Open Source as We Know It Is Dead
A long-time open source contributor reflects on the decline of the community-driven spirit of software development. The author argues that the rise of AI is fundamentally changing how people interact with code, moving away from human collaboration.
Why it matters
It highlights a cultural shift in the software industry where AI-generated code may replace the collaborative, human-centric nature of open source projects.
I made my GitHub account on June 17, 2011. About two minutes later, I opened my first issue : teleporting was broken in TShock, a Terraria server mod, and I wanted to know why. Not as early as some, but early enough to remember when getting a PR merged by a complete stranger felt like a small miracle. (I've been obsessed with game servers ever since - it's literally my job now.)
GitHub wasn't really the start, either. Before that, it was SVN checkouts that broke if you looked at them wrong, and tinkering with DarkRP on Garry's Mod servers, or writing SourcePawn plugins for old Counter-Strike: Source, or Zombie Master servers. GitHub just made it feel like everyone was finally in the same room.
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