Open Source is dead! What’s the fuss?

What’s the F.U.S.S?For the last few decades, the prevailing orthodoxy of software development has been F.O.S.S - Free and Open Source Software. I started releasing code I made myself before I even knew it existed, just because of the joy it gave to make something that was (perhaps) useful to others. It was a beautiful, democratic paradigm: we build in public, we share the burden of maintenance, and we create “universal” tools that serve as the common infrastructure of our digital lives. One of the successes of my professional life as a Software Engineer has been to do my part in making Large Global Companies accept using (and contributing, but less than they should …) Open Source software instead of reinventing the wheel.But we are approaching a tipping point.The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) as competent AI developers is beginning to erode the necessity of the “universal”. We are moving away from software as a public good and toward software as a private utility.I’m calling…