Intel / article

Devtools must be open source

Source: simonwillison.net
Author: Simon Willison
Date: Published Aug 3, 2026

Context

Coding agents can make the freedom to inspect open-source software easier to exercise. Simon Willison describes asking an assistant to explain a repository and delegating the work of checking out and compiling unfamiliar tools. Those preliminary tasks previously demanded enough that he often abandoned the attempt. His August 3 account argues that lowering this preparation cost makes personal modifications more feasible. He explicitly says he has not yet made modifying his everyday software a habit, so the evidence is about reduced friction in his own workflow.

Key takeaways · AI-distilled

The classic open-source freedom - read and modify the tools you use - has in practice meant leaning on other people to do it; almost nobody can justify the time to read and patch their daily tools.
LLMs collapse that cost: the author now habitually prompts an to clone a repo and explain how something works, several times a day.
Getting unfamiliar software to compile used to be enough friction to kill the attempt; now it is a zero-time-investment challenge - tell Codex or Claude Code to check out and build it, come back ten minutes later.
The endgame: habitually modifying the software you use is now a visible path, which strengthens the case that devtools should be open source.

Terms in this piece · Glossary

attention — The mechanism that lets a model weigh which earlier words matter for the word it's currently processing — the core operation of a transformer.
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.

Key quotes

“I think LLMs have changed that equation in a way that makes the original dream much more feasible.”

“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.”

Read the source simonwillison.net