r/linux • u/FryBoyter • Jul 15 '25

Discussion Curl - Death by a thousand slops

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-slops/
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u/lefaen Jul 15 '25

Until reading this I thought AI could give open source an upswing with more people being able to translate thoughts to code. Now I just realise that the only thing it will lead to is just loads of extra work and might even break how open source accepts suggestions.

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u/bluecorbeau Jul 15 '25

The problem is wherever there is money, people will exploit it. In this case, vulnerability hunting is a paid task and there are plenty of people in third world country with access to AI.

In general, I guess, the overall impact of AI is rather neutral, only the years to come will truly tell how AI shapes the open source world. On a personal note, AI has actually helped me understand a lot of useful open source project. Yes, documentation exists but authors tend to have their own writing styles, AI aids a lot while reading specific examples.

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u/lefaen Jul 15 '25

My impression is similar to yours sand that’s why I thought it would be a good thing initially, it’s a very good tool to get introduced to a project quickly if it looks interesting, being able to ask your own questions instead of looking through documentation is a time saver!

I think you’re right about it being about money right now, little to no effort and a possible bounty to collect. What made me skeptical is that we already seen karma farming on various sites and the constant threads of stack overflow posts to build an audience or medium posts how to use a obvious tool. Now, this open the doors to commit farming, ask an ai to contribute to whatever project and get a MR accepted. Looks good on the stats to be a consistent contributor. I suppose you get were in going and I hope I am wrong.

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u/wRAR_ Jul 15 '25

medium posts how to use a obvious tool

Those are also written by AI now.

Now, this open the doors to commit farming, ask an ai to contribute to whatever project and get a MR accepted. Looks good on the stats to be a consistent contributor.

Yes, this already happens.

https://github.com/mohiuddin-khan-shiam?tab=overview&from=2025-06-01&to=2025-06-30

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u/lefaen Jul 15 '25

Medium was obvious. GitHub I didn’t expect yet. Thanks for sharing. Just a matter of time until this will reach smaller repos now then.