open source
- DH
26 Aug 2026
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
But it actually means that if you take the median programmer and their pull requests towards an average open source project, they're already getting outclassed by agents. I would rather get an agent-written pull request to one of my projects than I'd get one written by a human, and it's not just because the quality's better. It's also because I feel a lot less bad if I just reject it.
- DH
26 Aug 2026
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
HoldsThis is the best time there has ever been to be an open source maintainer.
So, in my opinion, this is the absolute best time to ever have been an open source software maintainer. Not only do we get this wealth of glorious pull requests made by agents with all the boxes ticked, we also get to tap into a creativity of people who did not have access to contribute to a project before.
- 6 weeks earlier
- PL
14 Jul 2026
Pieter Levels quoted
All you really need today to build a business is 100% free open source software that charges you $0/mo a VPS server an API to do some required AI stuff some R2/S3 file hosting
↗All you need to build a business is free open source software a VPS an AI API and R2/S3levels.io
- 6 weeks earlier
- DH
1 Jun 2026
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Agents aren't perfect, slop is a problem, but giving more people the power to enjoy malleable computers is undoubtedly a huge win for the founding vision of open source.
- 2 years earlier
- DH
16 May 2024
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Using open source software does not entitle you to a vote on the direction of the project. The gift you've received is the software itself and the freedom of use granted by the license.
↗Open source is neither a community nor a democracyworld.hey.com
- 2 years earlier
- DH
13 Dec 2021
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
I used to think that this was unequivocally a win for open source. That to fight for attention with the commercial alternatives, we had to adopt the commercial playbook. Now I think it’s at the very least a mixed blessing.
SaidI used to think that this was unequivocally a win for open source. That to fight for attention with the commercial alternatives, we had to adopt the commercial playbook. Now I think it’s at the very least a mixed blessing.
- DH
13 Dec 2021
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Now, I’m not saying that there’s something categorically wrong with developing open source on market-based terms. What I’m saying is that it isn’t a necessary condition of sustainability.