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Vibe Coding Is Killing Open Source Software, Researchers Argue:
According to a new study from a team of researchers in Europe, vibe coding is killing open-source software (OSS) and it's happening faster than anyone predicted.
Thanks to vibe coding, a colloquialism for the practice of quickly writing code with the assistance of an LLM, anyone with a small amount of technical knowledge can churn out computer code and deploy software, even if they don't fully review or understand all the code they churn out. But there's a hidden cost. Vibe coding relies on vast amounts of open-source software, a trove of libraries, databases, and user knowledge that's been built up over decades.
Open-source projects rely on community support to survive. They're collaborative projects where the people who use them give back, either in time, money, or knowledge, to help maintain the projects. Humans have to come in and fix bugs and maintain libraries.
Vibe coders, according to these researchers, don't give back.
The study Vibe Coding Kills Open Source, takes an economic view of the problem and asks the question: is vibe coding economically sustainable? Can OSS survive when so many of its users are takers and not givers? According to the study, no.
"Our main result is that under traditional OSS business models, where maintainers primarily monetize direct user engagement...higher adoption of vibe coding reduces OSS provision and lowers welfare," the study said. "In the long-run equilibrium, mediated usage erodes the revenue base that sustains OSS, raises the quality threshold for sharing, and reduces the mass of shared packages...the decline can be rapid because the same magnification mechanism that amplifies positive shocks to software demand also amplifies negative shocks to monetizable engagement. In other words, feedback loops that once accelerated growth now accelerate contraction."
[...] According to Koren, vibe-coders simply don't give back to the OSS communities they're taking from. "The convenience of delegating your work to the AI agent is too strong. There are some superstar projects like Openclaw that generate a lot of community interest but I suspect the majority of vibe coders do not keep OSS developers in their minds," he said. "I am guilty of this myself. Initially I limited my vibe coding to languages I can read if not write, like TypeScript. But for my personal projects I also vibe code in Go, and I don't even know what its package manager is called, let alone be familiar with its libraries."
The study said that vibe coding is reducing the cost of software development, but that there are other costs people aren't considering. "The interaction with human users is collapsing faster than development costs are falling," Koren told 404 Media. "The key insight is that vibe coding is very easy to adopt. Even for a small increase in capability, a lot of people would switch. And recent coding models are very capable. AI companies have also begun targeting business users and other knowledge workers, which further eats into the potential 'deep-pocket' user base of OSS."
This won't end well. "Vibe coding is not sustainable without open source," Koren said. "You cannot just freeze the current state of OSS and live off of that. Projects need to be maintained, bugs fixed, security vulnerabilities patched. If OSS collapses, vibe coding will go down with it. I think we have to speak up and act now to stop that from happening."
He said that major AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI can't continue to free ride on OSS or the whole system will collapse. "We propose a revenue sharing model based on actual usage data," he said. "The details would have to be worked out, but the technology is there to make such a business model feasible for OSS."
[...] "Popular libraries will keep finding sponsors," Koren said. "Smaller, niche projects are more likely to suffer. But many currently successful projects, like Linux, git, TeX, or grep, started out with one person trying to scratch their own itch. If the maintainers of small projects give up, who will produce the next Linux?"
arXiv link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.15494
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 09, @07:00PM (4 children)
I can see how a total hive like Scotland would have huge inequality. /sarc
My view is that we should think about why labor protections backfire and why so many people have the mindset that "hoarding" - in other words, investment is something that only the "few" do. There's plenty of signs of broken labor and investment systems in the developed world if one chooses to pay attention.
My view is that work is how most people generate wealth in the world and it works really well. But huge parts of the world deliberately interfere with work in feeble attempts to make it better for the worker. What is missed is that this interference decreases the value of that labor to the employer. Employment is a two-way trade. And if you make the supply of labor more expensive then you get less demand.
Similarly, investment is a huge way to accumulate wealth without having to grind for it. When you only view it as a privilege of others, then you're short changing yourself.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Monday February 09, @07:40PM (3 children)
What I'm trying to say is that in many of today's societies, including the UK, George Jetson would be working a busy 40-50 hour week for much less money, struggling to pay his mortgage, Mrs Jetson would be working too, similar hours meanwhile that society would be full of the sick, old, disabled and refugees being denied the pittance they need to get by all while being villified by the very wealthy who don't want to help and the not-quite-getting-by workers who are looking for scapegoats.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Tuesday February 10, @12:59PM (2 children)
They aren't so denied, of course. And that "pittance" costs a lot of money. It's a luxury you can afford because your society is wealthy. My take: prioritize the economy that can generate those "pittances" or you won't be able to afford them in the long run.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday February 10, @06:37PM (1 child)
My take: prioritize the economy that can generate those "pittances" or you won't be able to afford them in the long run.
That's a no-brainer and has been the prevailing economic and political wisdom most places outside of the USSR since forever. The problem is that the next part gets forgotten, overlooked or simply ignored in an effort to ensure that more and more wealth keeps heading upward.
There's plenty of evidence which shows that more equal societies with good (but not total) wealth redistribution and fairer taxes [taxjustice.uk] work better overall.
The greedy like to ignore the fact that some social security is necessary, that society costs money. It means they don't get to hoard as much as they would otherwise. And they work tirelessly [reformparty.uk] to try to convince us that we should vote against our own interests.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 13, @12:07AM
It's been outside of a lot more than just the USSR. Like outside of most human history.
As to the second paragraph, I already wrote my opinion on the "evidence" - "It's a luxury you can afford because your society is wealthy." This is like peacock feathers or rutting deer. The peacock with the more brilliant feathers or the buck with the best rack and jousting gets the girls. That's because they exhibit fitness. The same goes for societies. Welfare is something that strong, wealthy societies can do. And sure, I can see some value in that. But I also see a number of societies running up large debt bills because they can't really afford the virtue displays - including the UK and the US.
As to fairness? That's a well abused term like "free" or "love". When I see something like (in your link):
I interpret that "take" as "steal". And "super-rich" as "anyone and anything that isn't nailed down". Trickle down theory really works well to describe taxation. The super-rich didn't get that way by failing to avoid taxes. They're pretty mobile and they'll figure a way to escape the tax hammer. The UK is particularly notorious for its history of tax exiles. The lower and middle class doesn't have those advantages or expert help. They'll be the natural next step to cover spending that the "fair" taxes on the wealthy will fail to do.
And I long ago ceased to be impressed by taxes that are applied in themselves as a punitive or society-changing thing rather than as a means to pay for public goods and services that the society needs (welfare can be a need).