Just seeing the list here: https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware
I don’t know what to think about it, many incredible open-source projects went downhill, some worse than others, full AI permission usage and some of them even advertise AI providers on README.md. I’m even using many of them myself.
Even the good guys are falling, I’m not sure what to think about it. Am I overreacting maybe?
You might think, that’s fine, not a big deal, some of them just allow AI usage, but not AI generated code, but for how long? If you allow use of AI for anything the tendency is that you’ll be even more open about it in the future.
List of projects that personally draw my attention or I use eventually:
- Firefox: not unexpected, but still, I had hope on Mozilla bring more tech awareness on mainstream
- Spaceship prompt: I use this on my terminal for customization, why’d you need AI for such a simple project?
- VLC: just sad
- curl: sad x 10
- Vim: sad x 20
- zoxide: they literally promoting AI providers in the README, such a simple tool as well, why?
- CoMaps/Organic Maps/OsmAnd: the few ones providing a good alternative to Google Maps
- Element: that’s literally the most used client for Matrix I guess?
- Python: I thought they were the good guys as well
- Lemmy: unexpected, code of conduct says it’s allowed
- Linux: the final boss, unbelievable
Is there any hope at all? Or am I just overreacting?
As other commenters have said, a key factor hasn’t hit yet: AI is artificially cheap because the whole thing is running on a bunch of investor money in a giant loop.
Once some IPOs go through, these companies will be required (by law) to produce a return to their investors. Given the actual costs of the AI chain, that will be extremely, extremely difficult to do, if it is possible at all.
At the very least, expect some mergers / acquisitions as companies try and consolidate to fix the shortfall by reducing competition. Though specifics are hard to pin down, given the complexity of the production chain and the associated energy costs, this likely won’t be enough.
The market will self-correct when it’s cheaper to do things the old way. Obviously, FOSS projects should fall off the AI wagon pretty quickly, since they’re not revenue generating anyway (at least not directly).