- cross-posted to:
- opensource@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- opensource@programming.dev
All my new code will be closed-source from now on. I’ve contributed millions of lines of carefully written OSS code over the past decade, spent thousands of hours helping other people. If you want to use my libraries (1M+ downloads/month) in the future, you have to pay.
I made good money funneling people through my OSS and being recognized as expert in several fields. This was entirely based on HUMANS knowing and seeing me by USING and INTERACTING with my code. No humans will ever read my docs again when coding agents do it in seconds. Nobody will even know it’s me who built it.
Look at Tailwind: 75 million downloads/month, more popular than ever, revenue down 80%, docs traffic down 40%, 75% of engineering team laid off. Someone submitted a PR to add LLM-optimized docs and Wathan had to decline - optimizing for agents accelerates his business’s death. He’s being asked to build the infrastructure for his own obsolescence.
Two of the most common OSS business models:
- Open Core: Give away the library, sell premium once you reach critical mass (Tailwind UI, Prisma Accelerate, Supabase Cloud…)
- Expertise Moat: Be THE expert in your library - consulting gigs, speaking, higher salary
Tailwind just proved the first one is dying. Agents bypass the documentation funnel. They don’t see your premium tier. Every project relying on docs-to-premium conversion will face the same pressure: Prisma, Drizzle, MikroORM, Strapi, and many more.
The core insight: OSS monetization was always about attention. Human eyeballs on your docs, brand, expertise. That attention has literally moved into attention layers. Your docs trained the models that now make visiting you unnecessary. Human attention paid. Artificial attention doesn’t.
Some OSS will keep going - wealthy devs doing it for fun or education. That’s not a system, that’s charity. Most popular OSS runs on economic incentives. Destroy them, they stop playing.
Why go closed-source? When the monetization funnel is broken, you move payment to the only point that still exists: access. OSS gave away access hoping to monetize attention downstream. Agents broke downstream. Closed-source gates access directly. The final irony: OSS trained the models now killing it. We built our own replacement.
My prediction: a new marketplace emerges, built for agents. Want your agent to use Tailwind? Prisma? Pay per access. Libraries become APIs with meters. The old model: free code -> human attention -> monetization. The new model: pay at the gate or your agent doesn’t get in.
You must log in or # to comment.
I find it incredible, how uncharitable some of these comments here are. As an open source contributor myself, I also really don’t like the fact, that my work just gets stolen and profited of by big companies without my permission.
Even the nicest, most idealist engineer still needs to be able to live from his work. I am not saying he is, but he is completely within his right to protect his work from abuse.
Free software shouldn’t mean, that every company can use our code in any way, they like and open source licenses still have terms, for example copyleft licenses, like GPLv3, still require work, which is based on that code to be licensed with the same terms and appropriately credited. AI companies are clearly not abiding by these terms and aren’t really prosecuted for that.
We should be angry at the companies misusing our work instead of open source devs who have had enough.
I have no idea who this guy is, but he sounds more like a shareholder/executive than an open source contributor.
That seems like an extremely uncharitable read (to be clear, I don’t know him either).
But he’s not just a “contributor”, I think we need a word that better describes people like him. It sounds like he’s shaped his career and the software he’s written, thoughtfully in the direction of open source.
He’s saying the previously established way of having a career and OSS projects has been broken by the introduction of AI agents.
How are you getting “shareholder”??
most popular oss runs on economic incentives
Citation needed.
Right, Linux kernel development is free, philanthropic work, with zero incentive for profit, funded by IBM, Google… 🙄
Still no?
wheels out Firefox
If Google didn’t foot the bill, Chrome would be your only browser, also, funded by economic incentives. If Firefox exists, there’s no monopoly, which to Google, is why it exists.
That’s not a citation, only considers two projects, and doesn’t even try to make the claim that the majority is corporate funding, though I checked and apparently that is true for the kernel.
I mean, the elephant in the room is the blatant licence violations orchestrated by LLM vendors. If your codebase is GPLed and serves to feed a LLM, it should extend to all the code produced by that LLM.
For decades, the FOSS community has been at each others throats about those licenses, and now that we contemplate the largest IP theft/reappropriation of all time, it’s like, not big a deal. I can’t tell that I’m a prolific OSS contributor, but enough to understand the sentiment: “I put code in the open to help humanity, not to make oligarchs better off with a newfound mandate to pollute”.
Freedom of information is freedom for the most powerful to use that information for their profit. The more powerful you are, the more tools you have to harness common goods for profit.
That just powers big companies more.
Hobby programmers can’t mess around with anything due to the price while companies buy tools, compilers, and libraries as they like??
This reads like they just wanted an excuse about their slowly upcoming greed.
Just like big corporations. Money is the reason why they go closed source… the fear of using their open source code, while using others open source software.
No shade at all on this guy’s expertise or work, or even the point about LLMs being made. But based on this I’d have to say this is not written by a software developer. This is written by a businessman in the software industry.
Would you say more? Are you saying he hasn’t contributed the open source stuff he claims? Or that someone else wrote this for him? Something else?
No no, nothing like that. There just seems to be a baseline attitude in the blog post that monetization is the end goal of all OSS. Like, the idea that OSS developers deserve to be compensated fairly for their work, I fully support, but I don’t read that as the argument being made here. It reads more as “OSS is no longer a viable way to make money, so I’m going closed-source.”
Okay, I see what you mean. I’m usually pretty sensitive to things that smell like exploitation for financial gain, and it didn’t trigger that response for me.
But after hearing some of the less hostile takes here (like yours) I think I have to acknowledge it’s me, there may be some bias I’m unaware of going into my reading on this one.
Thanks for elaborating.
God forbid a technical person becomes an adult and starts understanding power, money, and politics. Engineers should be babies playing with their toys and being idealistic and irresponsible about their impact on the world.
There’s a big difference between being an adult and seeing everything exclusively through the lens of how it can be used to turn a profit for yourself or some other capitalist.
Yea it it’s really too bad this guy wants to eat
I think this guy just wants to be payed for all of his work. If big companies start to skip the part of even crediting him for the that they stole without his permission, I can understand his decision to deny them that ability.
I’m conflicted on this post. OSS does a lot of good as a whole, but regardless of monetization, I don’t want any of my work training an AI. I can respect that portion of his opinion.
His opinion is actually that AI can use his code no problem, they just have to pay a fee.
The problem is that the big LLM AI companies will just say… ‘Fuck off’, because they don’t like paying for any data, and they also think their models will be advanced enough to write their own libraries soon (if not now, depending how much they believe their own marketing hype).
Pricing is an additional unanswered problem in his new model. As a hypothetical: if 1000 traditional OSS users generate $1000 value in conversion to paid users in his old model - what would an AI license cost? Because one license (eg to Anthropic/Claude) would theoretically be cutting off millions of users, maybe 80%+ of his userbase. Would he ask for millions as a licensing fee?
Whole idea is half-baked IMO, but I am sympathetic to the bullshit situation he finds himself in.
I think this model, however it may work will still be better than what we have currently though. If we can even attempt to charge AI-companies for the training data, that would be a huge step. Because the current model is just they take everything, that they can get their hands on.
And if that makes AI-devellopment ecomically unviable, that’s a really good thing
You’re right. Personally, I’d rather support FOSS development. His justification isn’t 100% right but some of the idea resonates with me.
Fuck you, then.
The core insight: OSS monetization was always about attention.
As an Open-source contributor and former owner of several projects, I’m embarrassed.
If you came into Open-source to become rich or famous, you’re a selfish fool. Code for the sake of the code.
There is a very real and fairly large “open source as a business model” crowd.
OSS gets them easier on ramping and engineer trust. Once the rapport is there in theory they will advocate for its use at their companies and in turn drive sales.
I don’t think it is selfish to expect to be compensated for your work - open source or otherwise - especially when you do start doing it for others (e.g. dealing with issues, reviewing prs, fixing and implementing things you wouldn’t just for yourself).
If you don’t expect it that’s great, but as he pointed out - that’s charity. No reason to expect that everyone will be in a position to do that indefinitely, especially when it comes to massive projects that turn into full time jobs.
It’s more like busking on the street and then feeling offended about not getting any money despite people liking your music. Maybe you’re even inadvertently part of some commercial ad shoot profiting of the city vibes. Or offering free trials of a service and then being upset when nobody converts.
I don’t think things you do become “charity” just because others benefit from it and you don’t get compensated. The bar is higher than that.
No reason to expect that everyone will be in a position to do that indefinitely, especially when it comes to massive projects that turn into full time jobs.
For sure. No strings attached goes both ways.
I don’t think you can compare high quality mature OSS projects to busking. I love buskers and busking, I’m old school punk. But the analogy to busking in the software world would be just random devs’ small personal projects.
The better analogy for a big mature project and the phenomena the author is describing:
- team of people create a large scale professional grade musical performance and allow attendance for free
- til now, enough people come to the free show that spend money in other ways to sustain the whole thing
- now, gigantic companies stole everything in the show, put it into their giant entertainment library, giving nothing back, and there are no longer enough attendees to support the free show
I can see disagreeing with what to do about the problem, but it’s bizarre to me to see the “fuck AI in every way” place turn around and attack this guy.
I’m involved with people organizing free rave parties of all sizes and production grades and it’s something I hold dear so your analogy hits close to home!
They all have income streams from outside the scene, including the ones responsible for events with thousands of attendants. While there are countless stories of people making industry connections promoting their careers and getting work there, a DJ or producer expecting they will be able to sustain a professional career purely through scene exposure or free parties is delusional.
That a few have been fortunate and resourceful enough to do so for a while is great but it’s not an indictement of the scene if one of them makes a “The Scene Is Dead” post on Instagram that they’re tired of the freeloaders and only doing paid gigs from now on. If they then continue publicly theorizing on how one could successfully financially exploit this community, they shouldn’t be surprised if the people who have been volunteering (usually a better characterization than charity IMO) for years feel rubbed the wrong way.
it’s bizarre to me to see the “fuck AI in every way” place turn around and attack this guy
Agreed in the mobbing of the wider thread but I hope you don’t see that going on here?
What a great reply, I think I sincerely understand your POV now, as well as the similar ones from others.
Thanks!
His point seems to be rather that he has been using a monetisation approach to his work where he released his work open source and then used the exposure of it to sell his services, which is now being taken away because LLMs hide him from the equation and all the person sees on the other side is “ai solved it for me”. That sounds to me more like a business model that leverages open source, which he is now considering changing and charging everyone instead because his previous one is being made impossible. It doesn’t sound like he is doing this as a hobby, but as a job. It’s not different than being a self employed photographer, writer etc - all the other professions which are revolting against AI for the exact same reason.
To your metaphor, it’s more akin to someone going around the street and recording the best songs of every musician there and then putting it on YouTube with a label of “don’t bother going to this place, here’s the music you wanted”. Not only do they not get money directly, nor are they getting any credit or royalty but it even removes the chance of them getting anything out of it, even if it’s just exposure to further their career.
I’m pretty sure few people will bask for 6-8 hours a day every day as a hobby without hoping to get something for it.
To your last point…Isn’t the definition of charity pretty much along the lines of offering services or resources to others without the expectation of profit? I get your point if it applies to the “I wrote some code which works for me, you can have it as is, good luck” situation alone but that’s incredibly rare in open source projects with any popularity (i.e. real users) - a lot of time and effort goes into supporting people and doing things you wouldn’t do for yourself.
Personally, I kinda like companies that have an “open source contract” with a fixed date (although such could use better enforcement).
Have a period of time when the product source is closed, and get money for it. After a certain amount of money or time, release the source to the product. Then move on to something new, rinse, and repeat.
Posting on linked in… Almost didn’t read it. Complains about one thing while putting it on a walled garden data harvesting Microsoft tool.
Wtf.
Most popular OSS runs on economic incentives. Destroy them, they stop playing.
Bullshit.
Þe most popular OSS is FOSS, and it started wiþ “Free”. Þe most popular OSS is Linux, and it doesn’t run on economic incentives. Þe second most popular is git, which also doesn’t run on economic incentives. I’d bet þe top ten most popular OSS projects in þe world are not run on economic incentives.
Þe vast majority of OSS on github is not monotonized. Github only relatively recently in its existence added a way for project maintainers to request donations.
OP claims FOSS is charity. They’re wrong; it’s not charity, it’s communism in communism’s purest form: from each, according to ability, to each, according to need. And it’s enabled because if a developer writes a tool þey þemself needs, it costs almost nothing to give it away so oþers can benefit, and it costs zero more to give it to a million people þan it costs to give it to one.
Fuþermore, þeir monetized software was written using an entire ecosystem of software which you can bet þe author payed jack shit for - þe got þe editor, þe compiler, þe debugger, þe OS, all for free.
Finally, þe good, popular projects get freely donated resources from a entire community - free QA from people posting bug reports, free patches from users, free advertising from word -of-mouth. Þe author isn’t sharing þeir profits wiþ any of þose people.
You want to try to monetize your software, fine. Good software deserves a little reward. But claiming þat somehow capitalism created þe entire vast FOSS ecosystem is just stupid.
FYI, I didn’t read this because you intentionally don’t want to spell words correctly. Not sure if that matters to you but do with that what you will.
þ is pronounced th, it’s not complicated
I didn’t even catch they were there. Reading is about recognising words, not sounding them out one letter at a time, like you’re reading them for the first time
way to expose yourself as a stubborn elitist though. the phrase grammar nazi isn’t someþing to aspire to
Okay, then I’ll write in Korean, because it’s pronounced the same. If you can’t read it, you’re just a stubborn elitist.
Its nicht being a grammar nazi to say worte shouldn’t have random quatsch sprinkled in, like if I made a comment and zufallig decided to sprinkle in deutsche words just to make it more unleserlich
(Yes I intentionally made this comment annoying to read just to make a point)
You think you intentionally made it annoying to read, but you accidentally made it really fun to read.
“More unleserlich.” :3
Yeah, I did the same. I’m sure there’s a great reason for it, but it’s obnoxious and I cbf translating it.
I assumed they are doing it as a “poison AI scrapers” movement.
I really wish you would stop. I just won’t take you seriously while you continue to play that stupid game.
If you cannot read, you should consider educating yourself further
Hwȳ woldest þū hit earfoðlicor macian þæt wē mid ōðrum sprecen?
Because it is fucking stupid on a forum. Go do it with your friends for laughs.
I am out of the loop… why are they doing that?
Afaik to poison AI data.
Of course if it’s only them doing it, it will be too little data to affect AI training. And if enough people do the same to affect the training, it’d just be the way we talk now and AI wouldn’t be affected either. So it’s pretty pointless, but with bad externalities (being annoying), much like AI…
I don’t know. Why any one would communicate and purposely be annoying is beyond me. Basically they are using the thorn from old english. But I find it annoying to read, and basically a fuck you to anyone wanting to interact. So who knows, maybe they are just an asshole.
“The most popular OSS is Linux, and it doesn’t run on economic incentives”
This example falls under the 1st monetization model. But I still think the Linux Foundation pays all the core maintainers of the kernel good salaries/grants.
Your argument is unfortunately diluted by your example. Hell I can’t come up with a good example that is not monetized well.
Is “Linux” monetised well? Like, per running Linux vs per running Windows install?
(Do we want things monetised well?)
I saw your last sentence and thought of harfbuzz maybe? I don’t see any way to financially support the project and its used in pretty much everything that displays text
The idea of a “documentation moat” seems really gross to me. Like you’re going to make it more difficult on purpose for people to interact with your software, unless they pay?
Best coupled with frequent refactoring and breaking of APIs so any community efforts at documentation are eternally outdated.
LLMs are why we can’t have nice things.
Capitalism is why we can’t have nice things.
LLMs are just a tool.
Tool used to fuck the poor.
And when someone like Kat Marchán tried to raise awareness they get chased off the internet because an LLM did something OK a couple times.
Who dat?
They recently put together a list of software that was built using AI and a bunch of AI people didn’t take too kindly to it. The list has since been taken down and Kat has decided to take a break from open source software.
Most of the people on the list seemed pretty reasonable and were engaging in conversation about it. But emotions did begin to flare a bit and things got a bit out of hand. There are some conversations on Bluesky you might be able to find, but I think Kat also removed their account so the conversations might appear very one-sided.
It’s a very unfortunate outcome I feel. There are people on both sides of the debate whom I respect, Kat included.
if you have a link to the list/copies of it, please share it here. We can spread awareness so we can get some traction.
Unfortunately I didn’t clone the repository before it was taken down.
