Software still feels like this grand exploration to me—what's the best way to use a computer? What's the best way to express a program?—and a hackable text editor epitomizes that ethos (though I'm partial to neovim myself). Every time I install a plugin, I feel like I'm participating in a clinical trial of UX design.
I think a lot of us feel this, and the community will have to solidify the ethos that trying out other peoples' software is noble and healthy, exposing you to their ideas, even if it's actually harder and worse in some ways than vibecoding.
(I also think, by extension, the OSS community will need a more developed ethics of project governance. This was a hot issue even before AI, e.g. the terraform license change. But when the default is a vibe-coded bubble, authors will need to communicate either
1. this is just code—use at your own risk, PR at your own risk, or
2. this is a community, here's what we want for/from users, here's what we want for/from contributors, here's how to get involved in maintainance/governance.
You can be either but you have to say which.)
Open source projects have always had forks, public and private. The ability to fork a project and use your own version of it privately, without needing permission or buy-in from others, has always been an explicitly valued aspect of open source software. If it was always seen as a good thing before, why do we see it differently now?
I think the reason is an implicit assumption that the production of more unshared work means that less work will be shared. But I don't see why that would be true. We could just as easily, and more likely in my view, see more work shared with the world at the same time we see more work not shared with the world. The incentives for cooperation remain, even as it becomes easier to work alone.
Has anyone made a persuasive argument to the contrary, or provided evidence? It seems like the main problem AI has created for open source projects is an avalanche of bad PRs, not a drying up of good contributions.
Writing code shouldn't merely be about accomplishing a goal, but making deliberate and good decisions that lead to more good decisions with increasing ease and clarity. It's no different than any other type of planning, engineering, or architecting. FOSS demands this more than any other genre of software because it's made collaboratively.
I think AI is just too irresistible for the reckless and dumb developers who were, unfortunately, always the majority in our line of work. Now we don't have to guess at that fact anymore or be afraid of being judged as arrogant for saying it. Now we know. These developers don't bring anything to the table. The problem of rejecting garbage PRs is far from new.
1. There are a few, already. I haven't systematically surveyed the landscape, but here's one: https://neomacs.com/
2. AI coding is still far from mature -- with substantial improvements even in 2026. I expect the number of attempts will only burgeon as this capability matures. I can already see a proliferation of emacs packages written with AI.
3. I would expect hobbyist activity to be more correlated with the capabilities of open-weight & cheaper models, for a variety of reasons. Pure hobbyists (esp. outside Silicon Valley) don't often have the spare $$$ for a $200 subscription plan, and won't be as early to adopt AI coding as "professional" software engineers in Silicon Valley (or geographically / economically adjacent somehow).
* probably yak shaved and far too much for what I use it for