Comment by tosh
9 hours ago
generative ai increases ambition, lowers barriers
more open source, better open source
perhaps also more forking (not only absolute but also relative)
contribution dynamics are also changing
I'm fairly optimistic that generative ai is good for open source and the commons
what I'm also seeing is open source projects that had not so great ergonomics or user interfaces in general are now getting better thanks to generative ai
this might be the most directly noticeable change for users of niche open source
What do you think of the paper's research claims that the returns for maintainers are reduced and sharing is decreasing?
Without real finance model innovation, what returns?
The same kind of returns that power research academia, where the amount of money you make is determined by the number of citations on your papers.
Except it's on Github and it's forks and starts.
I upvoted your comment.
Also, it's a scarcity mindset.
I don't agree that sibling to my comment: "make money by getting papers cited". it is not a long-term solution, much as Ad revenue is broken model for free software, also.
I'm hopeful that we see some vibe-coders get some products out that make money, and then pay to support the system they rely on for creating/maintaining their code.
Not sure what else to hope for, in terms of maintaining the public goods.