OSS was already brutal for new contributors before AI. You'd spend hours on a good-faith PR and get ignored for months, or get torn apart in review because you didn't know the unwritten conventions. The signal-to-noise ratio sucked but at least maintainers would eventually look at your stuff.
Now with AI-generated spam everywhere, maintainers have even more reason to be suspicious of unknown names. Vouch solves their problem, but think about what it means for someone trying to break in. You need someone to vouch for you before you can contribute, but how do you get someone to vouch for you if you can't contribute?
I get why maintainers need this. But we're formalizing a system that makes OSS even more of an insider's club. The cold start problem doesn't really get any warmer like this.
Now with AI-generated spam everywhere, maintainers have even more reason to be suspicious of unknown names. Vouch solves their problem, but think about what it means for someone trying to break in. You need someone to vouch for you before you can contribute, but how do you get someone to vouch for you if you can't contribute?
I get why maintainers need this. But we're formalizing a system that makes OSS even more of an insider's club. The cold start problem doesn't really get any warmer like this.