Please Don't Start An Open Source Project, Join One - iRi
The effect of AI on PRs has gotten a lot of press. Slop PRs, untested<br>PRs, just the profusion of PRs. Slop bugs, slop security reports, all<br>sorts of slop problems. Definitely a problem.
But I would also propose that something else happening in the<br>open source space that is hurting the open source community: Everyone<br>thinks they can start their own project now. The stream of web<br>frameworks, proxy servers, and all of the other code projects that we<br>frankly had too many of even before AI has accelerated even<br>more. Everyone seems to think they can run their own project now.
Everyone is, in some sense, even correct about that. They can now do<br>all the technical work of running their own separate project.
It was already difficult to get anyone else to use your project in the<br>past, but now there’s even more projects to choose from and the<br>first couple of brave users who may have tried your project are<br>instead trying to run their own. The feeder system for open source is<br>getting flooded out.
Since as I said, everyone is basically correct that they can now run<br>a full project when they couldn’t before, the fix will need to be<br>cultural. So, I exhort you, if you are thinking of starting a project<br>in a language and problem space that is already overrun with<br>alternatives…
Please think harder about joining an existing project.
I wrote a few months<br>ago that<br>in an AI era, the real value of a codebase is in how much contact with<br>the real world it has had. Two projects that have one user, or in many<br>cases, clearly zero users, is vastly less useful than one project<br>that has had even two users. That second use, that second check<br>against reality, the second cross-check that, yeah, the system<br>actually works for something other than the exact way the original<br>author was using it, that second user is the most important<br>user a project will ever have. With a second user, the project<br>instantly stands out above the pack of projects with 0-or-1 users. Not<br>enough on its own to succeed, but perhaps enough that success becomes<br>possible, rather than a complete pipe dream.
AI hasn’t created this problem, but it made it much worse.
If you have a clear thesis about why your project is new and unique,<br>solves a structural problem in some other project that can only be<br>solved with a new project, or can just in general articulate why your<br>goals can’t be achieved by joining with someone else, then by all<br>means, start something up. There are many projects that can clear this<br>bar. There are many, many more that can’t.
Which sounds better, to be<br>“the most important user the project has ever had” or to rule over the<br>wasteland of your zero-user project?
To those thinking of starting a project, I ask you to consider harder<br>looking for one to join.
To those not thinking of starting a project<br>but who might speak to people who will, I ask you to consider whether<br>this is a good cultural change that should be advocated for and to<br>start recommending to people to join existing projects rather than<br>starting their own.
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