubi universally is it would remove one of the biggest leverages companies have. If you dont have to worry about becoming homeless and starving to death, you can’t be coerced into accepting any work for shitty pay. And people who dont have so many worries might start thinking about things beyond immidiate survival and how to distract themselves from it.

  • rmuk@feddit.ukEnglish
    13·
    27 days ago

    Vibe Coding is Killing Open Source Software

    FTFY. The only difference is that with FOSS the slop is visible to all.

  • ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca
    35·
    28 days ago

    I can walk through tricky logic.

    I can pentest and determine issues or if a solution works.

    I dont know what is important. I dont know how to rebase git commits and get a pat token unless ai is holding my hand.

    I right now only vibe code but I then deep dive through the finalized commits. I am not a programmer by trade and at best I’m a sloperator.

    I think my code contributions are helpful.

    • knokelmaat@beehaw.org
      7·
      27 days ago

      What types of projects do you contribute to? Do you indicate that your contributions are done using AI?

      • ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca
        2·
        27 days ago

        So far, I have made a full stack server on a rpi from only ai and pentesting. It is deployed (live and used by my coworkers as a part of their workday). I intend to open source it once I understand more about git.

        I recently have made one pull request on one project that js very well maintained and I indicated that I used ai and it is really eye opening to see what good development/maintaining looks like.

        I am currently doing a deep dive into each of the feedback notes (left by a collaborator). I am by no means fast as I’m trying to max my learning from each scrap of interaction and error. Several concepts are hard for me to remember well so I use my high level memory and commands to the ai each time they come up.