> The end of software secrecy is almost upon us. The death of closed source, and the final triumph of open source.
It’s a Pyrrhic victory given the negative impacts of LLMs on open source projects.
Everybody’s closed source applications can be reverse-engineered, but due to 10,000 line “contributions” from LLMs people won’t want to create the free/open source communities that used to exist.
So what’s the point of keeping the source open? Stallman’s original problem of fixing a printer driver would be resolved today by getting an LLM to read the binaries.
The LLMs can make the binaries human-readable, but also make human readability a secondary concern. The phrases “closed source” and “open source” have lost meaning.
It’s a Pyrrhic victory given the negative impacts of LLMs on open source projects.
Everybody’s closed source applications can be reverse-engineered, but due to 10,000 line “contributions” from LLMs people won’t want to create the free/open source communities that used to exist.
So what’s the point of keeping the source open? Stallman’s original problem of fixing a printer driver would be resolved today by getting an LLM to read the binaries.
The LLMs can make the binaries human-readable, but also make human readability a secondary concern. The phrases “closed source” and “open source” have lost meaning.