Open Source 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.

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.

OSPOs for Good: The United Nations encourages open source software

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 20:08:12 -0700

The United Nations is encouraging the use of open source. They see the value of open source software in helping with digital transformation, providing equitable access to technology, and accomplishing the world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Last year they had an OSPOs for Good event, and the event went so well that this year it will be a week long UN Open Source Week 2025. In addition to the OSPO for Good day, they have added several other events including a 2 day hackathon for real world social good, “UN TECHover”. This builds on the success they’ve seen with hackathons.

Be Clear About How Things Work (How Open Source Can Work with Companies)

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 14:44:52 -0700

This post is one of a series of posts about what open source software projects can do (if they wish to) to make it easier for companies to participate in their projects.

When a company wants to get involved in an open source software, often they need some help understanding how things work. Sometimes it’s the developer who wants to contribute that has questions. Sometimes it’s their management who wants to understand what type of commitment they are making and what they can expect.

What open source governance models are available?

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 17:55:31 -0700

If you are looking for an open source governance model, there are two resources to explore.

Red Hat has published the Project and Community Governance Guidebook on GitHub. It covers things from roles of the participants, to how projects evolve (and governance should evolve with them), to policies and procedures.
The FOSS Governance Collection just launched with a collection of governance docs on Zotero. It is a great place to go see real, live documents used by existing open source software projects. (If you work on an open source software project, or just notice that one is missing, please upload the governance docs!)

Don’t forget, a project’s governance needs to evolve as the project evolves.

How Open Source Communities Work

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 19:35:22 -0700

Several happenings over the weekend are case studies in how open source software communities work.

The Dev Behind a Hugely Popular GNOME Extension Just Quit

While the news is about a developer quitting because it’s not “fun”. I think the message - or messages - are deeper than that.

Isn’t it awesome that are free software is developed by people that love doing it? Back when I started the OpenLogic Expert Community, I contacted many maintainers and offered to pay them to fix issues that our customers had. Some of them turned me down because they loved working on open source software and thought payment would change that. (That inspired my Would You Do It Again for Free? talk.) Some of them turned down payment because this was a hobby and if they got payment their family might view it and the time they spend on it differently. They took free tech goodies instead!
Wouldn’t it be great if when what you are working on no longer made sense, you could move on to something better suited for you at the moment? Working on something you love, because you love it, gives you the freedom to say it’s no longer your favorite thing to work on and to move on. You do still have responsibilities but in this case, it sounds like there was good backup.
Feedback. I do hope that the GNOME community takes this feedback as an opportunity to explore how things are going. They should survey other users and figure out if this is an individual problem or a systemic problem and how they might prevent it from happening in the future.

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth makes peace with Ubuntu Linux community

10 Ways Community Managers Make Sure Projects are Healthy

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 13:50:21 -0700

Community managers must make sure their projects are healthy. Before they can help foster and grow a community, they have to make sure it’s a well functioning, welcoming place.

[caption id=“attachment_2211” align=“aligncenter” width=“705”] Photo from the Library of Congress.[/caption]

While community managers and project leadersÂ often don’t explicitly talk about what’s not working well, you will often find themÂ doing a wide variety of things. They are doing whatever is needed – filling in the gaps – to make their project work well so that new people can join.

3 ways open source software communities could learn from Crossfit

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 15:27:41 -0700

[caption id=“attachment_2207” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Photo by Anthony Topper.[/caption]

This week I am participating in the opensource.com community blogging challenge: Encouraging New Contributors!

Crossfit gyms are great at creating community and welcoming new members. Here are 3 things that Crossfit boxes do that open source software communities could also do to encourage new contributors:

Say hi to the new person. I drop in at gyms around the world, and no matter where I go, everyone in the class comes up to say hi to me and introduce themselves. How awesome is it that I can go to a gym in Frankfurt and have 10 total strangers walk up and introduce themselves and say how happy they are that I’ve joined them? For open source: When you see a new person on your mailing list or IRC channel, stop and say hi. Introduce yourself and tell them they are welcome. You can do it publicly or privately. (If you do it publicly, you might set a good example for others!)
Celebrate daily accomplishments. When we finish a workout at my Crossfit gym, we all post our scores in an app. It gets ordered from best to worst but no matter where you are in the line up, everyone will Â give you a virtual fist bump and most of them will notice when you’ve had a spectacular work out based on your skill level and they’ll congratulate you for it. For open source: Have a place where people can note what they’ve done, maybe point out what they are proud of or what was hard for them, and get kudos from others. Sometimes this happens on source code control systems. Sometimes on IRC. I think most open source software projects could do better at this.
Allow for off topic interactions. To really build community, you have to know each other. Sometimes that’s hard to do if you just focus on the work all the time. There has to be a place to chat, to share goals, ideas and maybe every once in a while, a non-project focused thing. In my Crossfit box, we do this in a Facebook group. Usually, it’s fitness related but sometimes it’s just chatting about life in general. The group gets noisy and I turned off notifications, but I still visit at least once a day to congratulate, commiserate and just visit. It’s a place new members can ask questions, learn more about the community and get to know each other. In open source communities: Find a channel where people can chat. A place where they can ask all their questions, express frustration over a piece of code or complain about the weather. Sometimes it’ll get noisy but usually it will bring people together and, more importantly for the new people, help them “see” the community they are joining. Most open source software projects do this on irc or Slack.

How do you think open source software communities can Encourage New Contributors? What have you learned from the other communities in your life?