alt Hacker NewsOpen-source alternatives are being launched at an ungodly pace and they are really polished. All these comments about AI Slop are underestimating how good these builders have gotten and AI lets you iterate really fast. If the builder actually uses the software he's building, the feedback loop is really efficient.
I keep a directory of open-source alternatives and just in the past month, I've replaced applications I've used for years with open-source alternatives.
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> All these comments about AI Slop are underestimating how good these builders have gotten and AI lets you iterate really fast.
Both of these are true: we’re witnessing an unprecedented amount of slop, while also the tools get better and better.
So when talking about Open Source maintainer exhaustion, it’s because of the slop, not because of the great tooling.
AI is an amplifier, and in this case it amplifies the great asymmetry between contributor and maintainer.
The problem is as usual, users. AI for maintenance (updating & testing deps, re-writing parts to run with next major version of lib) is pretty low error % and just need some supervision and can make it more effective, in hands of people already familiar with project
But the flipside is of course users that are clueless won't now be stopped by "can't make a PR", they will throw prompt at AI and send it when the AI decides it's good enough
What open source alternatives have you switched to recently? Always on the lookout for good OS tools!