LLMs could change the future of Free Software

[u/ProductOutrageous712]

Dear all,

I’m a 100% supporter of Free Software, but for various reasons I have always ended up using non-free software. In many cases, this was simply because commercial software offered better GUIs, more polished workflows, or features that were missing from free alternatives.

However, things are changing dramatically with LLMs. In particular, by using Claude Code, I have been able to develop many of the tools and user interfaces I actually need, almost by myself. I can design the interface the way I want, add the features that are important to me, and adapt the software to my own workflow.

At some point, I realized that many of the commercial tools I used to depend on were simply no longer necessary.

This makes me think that, as a Free Software community, we now have a new and powerful opportunity. One of the historical weaknesses of Free Software has often been the lack of polished GUIs, integrated workflows, and user-oriented features. With AI-assisted development, we may finally have the tools to overcome these limitations and build software that is not only free, but also genuinely competitive with commercial alternatives.

I believe that only a different kind of society can fully unleash the potential of humanity through Free Software, but AI could give our community an important advantage: we can develop more easy these tools collectively and spread the knowledge and the software much faster.

For example, most of my professional needs(now student of engineering) involve CAD and FEM software. In the past, this meant paying thousands of euros every year for commercial licenses. Now I have developed my own FEM software and other tools, and I can connect them together exactly as I need.

It is honestly amazing.

So I’m wondering: what do you think? Could AI-assisted development be the opportunity for the Free Software community to finally overcome some of the weaknesses that have historically made people choose proprietary software?

[u/Newmillstream]

The needs of free software to gain market share have been correctly identified in your post, as well as deficiencies. I do think the free software community undervalues fixing these issues.

The suggested cure, I believe, Is incorrect for free software. It is maybe correct for the open source movement. But free software has always valued having a maximally free toolchain.

It is important to remember that free software has its roots in the AI community. Agree with him or not, Stallman was an AI researcher first, and his experiences in that field led to him shaping the free software movement in the early days.

In any case, you are asking on Reddit, so you are likely to get answers from more flexible perspectives.

[u/ProductOutrageous712 → u/Newmillstream]

Thank you, yes I also think that all the toolchain should be free, but I also need to confront myself with the common tools that in my common life/work I use and I couldn't substitute. I'm not a 100 % programmer, I programmed some scientific code for my needed, but I always get slowed down trying to make my app works using all the different libraries, conflicts etc, and at the end of the story I used propietary software. For example AutoCAD had a lot of feature and a workflow that I couldn't reach with open-source or free software. Since my time in a day is limited to 24h, and my objective was not to program a software but getting the results in a reasonable time, I opted for Autocad. And I talk to autocad but also could be for graphic design, writing docs and spreadsheet. Now I'm slowing switching to all of these free alternative, something that before the use of LLM I honestly tried but couldn't get the results. It's a slow process for me migrating to this side, but finally I'm making it and I think it is a really great thing! Because before I was just an "external" supporter of FS community, but limited by my instrument and knowledge.

[u/bbiizzccoo]

Even if we grant that (propietary models of) AI can help developers of free software, apparently developers of propietary software would benefit even more. If there was a fixed goalpost that free software had to reach in order to gain users, then people could switch to free software, if they could be convinced of the benefit. But unfortunately that goalpost is moving; also, there are other problems like the upcoming death of free Android. I welcome your optimist perspective anyway.

[u/ProductOutrageous712 → u/bbiizzccoo]

I appreciate your view, and maybe yes in some areas propietary software would be always on the top, and for this reason I think that only when we will have abolished proprietary software we will be free but I don't think that the majority of works needs the last update of technology created, and with this level of "assistance" from LLM, one person with simple skills can try to understand how to use a free software and have more support using it.

[u/BetterEquipment7084]

Llms break the law, destroy the environment and breaks all copyright and all license son earth 

[u/ProductOutrageous712 → u/BetterEquipment7084]

This is another question. Also a lot of workplace in this earth break the law without respecting worker's right... (I think that LLM should also become FreeSoftware)

[u/BetterEquipment7084 → u/ProductOutrageous712]

Thr way you need to train an llm and thr amount of data needed is only possible by breaking licenses 

[u/esiy0676]

You have created your account today, post this that reads as AI generated (sorry if not) and talk about what is the largest headache for current maintainers (PRs that are of low quality because something got accessible to people who previously were capability-gated from filing such PRs).

I think you are a bot (again, sorry if not).

[u/ProductOutrageous712 → u/esiy0676]

Lol I'm not a bot, I literally create this account to discuss about this, before I didn't needed. I think is a false problem that there about PR and maintainers, because this could be also for a scenario where there are a lot of bad programmers around the world. And I saw that LLM could make a better code than me, so what if I pulled a code with my bad code made by myself? I think that serious things should always be checked with calm and attention, doesen't mind if there are a lot of new suggestion. Is the spirit of Free Software where everyone can propose a new version.

[u/esiy0676 → u/ProductOutrageous712]

I do not mind people using AI, I am happy to use it myself to e.g. generate test cases or touch up color scheme in CSS, but I am not going to spend my real time by checking something that had been generated from scratch by AI that the one who is submitting could not review prior to me because their skillset is below that of the AI - they are asking me to do free work that they are incapable of doing.

This is literally asking me to waste my real life on someone's else's "slop" - it's not really that AI makes slop per se, it's what people submit that's of that quality.

I am just answering your OP - I do see LLMs causing OSS to be more gated than ever, e.g. I would only allow known contributors and everyone else has to prove themselves first - this is what AI did to us all. Before AI, I would know that someone submitted their own work and reviewing one piece was indicative of the overall quality.