AI on Stormy Peters

Is AI Killing Open Source Software?

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 08:06:52 -0700

I love giving talks that explore big questions — the kind that are facing all of us right now and that nobody has fully figured out yet. “Is AI Killing Open Source Software?” is exactly that kind of question. It actually reminds me of a talk I gave really early in my career where I was worried that paying maintainers to work on open source would kill open source. (Spoiler: it didn’t.) I like doing research, having lots of conversations, and then bringing it all to an audience to start a bigger conversation.

Is AI Killing Online Collaboration? The Decline of Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, and What It Means for Open Source

Thu, 22 May 2025 07:23:04 -0700

Participation in online collaborative sites is decreasing, and the numbers are striking. Matt Asay recently wrote an article about how there are fewer people asking questions on Stack Overflow. If you look at December 2023 to December 2024, the number of questions that were asked dropped by 40%.

You can watch the video version of this article on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/WOYFIQxQoUc

Since ChatGPT has been released, he pointed out in 2023, there’s been this dramatic decline in the number of questions asked on Stack Overflow. However, the number of questions asked on Stack Overflow has been dropping since 2018, as shown in the graph. Perhaps there’s something else also going on.

Successful Open Source Software Leaders Are Great Communicators

Wed, 21 May 2025 18:41:16 -0700

Successful open source software leaders are great communicators. I realize I’m cheating a little when I say that because I think in order to be a great communicator in the open source software space, you have to be technical, you have to be authentic, you have to be passionate, you have to delegate, you know, build community. But I think all of those are part of being a good communicator. And it’s the communication that’s key.

Why AI Is Actually Helping New Coders!

Thu, 15 May 2025 16:57:00 -0700

There are two widespread beliefs about AI that I’m certain are wrong:

1. AI is not killing the role of software developer. It’s definitely changing it. It may kill open source software, but I do not believe it’s killing the role of software developer.

2. AI is not making it really hard for new developers to get started. On the contrary.

Let me explain both of these points. Here is the video with the text version below.

What is Open Source AI? Why It Matters and Where We're Headed

Thu, 15 May 2025 09:10:00 -0700

The debate over open source AI continues to rage after years of discussion. Despite all the arguments, we still don’t have clear answers about what open source AI actually means, why it matters, or how to make it work.

Let’s examine the different definitions, the challenges we face, and what history teaches us about navigating this complex landscape.

This was originally posted as a daily walk, share, and discuss video. The written version is below.

AI is Killing Open Source Software

Wed, 14 May 2025 08:40:56 -0700

AI is killing open source software. If we act now, it won’t do away with collaborative software development, but I do think it is changing open source software as we know it.

This was originally posted on YouTube as my daily walk, think and share. Below is the transcription.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgR4ww94Evk

Two recent events highlight why change is coming to open source software and why we should pay attention.

The $3 Billion Signal

OpenAI offered to buy Windsurf, an AI-powered software development tool, for $3 billion. That’s a lot of money for a software development tool, especially when OpenAI already builds AI tools and could develop their own. This signals that there’s significant money in AI-powered software development right now.

Will AI coding assistants change open source software?

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 07:10:46 -0700

I’m curious how AI coding assistants will change open source software development. If I write software with an AI coding assistant, am I more or less likely to use open source software solutions? Am I more or less inclined to make it into an open source software project than I would have before AI?

The first concern with AI coding assistants is that we’ll end up with many variations of the same code snippets, all being maintained separately. The anti-open source model.