Well, well, well…
The Linux Foundation published a new study today around the impact of generative AI on open-source software development. One key takeaway is that ~25% of new open-source software pull requests amount to AI slop.
The new Linux Foundation research study found that GenAI has the potential of cutting open-source coding time in half for increased productivity. They also found 59% of project maintainers found growing GenAI-based contributions. The 50% productivity boost was found to be across all types of open-source software development tasks. 71% of OSS maintainers agreed that GenAI reduces barriers to entry.
Very concerning though, their research found that 25% of incoming pull requests are estimated to be low-quality AI slop across open-source projects. Presumably that number will, sadly, continue to rise as more newcomers and users embrace AI/LLMs for working on patches on their behalf.
Those curious can find the Linux Foundation Research report in full via LinuxFoundation.org.



Well this study finds:
Except this study is not peer reviewed from what I’ve seen and gathered data in very unscientific ways. There’s no validation of answers and allowed users to just guess how much they feel they’re being more productive. Like go read the questions, it’s a person guessing at time saved. This study holds zero importance in the discussion in my mind because, as said, other MIT studies have shown people are actually incredibly bad at knowing how much time spent changed pre vs post LLM usage.