Devtools must be open source (exe.dev)

Simon Willison, a prominent developer and blogger, argues that large language models (LLMs) like Claude and Codex have made open-source software more practical by reducing the friction of compiling and exploring code, citing his own habit of prompting Claude to clone GitHub repositories and explain how they work, which he now treats as a zero-time investment. He notes that while he doesn't yet habitually modify software, the path to doing so is now clearer than a year ago.

My comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156111 49156719 on Devtools must be open source exe.dev https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156111 — Hacker News. One of the arguments for open source software for end-users has always been the freedom to examine and modify how that software works. The reality for most people - even expert programmers - has been that the freedom is more about being able to lean on other people to do that. Most people can't justify the time commitment needed to read and then modify the code for tools they use very often. I think LLMs have changed that equation in a way that makes the original dream much more feasible. Several times a day I'll prompt regular Claude chat to "Clone x/y from GitHub and tell me how Z works". Getting software to compile in order to start hacking on it used to be enough friction that I often wouldn't bother. Now I treat that as a zero time investment challenge: tell Codex or Claude Code to checkout and build X and then come back ten minutes later and see how it got on. I'm not habitually modifying the software I use yet, but I can see a path to that which didn't exist a year or so ago. Tags: hacker-news https://simonwillison.net/tags/hacker-news , open-source https://simonwillison.net/tags/open-source , ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai , generative-ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai , llms https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms , ai-assisted-programming https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming