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  • > there is something more important than license: community

    Is there such thing as "community" at all? As I know, the majority of open-source projects are developed by a single person, where others only contribute bug reports (in best case). It's not a community, if there is such imbalance in contribution and power.

    Only a handful of projects (a small percentage) has actual community with many members doing meaningful contribution. But they are most notable ones, so that one may think, that all open-source projects function like this.

    by Panzerschrek
  • I recently got a "WatchPad": a smart watch "back", which you can stick on the back of a non-smart watch and it does HR, SpO2, step, sleep monitoring.

    I didn't particularly want the ugly app, but it is implemented in GadgetBridge[1], which is on codeberg.

    That's an Android app, but I wanted a MacOS version.

    I LLM-reverse engineered the API based on the GadgetBridge work and now have a MacOS version, specific for my device. As part of that I worked out how to do temperature monitoring (which GadgetBridge doesn't support). Normally I'd contribute that back, but codeberg has been very explicit on their policy of no-LLM work, so I guess I won't do that.

    So much for community.

    [1] https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge

    by nl
  • > Does the project have an inclusive code of conduct?

    If you want a project to be community driven, adding an agreement that empowers its leaders to punish and exclude any community member for any reason, including reasons that have nothing to do with the project itself, is the opposite of that.

    Codes of conduct result in dictator-driven projects, not community-driven projects.

    by bakugo
  • I feel like there are infinitely many philosophies. From "I don't care" to "here is a list of 200 things your project must honour in order to be respectable" through "I just find this cool".

    As a user, I like it when I own the devices I buy and can install and modify the software I want. That's not always the way it is, and that's life. I won't go to other projects and tell them that they must change something because I want them to.

    by palata
  • Im really interested in seeing where the anti-ai crowd ends up in a few years.

    Im sympathetic to the perspective in some ways but I think it's wildly impractical to actually try to keep AI out of software development.

    I suppose an anti-ai optimist might hope for a future where AI written software proves too problematic over time and things return to their ideal vision of no AI in most software.

    I really, really dont think that's in the range of possibilities. So what would be left?

    - pockets of anti ai software

    - these people slowly disappear or the window moves ("ai in software BUT ...")

    - ai use is completely and thoroughly normalized

    by nonethewiser
  • If I publish my code under an open source license, you are free to take it and build any community around it you want.

    If I keep my code proprietary, you are beholden to the shape of the community I dictate.

    The license is first, it precedes, any notion about community.

    by nickelpro
  • We’re in the tabs v spaces of this era. It will be forgotten. No one debates BSD v Linux. No one remembers SCO. Or whether silverlight will be ported. Or whether an app is available on Linux/Mac. Or whether drivers exist for their hardware. Or whether web standards are adhered to. Or whether you have to use a proprietary compiler.

    Everyone thinks AI vs non-AI is a debate but just like all of those, it’ll be meaningless to the engineers of tomorrow.

    by arjie
  • I’ve found trying to contribute to FOSS to have all the stress of work with none of the pay.

    I’ll jam with my friends, make a game in a weekend, but I have no interest in dealing with the egos of big FOSS projects.

    However, I am seeing vibe coding create a new type of community. In the music space you have tons of people vibe coding new OSes for music hardware.

    Akai has even promised to officially support custom firmware on the MPC Sample Keys! Custom firmware has existed for decades, but maybe a tiny handful of people could make it. Now just about everyone can!

    by 999900000999

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