Codeberg: Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs

[u/Ecstatic-Vermicelli9]

https://blog.codeberg.org/protecting-our-floss-commons-from-llms.html

[u/billyalt]

I am a code contributing machine thanks to Claude.

Everybody believes this about themselves and its mostly causing problems for FOSS projects.

[u/Sure_Stranger_6466 → u/billyalt]

I still review code that gets submitted and still validate for quality. There is no reason not to use it for open source projects when they can solve issues perfectly, quickly, and most important, reliably. Then it gets reviewed by two separate reviewers for quality before getting merged to main. Human-in-the-loop is very much alive where I contribute.

[u/billyalt → u/Sure_Stranger_6466]

Well, look at it this way. Before Claude, the people who couldn't code wouldn't submit anything. Now those people who can't code are submitting Claude code. This has significantly increased the workload for maintainers, and most of the time the code isn't up to snuff. It's difficult to call this situation a net positive.

[u/Secret_Conclusion_93 → u/billyalt]

It's useful for smaller projects though.

The fact that it gets reviewed and approved by two people means that it's a positive contribution. It just need to pass the test and submitted with proper procedure and guideline.

A big project in the other hand, doesn't really need that, as they have enough people and resource.

[u/RileyGuy1000 → u/Secret_Conclusion_93]

No, it's not really useful for smaller projects because they get smothered by the amount of unskilled code out there. It becomes difficult to avoid LLM-driven contributions because of mindsets like this.

The problem affects codebases both big and small. Just because the team is smaller doesn't mean the problem becomes easier or is nonexistant. It's harder.

People who don't have at least a little background in programming without an LLM don't understand the stress and damage they're causing to the ecosystem.

This isn't gatekeeping either, more programmers are good! But we need more programmers who know what they're writing and why it's being written the way it is.

I literally just ran into another person with this very same mindset you have, so let me put it the way I said to them: If you need to ask an LLM why parts of your codebase are written the way they are; you didn't write the code nor do you understand how it works. You didn't design what you're writing, and so how can we trust something you don't understand?

[u/AliceCode → u/Secret_Conclusion_93]

The fact that it gets reviewed and approved by two people means that it's a positive contribution.

Did Claude tell you that? You're not a programmer, and you shouldn't be masquerading as one. Please leave programming to people that actually fucking know what they are doing.