I think many of us have already noticed that a growing number of open-source projects and libraries are moving towards commercial or dual-licensing...
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Great article, as always!
I can add one more example from the frontend world that was making the rounds some time ago. Our beloved Tailwind 😉 reportedly ran into serious financial trouble and had to lay off a large number of engineers. Because of AI!
Their business model relied on developers visiting the documentation, where they could promote their paid products 😅. But once LLMs became really good at Tailwind, people simply stopped going there. Instead of searching the docs, they just asked ChatGPT (or another AI) to generate the classes they needed, or, for the more curious, simply asked what a particular class does.
From what I've heard, Python is seeing something similar in some ecosystems: the core libraries remain free, while more advanced tooling or services are increasingly becoming the paid part. Hard to be surprised.
I used to love that software engineering felt so egalitarian. Everyone had access to the same knowledge, documentation, and tools. That's actually quite rare compared to many other professions (I have a degree in a completely different field too, but that's a story for another day 😄).
In the end, though, what can we do? We might as well enjoy the summer by the Polish seaside... and then enjoy some Czech beer in October! 🍺
Thanks, Silwia, for such a thoughtful comment!
That’s crazy, I didn’t know about that. Or maybe I just forgot, since I’ve never used Tailwind very much. Thanks for sharing such a valuable example.
Losing funding because people stop visiting the documentation never occurred to me, but when I think about it, documentation traffic may be an important source of revenue for many smaller open-source projects as well. That’s a really interesting consequence of AI.
Python is especially interesting because I assume it is still one of the main languages used for AI development, so the situation there could be different. But I do not know the Python ecosystem well enough to say.
You also taught me a new word: “egalitarian.” I had to Google it. 😂 You are right, this will probably change, but I really hope we do not lose that spirit completely.
And Czech beer definitely has to be properly chilled, but I have heard that the Polish seaside is too cold even in summer. Is that true? 😄
Haha, the word egalitarian always makes me think of the French Revolution: Liberté! Égalité! 😄
As for the Baltic Sea... it's usually cold, and it's almost always windy. 😂 But today we're actually have 30°C! I live in Gdańsk, so that's first-hand information. 😎
Nice! We’ve considered visiting the Baltic Sea several times because we’ve seen so many beautiful photos of the beaches. But we were always a little worried about the water temperature and “it’s usually cold, and it’s almost always windy” seems to confirm our suspicion. 😂
It reminds me of a Czech saying: “The road is longer and worse too.” 😄
Hahaha, that's fair! 😂 I would say that if you're planning a trip, August gives you the best chance of getting nice weather. 😄
The water is definitely on the chilly side, it's not Croatia. 😂 But that doesn't seem to bother the tourists at all, the beaches are packed every summer. And honestly, our coastline really is beautiful. I may be a little biased since I live in Gdańsk, but I genuinely think it's worth visiting!
Okay, you’ve convinced me, the Baltic Sea is going back on the list! 😄
These are usual, nothing has changed. However, it's just a same person wearing a new "AI" hat 😂
Yes, the underlying problems are not new, but now they are wearing a much faster AI hat. 😄
However, I think there is one significant difference: several major libraries and frameworks have moved towards commercial licensing within a relatively short period. I do not remember seeing changes on this scale, across so many widely used projects, at any other point in the last decade.
Looks like everyone wants to make enough money before the AI takes a full control. Also, the future has become un-predictable with the "AI" and nobody knows whether the majority of them even will be able to keep up with a job. I am sure, there will be new jobs, new roles and responsibilities. However, we are still missing something.
I see it in a similar way. The desire to make enough money and the fear of losing jobs because of AI are definitely part of the reason.
“Before AI takes full control” sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. 😂
New jobs such as AI engineers already exist, and I expect new roles to appear in QA, technical analysis and AI governance as well. But I am not sure there will be enough of them. And “we are still missing something” is painfully accurate
Solid post, Daniel. "Code got cheap, maintenance didn't" — that one lands especially hard when you're in QA. AI's pushing out 3x the code these days, but nobody's hiring 3x the testers. And open source maintainers were already running on fumes before LLMs turned the dial up. Tired? Same. Just skill me at this point🤣
Thanks, Xulingfeng! That’s actually a really solid point. Everyone talks about how much faster coding has become and how many more projects AI helps people produce, but QA is often completely forgotten. AI-generated code can be just as buggy as code written by developers. Automated testing may be able to scale alongside it, at least to some extent, but manual testing definitely cannot. You’ve genuinely made me think about this from another angle. 😄
And yep, accurate: “just skill me at this point” 😂
Right? Get turned into a skill on Tuesday, laid off on Wednesday 🤣
I really hope that doesn’t happen to me. 😂